Matt Tifft Rebounds at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course to Record Third Top-5 Finish
“We were so close today with our No. 2 Fanatics / Cleveland Indians Chevrolet Camaro. I knew coming to Mid-Ohio we’d have a really good shot at it, and Randall (Burnett, crew chief) and the team did a great job setting up this week’s car. We qualified fifth, which is our second highest starting spot of the year. Once we fired off for the race, my Chevrolet was a little loose on both directions, but I was able to keep it up front and finish in the top 10 for Stages 1 and 2. We pitted in between Stage 2 and 3 from the second spot and had a miscue on pit road, which shuffled us back in traffic to start the final stage. Luckily, the handling in my Camaro got better throughout the stage and I was able to get back into the top 10 and into the second spot for a while. We just didn’t have the tires at the end to keep up with the leader and fell back to fourth. Overall, it was a really good day at my home track. We were in contention for a lot of it and just need to continue putting together races like this one. I’m really looking forward to getting another shot at the road courses when we go to Road America in a couple of weeks.”
-Matt Tifft
Brendan Gaughan Fights for Top-12 Finish at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
“Today was just a warm up for Road America. We didn’t quite have the car to my liking, but Nick (Harrison, crew chief) and the South Point team fought just as hard as I did in the race car all day long. We made the car better throughout the race but it just wasn’t enough to get up with the leaders. I hated giving up those spots at the end but like I said, this was the warm up. Thanks to Richard Childress and everyone at RCR for giving me this opportunity; it is an honor to wheel this No. 3 Chevrolet. We will be ready to battle in a couple weeks at my favorite road course, Road America.”
– Brendan Gaughan
Daniel Hemric and South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet Team Rallies to Third-Place Finish at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
“This is definitely a huge point of the year for the Xfinity Series with a stretch of three road courses in four weeks. Mid-Ohio and Road America – where we will go in two weeks – are two of my favorite tracks on the schedule. We had a solid run here at Mid-Ohio last year, and this year we had a little bit of a different package coming into the weekend. Honestly, we struggled with it a little bit from the time we unloaded off the hauler all the way until the start of the race. My crew chief Danny Stockman did a great job having me come down pit road under caution with 15 or 16 laps to go to get four tires. That at least gave us the opportunity to have a shot to race for the win. By that point in the race we were doing all we could to maintain speed and not lose any track position, so it was a great call bringing me down pit road. From there we were able to move forward and race into the top three. I hope the fans enjoyed watching today’s race because it was fun from my vantage point. I’m just really proud of how this No. 21 South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet team battled all day. We had good pit stops and did everything we could. We just need to work on the package a little bit for when we head to Road America in two weeks.”
-Daniel Hemric
