When competing in a grueling 10-month long schedule, there are bound to be trying weekends that require great teams to dig deep and persevere in order to achieve the maximum result. From the moment the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series took to the track at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Ty Dillon and Germain Racing were dealt obstacles to overcome. After making contact with the wall in the final practice session on Saturday, the GEICO Racing team was forced to pull out the backup car, relegating Dillon to start from the rear of the field on Sunday afternoon.
With zero practice laps on the backup No. 13 GEICO Chevrolet, Dillon reported the car was “way too loose in, tight in the middle, and had no drive off the corner” at the conclusion of the opening stage of Sunday’s race. Crew chief Bootie Barker called for an agglomerate of changes on the first pit stop, as the crew changed four tires, fuel, packer, wedge and air pressure adjustments. Only a handful of laps after the field returned to racing, Dillon’s driver window net came loose, forcing the rookie to hold the net up in place before pitting under green flag conditions to fix the issue on lap 125. While the Germain Racing machine handled better, the young gun remained patient and used heads up driving skills to miss surrounding accidents. Over the final 100 laps, Dillon gained nine positions to cross the finish line in 22nd-place.
“We had some hurdles this weekend here at New Hampshire, but we were able to make the most of what we had,” said Dillon, after the race. “The backup rolled off the trailer decent, especially considering we had no practice laps on it. The GEICO crew took a big swing at it under the first stage break caution and we didn’t have to do a lot more to it after that. It was still a bit too tight but we were able to work with it and expand our notes for this track next year. I’m not overjoyed with our finish, but in a day that we raced our backup car and ran 35 laps holding up my window net, I’ll take it.”
Dillon and the No. 13 GEICO Racing team will now head to the high-banked concrete oval in Delaware, famously known as The Monster Mile. The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will take to Dover International Speedway on Friday, September 29th for opening practice at 10:00 am ET, with qualifying scheduled to take place later that afternoon at 3:40 pm ET.
The green flag will fly for the Apache Warrior 400 Presented by Lucas Oil on Sunday, October 1st at 2:00 pm ET. NBC Sports Network will carry the live television broadcast, with the Motor Racing Network and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90 carrying the live radio broadcast.
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