Mandy Chick officially passed a dozen cars as she rallied to a ninth-place finish last Saturday at Birch Run Speedway during the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour opener.
"After a little bit of a struggle for us in the beginning, it's really cool to see how well our team rallied back to accomplish our goal this weekend," she said. "After all, we rallied together and teamwork is really half the battle."
Chick encountered some significant tire problems in practice and her mock qualifying runs. The team made adjustments for qualifying, but still faced the same problem. Chick qualified 18th quickest out of 23 cars. The team made the decision to pull the No. 23 out of the post-qualifying impound to make more adjustments and tweak the setup before the feature event.
That relegated Chick to the rear of the field and she lined up 21 st for the main event. By Lap 65, Chick had maneuvered her way into the sixth spot. At one point she had to lock up her brakes to avoid an incident in front of her. It got her sideways and she was hit in the driver's side, ultimately ending in the infield. Chick rebounded to bring home a ninth-place finish.
"It felt good to be able to overcome the issues we had earlier in the day, figure it out and accomplish the goal of a top-10 finish," she said. "Our new spotter, Josh Nelms, did a fantastic job of spotting and driver coaching, and the team worked well together to get us to where we needed to be at the end of the night."
Chick earned the Hoosier Hard Charger Award for passing the most cars during the race. In addition, the team was awarded the PitBoxes.com Pit Crew of the Race for pulling the car out of line and making it competitive after the challenging day.
Chick's next race will be the Short Track U.S. Nationals May 30 and June 1 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tenn., with the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour.
"I'm excited to get back to Bristol," she said. "It's one of my favorite tracks, aside from Winchester. We've got three goals that we'd like to accomplish that weekend: qualify in the top 10, finish the race with a car that's in one piece and finish better than we did last year - eighth. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish there."
QUICK RESULTS -
May 18 - Birch Run Speedway in Birch Run, Mich. - Qualifying: 18; Feature: 9 (21).
SEASON STATS -
2 races, 0 wins, 0 top fives, 2 top 10s, 2 top 15s, 2 top 20s
UP NEXT -
May 30 and June 1 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tenn., for the Short Track U.S. Nationals with the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour.
