Austin Dillon and the Dow Racing Team Show Speed at Martinsville Speedway Despite Unscheduled Pit Stop
“There is nothing better than short track racing, especially at Martinsville Speedway. We didn’t qualify very well, but I wasn’t really worried about that because we have been in that position before and have been able to rebound come race time. This weekend was no different. We raced our way into the top-11 by lap 100. Our day took a turn towards the end of Stage 2 when we were running 10th and cut a right-front tire. We went 10 laps down pitting under green and trying to repair the sway bar. I’m bummed we had those issues, but we still had an extremely fast Dow Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. I wish we could have battled at the end.”
-Austin Dillon
Ryan Newman and E-Z-GO Team Turn In Top-10 Finish
“RCR brought a fast E-Z-GO Camaro ZL1 for me this weekend. We won Happy Hour and despite a disappointing qualifying effort, we had a good idea what the issue was and knew come race time, we would be fine and we were. We never raced outside the top 10 until NASCAR called a speeding penalty on us. I’m scratching my head over that, but we knew we had the speed to work our way back up with over 200 laps remaining. With rain threatening us, Luke (Lambert-crew chief) made a great call to speed things up by staying out at a caution. The call put us back where we belonged in the top 10 with less than 100 circuits remaining. It was a lot of fun out there. I’m still puzzled over the speeding penalty. I was afraid it might take a good finish from us, but the strategy call got us back into contention and it all worked out for us.”
-Ryan Newman