LONDON, ON - Pete Shepherd and the #7 National Exhaust/Hy-Tech Drilling Challenger, had a great start at Delaware Speedway, but mechanical issues caused him to retire from the Keystone Light 200 early.
Shepherd struggled early in practice finding a balance in the race car. Initially the team was facing a lose race car, but they made several changes towards the end of practice that helped the team, and gave Pete Shepherd a sense of comfort going into qualifying.
Before qualifying, Shepherd pulled the #1 position, which usually is the most feared position to pull, as no one wants to qualify on a dirty race track. “Before qualify, I talked to the team and Mike McColl, and they assured me that the division before us would not leave any rubber on the track, and the surface would be relatively clean for my qualifying run. I didn’t worry about it, and I put down a smooth lap, and was surprised to see the time hold up,” Shepherd explained.
After two laps of qualify Shepherd’s time of 19.482 seconds, held up for the entire session, giving Pete Shepherd his first NASCAR Canadian Tire Series pole. “It felt good to get the pole, because we really struggled in practice, and we didn’t think we had the speed it would take to start near the front for the Keystone Light 200. The team worked really hard, and hard work pulled off as we had a fast car going into the race,” Shepherd replied.
After the green flag dropped, the top three cars pulled away from the field; #7, #17 and #22. Shepherd led the first 17 laps, but was overtaken by the #17 and the #22. “I settled in third as I recognized the #17 and #22 had really good cars. It’s a long race, and I knew towards the end I would have a fast car, as my car was not fading away on old tires.” Shepherd described. After the first caution of the race, before the half way point, Shepherd followed the #17 into the pits. The crew filled up his car with fuel, and as he drove away the crew noticed the car was leaking gear oil.
“When we went back to green, my tires were covered in oil, and I had a hard time even hanging onto the car. I knew the situation was getting worse when I could smell burnt gear oil, and I lost a lot of top end speed. At that point our day was pretty much done.” Shepherd stated. After 200 laps, Shepherd wound up with a DNF in 17th position. Pete Shepherd Motorsports looks forward to taking their efforts to the Toronto Indy, where Shepherd will make his first road course appearance since 2004.
To keep up to speed with Pete Shepherd Motorsports race season in 2011, please follow him on Twitter @Petey_3 and his website www.peteshepherd.ca where fans can find a link to join Pete Shepherd’s Facebook Fan Page.
Pete Shepherd Motorsports would like to thank all of their sponsors: National Exhaust Systems Inc, Hy-Tech Drilling INC, Diamond Material Handling and Insulation, BioX Nutrition and TapouT Energy.
Contact Information: // Pete Shepherd // www.peteshepherd.ca // peteshepherd@hotmail.com
or dRIVEN4 Communications // driven4communications@gmail.com
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