Edmonton: DJ Kennington race notes

CASTROL/MAHINDRA TRACTOR DODGE SUFFERS MECHANICAL MISFORTUNE

July 25, 2009. After four consecutive top-five finishes including a victory at Delaware Speedway DJ Kennington and the Castrol/Mahindra Tractor Dodge team expected to continue their push toward the top of the point standings in round number six of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series at Saturday's feature event of the Edmonton Indy, the Canadian Tire 100. After a solid qualifying effort mechanical misfortune would ruin the day.

After two practice sessions the Castrol/Mahindra Tractor team appeared to have the race car dialed in to be one of the front runners. With a short twenty minute session of qualifying Kennington would grab the fifth starting spot. "You only have a few laps before the tires start to go away and I thought we did a good job in qualifying with our limited track time" said Kennington. "The next order of business was to have the car prepared to compete in the 100km feature" he added.

The Castrol/Mahindra Tractor team as usual was meticulous in their preparation and made the changes they felt necessary for the different track conditions expected during the race. When the green flag waved to begin the event Kennington was able to jump ahead after the first corner and pick up fourth spot. But only minutes later DJ knew he had a problem. "There just wasn't the speed especially on the straightaway that we've demonstrated with this Dodge motor before" said the driver. Within a few laps Kennington was beginning to surrender positions and fell back in the field.

A full course caution slowed the race allowing Kennington to make a pit stop and the Castrol/Mahindra Tractor crew went to work diagnosing the problem. Crew Chief Dave Whyte detected a problem at the top of the fuel cell and the team made quick repairs and turned Kennington loose without losing a lap. "The whole group did really well to fix that one problem and not put us down a lap, unfortunately it wasn't the only difficulty, something else was causing a fuel pick up difficulty" stated the driver.

As the race returned to green the Castrol/Mahindra Tractor Dodge was still off the pace and Kennington would be forced to soldier on to the end in an underpowered car. "I'm just so disappointed for Castrol, Mahindra Tractors, Northern Provincial Pipeline and everybody that helps us out" said Kennington. "We were on a pretty good roll, this western swing is tough on the team, but everybody is working so hard I'm just really disappointed. But this group doesn't get down at all and even with this short week ahead we'll be ready to go at full speed" he concluded.

After six races Kennington sits fourth in the overall championship standings.

Round number seven of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series concludes the western swing and takes place this Wednesday July 29th with the first ever series visit to Auto Clearing Speedway in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

-credit: djkennington.com