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Loudon: Johnny Sauter race report

Sauter Survives to Finish Seventh at NHMS Loudon, N.H. (September 19, 2010) -- Johnny Sauter fought brake issues and a loose truck en route to a seventh-place finish in Sautrday's TheRaceDayRaffleSeries.com 175 at New Hampshire ...

Sauter Survives to Finish Seventh at NHMS

Loudon, N.H. (September 19, 2010) -- Johnny Sauter fought brake issues and a loose truck en route to a seventh-place finish in Sautrday's TheRaceDayRaffleSeries.com 175 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Sauter's No. 13 Street Smart Pothole Patch/Curb Records Chevrolet was too tight throughout practice on Friday, and crew chief Joe Shear, Jr. called for changes prior to qualifying that made the truck better, but with changing track conditions the truck became too loose throughout the race. In addition, a bulky brake bias adjuster in the cockpit wouldn't allow Sauter to fully adjust the brakes to allow him to drive as hard into the corners as he needed. But a savvy pit call on lap 88 put Sauter in a position to win, should the race run green the rest of the way.

"I give Joe and the guys a lot of credit, they are always thinking and that strategy is always changing," Sauter said. "We were a little off today, but that just puts Joe to work. He takes the information and comes up with something that he thinks will give us a chance to win. We had a caution with about 90 laps to go, which is right at the fuel window and he called me in and packed it with fuel. We needed it to go green the rest of the way, which is certainly possible at a track like New Hampshire. We were a top ten truck today but that was really the only chance we had to go steal the win and we took it."

Although there were additional cautions that put everyone back on the same pit sequence and eliminated Sauter's chance to steal a fuel mileage win, he still hung tough in the top ten despite a truck that wasn't handling perfectly.

"We got so loose I really thought I was going to wreck," Sauter said. "We were really tight on Friday and we made some changes and it made the truck a lot better for qualifying. The truck went really loose in the middle of the race. Usually you're fighting a push here but we were too loose. We'll take it back to the shop and go through our notes and figure out what we need to do to make it perfect for the next time we're here."

Sauter remains third in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship standings, knocking four points off current second-place driver Aric Almirola's advantage. Almirola now leads Sauter by just 53 points with six races to run; Sauter has a 43 point advantage over fourth-place Timothy Peters.

Next up for Sauter and the No. 13 ThorSport Racing/Curb Records Chevrolet is the Smith's Las Vegas 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he is the defending race winner. The 20th race of the 2010 season is scheduled to go green shortly after 9:30 P.M. Eastern on Saturday September 25. The race will be televised live on SPEED and will be broadcast live nationwide on select affiliates of the MRN Radio network and on Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 128.

-source: -TSR-

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