Montreal: Alex Kennedy race report

Alex "Kid" Kennedy takes the long way to 26th place finish in Montreal

MONTREAL, CANADA (August 29, 2010) -- Alex "Kid" Kennedy had his own twists and turns en route to a 26th-place finish at the Montreal road course in Sunday's NASCAR Nationwide Series race north of the border.

After qualifying 22nd on Saturday, Kennedy didn't waste any time moving forward once the green flag waved on a sunny afternoon over the 14-turn road course located on the shores of the St. Lawrence Seaway. He had the No. 23 MediaMaster Chevrolet into 19th place by the time the first caution waved on lap three.

After the lap-eight restart, Kennedy was in 17th place and spun going through one of the turns. As he whipped around, the back end of the No. 23 hit the No. 11 of Brian Scott causing heavy damage to both cars. Kennedy limped his Chevrolet back into the garage area so the crew could make repairs to the left side.

The ever-ready R3 Motorsports team leapt into action cutting, taping and fixing the car as best they could. Most of the damage was behind the left-rear tire and the underneath area from the impact.

By lap 19, the team made enough repairs to get Kid Kennedy back on track to compete in 39th place 11 laps down. However, being down like that to the leaders, he wasn't able to truly battle for positions and was forced to just make laps hoping others fell out of the race.

There were enough other crashes and attrition to aid in the team's goal to gain positions for the ever-important Owner's Points. Surviving all of the other cautions, Kennedy was able to remain in action and finish in 26th-place.

This aided the team to remain in the top-30 in Owner's Points as the NNS heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for next Saturday night's race under the lights of the 1.54-mile oval. Robert Richardson, Jr. will be back behind the wheel and is the featured NASCAR Nationwide Series Driver of the Week on NASCAR.com and ESPN2.

Alex Kennedy Quotes: "I felt really bad for the guys when we got in that wreck. Spinning the car is bad enough, but when you tag another car and tear up your own it makes it worse. That was my mistake that caused them to work so hard to repair the car.

"We were able to get it back together enough to go out there and still run competitive laps and pick up 13 spots from when we wrecked. Those guys did a great job putting the car back together.

"This was my last scheduled race with R3 Motorsports and I want to thank them for everything they did to make this a great experience. If we can get more funds to run more races, we'll be back this year -- or next. We're trying to line something things up for next year to split a season with Robert Jr."

-source: r3 motorsports