9/12/2017
Lauren Butler
Final Race Of The Season Nets 4th Place Finish In A Backup Car For Lauren Butler
After a hard wreck two weeks prior to the Sept 9th race, Lauren was given the opportunity to pilot the 57 Blackberry Smoke Minjock Racing Chevrolet in the last non-points race at Jennerstown Speedway.
With this being her first time in the car she went out on hot laps to get a feel for the car. After some adjusting she got comfortable with the handling and characteristics of the car. Starting 6th in the heat race the car went to the tight side but brought the car home to a 3rd place finish.
After making more adjustments she started the feature on the outside of row 1. Before the 1st lap was completed a spin on the front straight brought out a caution. Lauren informed us on the radio that the car was going to be on the tight side. After discussing the possibility of bringing the Blackberry Smoke Chevrolet in for adjusting, we decided to leave her out so as not to lose the position. On the ensuing restart Lauren jumped the start causing another caution for a false start. Now in the 4th place position on the restart, she quickly took 3rd place and quickly closed on the 2nd place car on lap 3. After another caution around lap 6 Lauren still remained in 3rd. On the next restart she got passed by the 0 car which put her back to 4th. Three laps later she would pass the 4 car to take over the 3rd place position where she remained for the most of the race.
She got passed with 3 laps to go where she would finish in the 4th position. Lauren stated at the end of the race overall the car had pretty good balance but after going to the tight side she couldn't get the drive through the center and off the corner the way she wanted.
We felt if we would have freed the car up a little we could have definitely contended for the win. Congratulations to the winner, Adam Kostelnik, on the win.
We would like to thank Andrew Kostelnik, Adam Kostelnik, Joel Minjock, Blackberry Smoke and all of our sponsors for a great 2017 season.
