BRISTOL, Tenn. (August 26, 2011) — Miguel Paludo celebrated his one year anniversary of competing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Bristol Motor Speedway on Wednesday. The 28-year Nova Prata, Brazil native had a monumental week leading into Bristol celebrating the birth of his son Oliver after scoring his career-best Truck Series finish at Michigan International Speedway. However, his night in Bristol was not the success Paludo had hoped for as his night was ended early by a mechanical failure.
Paludo qualified in the 16th starting position, but quickly moved up the running order and was scored in the 13th position when the first caution of the evening waved on lap 10. Paludo and the No. 7 team decided that it was too early to come to pit road. On the restart at lap 17, Paludo fell back to the 15th position where he settled in until the second caution of the evening flew on lap 30.
Under the caution period Paludo gave up the 14th position to come to pit road for tires and fuel. Paludo restarted the 200-lap event from the 25th position. As the race went back to green, the driver of the No. 7 began to slowly pick his way back toward the front of the field. Under the next caution period, the No. 7 team decided not to come to pit road, but maintain their track position. However, crew chief Rick Gay did inform Paludo that they were a few laps shy from being able to make it to the end of the race on fuel and encouraged his driver to conserve every bit he could. By lap 80, Paludo was scored in the 12th position continuing to make forward progress toward the top-10. Only ten laps later, Paludo slowed on the track radioing to the crew that something was wrong with the truck. As a result of Paludo slowing to try and get to pit road, a spin occurred on the track bringing out the caution. Paludo pulled into the garage area for the team to assess the issue. After raising the hood the team determined the No. 7 truck had experienced a mechanical failure which was terminal ending the evening early for the No. 7 team. The early departure from the event resulted in a 31st-place finish for Paludo.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series returns to action next week on Friday September 2, 2011 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Atlanta 200 can be viewed LIVE on SPEED at 8:00 p.m., EDT.
About Red Horse Racing:
Founded in 2005 by former Mobil Corporation executive Tom DeLoach and NASCAR veteran Jeff Hammond, Red Horse Racing aims to be a professional racing team that strives for excellence on and off the race track. Red Horse Racing hopes to build and maintain solid, mutual relationships with its partners to win races and championships and to represent itself in a professional manner. The team has four victories and five poles in its brief existence. DeLoach and Hammond also own Performance Instruction Training (PIT), the number one pit crew training center in the world that also has many corporate training options that include team-building, lean manufacturing, motorsports demonstrations and more.
