Johnson leads Road America practice; looks for strong run in Saturday’s race
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (June 24, 2011) – Roush Fenway Racing has announced that Billy Johnson, who led the first practice session on Friday at Road America, will drive the No. 60 Fastenal Mustang in Saturday’s Bucyrus 200 Nationwide Series road course race.
Carl Edwards, who was originally slated to drive the car at Road America, will remain in Sonoma, Calif. and concentrate on his Sprint Cup effort.
“I think Billy will do a great job,” said Edwards, who leads the Sprint Cup point standings. “In the end, this puts us in the best position with both teams to perform well, so I’m grateful to be able to make the change and I feel like we are doing the right thing.”
“I think this shows you just how much our sponsors and our team are able to work together and change things on the fly,” added Edwards. “The original plan was for me to miss all of practice in our Sprint Cup car in Sonoma on Saturday, but literally as we finished practice today we found out that Billy Johnson was P1 in the Fastenal Ford Mustang at Road America.
“We also felt like as a team that we needed more practice on the Cup side, so I called the (President and) CEO of Fastenal – Will Oberton – and without any hesitation, he said do what you need to do to have the best result and we are behind you 100 percent. It just shows that Fastenal is truly behind our whole Roush Fenway team, and we have a great relationship to be able to make this change.”
Saturday’s race is set for 5:30 p.m. EDT and will be televised live on ESPN.
