BNS: Matt Kobyluck Watkins Glen race report

Matt Kobyluck Equals Career Best Finish with Fourth at Watkins Glen

Matt Kobyluck, driver of the No. 40 Mohegan Sun Chevrolet on the NASCAR Busch North Series, duplicated his career-best finish when he scored a fourth-place finish in the Little Trees 150 at Watkins Glen International. Kobyluck also recorded a fourth at New Hampshire International Speedway last month.

Using a brand new Chevrolet, Kobyluck took to the track and found it very good right off the hauler. Friday afternoon's qualifying session had Kobyluck turn in the eleventh fastest time, 77.045 seconds (114.479 MPH).

At the start of the race Kobyluck quickly came up to eighth place and held that until some of the leaders made their scheduled pit stops for fuel and tires under caution. Kobyluck elected not to pit and rose to third, then took second two laps after the race went back to green. He followed leading Bryan Wall onto pit road on lap 27 and put on left-side tires and filled the fuel tank, coming out well outside the top ten.

Taking the lap 39 restart in 13th, Kobyluck jumped into the top ten the next lap and worked his way to seventh with ten laps to go. In the final stretch of racing, Kobyluck made up three more positions to take the fourth position at the finish, which was worth $10,500 to the Uncasville, Connecticut driver.

"I had a real good car," he said after the race. "We really didn't change the car much from when we unloaded it off the truck. We just made a few minor changes and kept digging all day long, racing the racetrack. I made some good decisions on the track on where I could have got myself in trouble. We had a late pit strategy because if we pitted early we couldn't have made it on fuel. It turned out good because Bryan Wall had a late pit strategy too. We pitted with him and we came right back up through with him.

"When we came out of the pits, the lead cars were far ahead of us so we just rode until a caution came and get closed up the field, and then race," Kobyluck continued, "and then wait for a caution to come out with ten laps to go to get with the leaders, and race them the last nine laps. In the last five laps of the race the 96 [Mike Johnson] fell off, the 32 [Dale Quarterley] went off course, and the 55 [Brad Leighton] had problems, so in five laps we gained three positions just by racing the race track. In the last three laps of the race my car came on really strong, we were gaining on the 77 car [Wall] big and the 54 [Paul Wolfe] too, but to bring it home fourth, that was a great finish for the Mohegan Sun casino car."

After a welcome week off following twelve straight weeks of racing, Kobyluck and team will look forward to returning to the one-mile track at Nazareth Speedway, where the series last raced two years ago.

"We ran there two years ago in my rookie season and I finished 12th there," Kobyluck said. "It's a driver's track. You've really got to have your wits about you and play smart, a lot like a road course. There's a lot of corners there where you've got to pick your spots to get racing with somebody. It's a long race so you've got to ride and pick your battles to get to the end. We're going to go there with that philosophy and hopefully pull off another top five."

-MS-