John Ryan (J.R.) Fitzpatrick and the #84 Fitzpatrick Motorsports Chevrolet team were excited to get the 2008 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series racing season underway this past weekend at Cayuga Speedway. The #84 Chevy was fast, but the team couldn’t outrun all of the trouble that found them.
As soon as the track opened for practice and JR Fitzpatrick turned his first laps of the day the team knew they had a car that could run up front. “We were really confident of this car and we had good strong laps all through the practice session” said Fitzpatrick.
During qualifying the team was equally satisfied turning the first lap of the day under 21 seconds on the 5/8 mile oval. As the session concluded Fitzpatrick would have the third fastest qualifying time, and start the Crown Jewel 200 on the inside of row three.
The #84 Chevrolet looked strong at the start running up front, but after an early caution period the Fitzpatrick Motorsports car began to slide back into the field. “At first I thought we had a tire going down” said the driver. “We eventually made a pit stop and changed tires but it turns out this was a bad set or mismatched set or something so we’ll talk with Goodyear about it. After we had new tires on the car it was fast and I was looking to start moving back up through the field.
Unfortunately when you are back in traffic in the ultra competitive NASCAR Canadian Tire series making your way through the pack is no easy task. “We got banged around a bit when I was back in the pack” said a frustrated Fitzpatrick. “There were a couple of guys that his us along the way, I don’t understand that but we’ll deal with it, after the car gets beat up like that though it’s pretty tough to get anywhere”.
The #84 Fitzpatrick Motorsports Chevrolet team would battle to the end but wind up with a disappointing sixteenth place finish. “It’s too bad we had a lot of things go against us, but we’ll just consider this our bad race for the year and look ahead, we can definitely bounce back from this” he added confidently.
J.R Fitzpatrick and the Fitzpatrick Motorsports team will be back in competition for round two of the 2008 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series Saturday May 31st at the Autodrome St. Eustache. The 2008 schedule will take teams to the east coast and western Canada where Fitzpatrick swept away the competition last year. All races will once again be broadcast on TSN. More information on the series can be obtained by visiting www.nascar.ca
This release prepared by TL Sports & Entertainment
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