HAMPTON, GA. (March 6, 2010) – Aric Almirola capped off a solid week at Atlanta Motor Speedway with a top-three finish in the E-Z-GO 200.  Almirola’s No. 51 AKawareness.com Toyota started the event from seventh-place and steadily moved through the field before taking the checkers in third-place. The finish marked Almirola’s eighth top-five in a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event.

When the race got underway, Almirola’s Tundra was too tight. The splitter was bottoming out through the high-banked turns of Atlanta Motor Speedway and causing his truck to slide up the track.  Crew chief Richie Wauters directed the crew to fix the problem with an air pressure adjustment on the team’s first pit stop, lap 23. 

Almirola settled into fourth-place when green flag action returned.  His Toyota was still bottoming out and disrupting the handling, so the crew took more drastic measures to correct the problem on the ensuing pit stop, lap 51. When Almirola reached his pit stall, the crew lifted the hood and adjusted the suspension to raise the front-end off the ground. The lengthy work dropped Almirola back to 17^th-place for the restart. 

“There were only 17 cars on the lead lap and we needed to make a big change,” said Wauters.  “I knew that we weren’t going to win, or even finish in the top-five, unless we took a swing at it. I knew we’d be good enough to get back up front once we made the adjustments.”

Wauters’ words were spot on. After taking the green on lap 57, Almirola marched into third-place before the final caution of the day, lap 111.  The crew called Almirola down pit road for one last round of routine service to his AKawareness.com machine.  Once they changed his tires and topped off the fuel cell, Almirola rejoined the field in fifth-place for the final 13 laps of the 130 lap event.

Almirola raced past two trucks on the final green flag run, often running lap times equivalent to the leaders, before finishing the day in third-place.

“We had a solid day,” said Almirola.  “All of my guys’ hard work over the winter paid off.  They build great trucks at Billy Ballew Motorsports and it showed this afternoon.  We were too tight at the start, but it got a lot better after our first two pit stops.  All in all, it was a great day and a good momentum builder for the next race.

“I know we’ll only get better and better as the year goes on.  I know we have what it takes to be in victory lane before too long.”

Almirola will be behind the wheel of AKawreness.com Toyota next at Martinsville Speedway on March 27 for the Kroger 250.  SPEED TV and MRN will broadcast the event beginning at 2:00. Last season Aric started 15^th and finished 12^th driving a Billy Ballew Motorsports-prepared truck in the October event at Martinsville.