9/9/07

Podium for Carr in Michigan

After a season full of misfortune and struggles, Chris and the Ford Quality Checked Team had Lady Luck smile upon them somewhat at Michigan's I-96 Speedway. Two red flags and some fortunate passing opportunities put Carr in third for the final short dash, where he held on to finish on the podium for the first time all year.


"All we can say about I-96 is I guess my luck has turned a little bit. We were looking to be pretty much eighth-place throughout the main event, didn't get that great of a start from the second row, and was cruising around in eighth, gaining on Nick Cummings towards the end, and Shaun Russell, who was in front of him, and then Nick just slid out. He got into turn three a little hot, got up off the edge of the eighteen-inch groove that they had going in there, got off in the dust and busted his butt.

"The red flag came out, and I lined up seventh on the single-file restart. With a five-lap minimum on restarts, it gave me some time to do some things, and I lined up and gave it a shot. I was probably fifth down the back chute, tried to go around Joe Kopp on the outside, and them Bryan Smith just drilled him from the inside, ran Joe up into me, and I figure Joe went down, but in the end, I guess Ricky Marshall had gone off the end of turns three and four and went for a ride in the cornfield or something.

"So the red flag came out, and we lined back up again, I got an average start going into one, and I think Russell and Kopp got together, and that opened up an avenue, and I turned hard left and went up under them and (J.R.) Schnabel and got underneath Smith coming out of turn two, and all of a sudden I went from seventh to third all in one set of corners. I got in behind (Kenny) Coolbeth and (Jared) Mees and stayed with them for about three laps,. Then they put a little bit on me the last couple of laps, but, you know, we ended up in third. But we finally had something go my way for a change, and I was encouraged. We had some good lap times, and the bike was working better as the race went on. We just got it to work good for the whole race."


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