AUBURN, MI - Morgan Shepherd's Faith Motorsports team knew going into Saturday's qualifying effort for the Carfax 250 at Michigan International Speedway that they needed to pick up some speed to make the race. What they didn't know was just how much it would take.
"We knew our practice speeds wouldn't hold up, but we didn't count on many of the cars improving on their practice times a second or more," said driver Morgan Shepherd. "Many of them did block off runs in practice so it was surprising how much they picked up Saturday morning."
Shepherd's #89 Faith Motorsports Chevrolet improved on its practice time by about a half-second, but it wasn't near enough to crack the starting field of 43 cars.
"We were bottoming out in practice and we cut the valances up a quarter of an inch but it apparently wasn't nearly enough," he said. "I was bottoming out on the first lap and went into Turn 1 on the second lap and it bottomed out so bad that I slid way up the track. There was no use running the second lap. It would have been a lot slower. The side skirts were dragging bad."
Shepherd said all the team can do is learn from its mistakes and move on to Bristol.
"One thing about this sport is that you don't have time to sit and sulk about it. Next week comes quick."
|
|
RSS Feed
