CONCORD, N.C. (May 21, 2010) – As fast as the competitors in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series are, there’s one person no one can outrun – Mother Nature. Rain showers delayed the start of the N.C. Education Lottery 200 for nearly three hours past its original start time of 8:00 p.m. When the action got underway, Almirola fought an ill-handling truck for most of the night, but after a host of adjustments, battled to take the checkers in seventh-place. Almirola’s performance marked the No. 51 team’s sixth-consecutive top-10 finish.

Almirola started the event from the 12^th position. The race started with a 10-lap green flag run before a caution slowed the action.  Almirola reported that his truck was dragging the splitter and disrupting its handling.  Crew chief Richie Wauters knew he needed to handle the problem or the Graceway Pharmaceuticals truck didn’t stand a chance of competing for the win, so he called Almirola into the pits. The 51 crew lifted the hood and adjusted the shocks to raise the front end off the track. They sent Almirola back on the track in 28^th-place.

The race went back to green on Lap 15. The field ran 10 laps before another yellow flag halted the race. Almirola had picked up 11 positions, but his truck was “snug in, loose off” throughout the run.  Almirola made his second trip down pit lane, where the crew changed his tires, topped off the fuel cell and pulled the spring rubbers from the right-rear of the truck to help correct the handling. He rejoined the field in 19^th-place.

Green flag action returned on Lap 29. Almirola’s Tundra was “really loose,” but his lap times were on par with the leaders. He diced through the field into sixth-place before the next caution flag waved, Lap 80. Wauters took advantage of the caution period to call Almirola into the pits for his final stop. His team changed his Goodyears, topped off the fuel cell and made an air pressure adjustment to loosen up the truck. The crew bolted off a super-fast stop and got Almirola back on track in fifth-place.

The race restarted on Lap 90. A series of four cautions disrupted the action over the remaining 45 laps.  Unfortunately, the adjustments on the previous pit stop made Almirola’s Toyota too tight. Ideally Almirola would have lined up on the outside row for each of the final restarts, where his truck handled its best, but Almirola lined up on the inside lane each time. He lost two positions before taking the checkered flag, finishing in seventh-place.

“We started out a little too loose today, then swung the opposite way,” said Almirola.  “We jumped the fence on our final pit stop and our truck was too tight for the last few runs. All of the cautions in the final 45 laps made it hard for us to stay in the top-five. We were really good on long runs when our truck settled in, but it took a few laps to get going.  Those restarts made it tough for us to hang on to our track position. 

“I really wish we had another 50 laps.  We would have made one more pit stop and another set of adjustments. That’s all we really needed to get back up front with the leaders and fight for a win. Seventh-place isn’t bad, though.  If we can have an off-day and still finish in the top-10, that’s pretty good.”

Almirola is now second in the championship point standings, only two points behind Todd Bodine. His next race is the WinStar World Casino 400 at Texas Motor Speedway on June 4. Coverage will be on MRN and SPEED.