Aric Almirola piloting the No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction NASCAR Camping World Truck Series entry finished fifth in the running of the Built Ford Tough 225 race Saturday night at the Kentucky Speedway.

Almirola placed the Billy Ballew Motorsports truck in the 13^th-place position for the 150 lap, 225 mile race, on the Sparta, Kentucky race track.

From the beginning of the race Almirola reported that the Camping World Truck was tight and was looking for adjustments on the first pit stop which came on lap 35.  Almirola was running in the 13^th-place position coming down pit road for four tires, air pressure, and wedge and track bar adjustments on the No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction truck.

Almirola returned to the track in the 16^th-place for the restart and immediately started moving forward running two and three wide on the 1.5-mile D-shaped racetrack advancing to the 11^th-place position when caution returned to the racetrack on lap 53.  The team stayed out on the racetrack continuing to advance after the green flag returned on lap 57.  Again, Almirola used his experience and talent to advance to the seventh place position by lap 65 running times faster than the leader. 

Almirola reported in that the race truck was again becoming tight while running in the seventh place position.  A long green flag run ensued on the racetrack forcing teams to come down pit road under green flag conditions for service.  Almirola pitted on the 102 for fuel and adjustments returning in the 11^th-place position on the track. 

When the caution flag flew on lap 112 crew chief Richie Wauters hoped to get some better track position in the closing laps so the team brought the truck back down pit road taking on only two right side tires.  The move put Almirola off pit road in the lead. 

Almirola maintained the lead despite two caution periods but on the restart at lap 132 he spun his tires causing the second and third place drivers to scramble to avoid colliding with the No. 15 Camping World Truck.  Almirola recovered but lost the point spot settling in to third place position when he ran wide open on the throttle coming off of turn three scraping the wall.  The incident only caused minor tire rub but put him back to the sixth place position.  Almirola gained a spot bringing home a fifth place finish for the Billy Ballew Motorsports team.

“We were both good, (referring to teammate Brian Ickler) We both took two tires on that pit stop,” Almirola said.  “I knew that clean air would be important and when I took off on that restart and we were leading that clean air was really helping.  We were driving away and the caution came out there and then caution, after caution really hurt us.  We only had two tires and everybody around us had four. I just can’t thank the #15 team enough for all their hard work this weekend. They really thrashed on the truck during and after practice. We were at a total lost after practice on set-up and had to do some work to our right-front fender to get to stop rubbing on the tire. So really the first time I put a real lap down with the truck was during qualifying and the race. Richie (Wauters) and the crew really did a great job this weekend, just wish I could have brought home a trophy for them!”

Almirola will return to the No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction truck at O’Reilly Motorsports Park Friday, July, 24, 2009 for the running of the NASCAR Camping World race.

For more information on Billy Ballew Motorsports and Aric Almirola visit www.BillyBallewMotorsports.com and www.AricAlmirola.com. 

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