BNS: Watkins Glen: Joey McCarthy race notes

Joey McCarthy Eighth At Watkins Glen Despite Losing Power

(Watkins Glen, N.Y. - August 14, 2004) - Joey McCarthy's streak of top ten finishes at Watkins Glen reached three after finishing eighth in Saturday's Mohegan Sun 150, the eleventh race of the 2004 NASCAR Grand National Division, Busch North Series season.

Driving the same car he's run in every Busch North race this season at tracks ranging from 3/8ths of a mile to New Hampshire International Speedway's mile to the Glen's 2.45-mile road course, McCarthy started from eighth on the grid after rain washed out qualifying.

In the early stages of the race, McCarthy ran in seventh place. He pitted out of the top ten on lap 22 to make his scheduled pit stop for fuel. This strategy of pitting early worked, as caution came out two laps later. As most other lead lap cars pitted under yellow, McCarthy moved all the way up to restart seventh.

After a spirited battle with two-time series champion Andy Santerre, McCarthy ran fifth with half the race yet to run. He fell to sixth and was running there when the final restart of the race took place on lap 52 - just ten laps from the end of the race. As the green flag waved, McCarthy instantly started battling with both Matt Kobyluck and Jeremy Treadway to try and take over fifth place, but he wound up falling all the way back to ninth. As his engine started weakening due to electrical problems, McCarthy soldiered on to finish eighth.

"Everything ran great, but for some reason we lost power towards the end," he said. "We couldn't use every bit of our Fischer motor, because we had a battery going dead or the alternator was starting to fade on us. All in all, the car got a little tighter than I wanted it to. We probably needed to make an adjustment during the race, and we probably missed a little with the gear too. But to finish eighth with all the things we missed out on, I'm pretty happy.

"It's satisfying to be able to finish in the top ten against dedicated road course equipment and their big motors, especially when it's a big field like we had today," McCarthy continued. "I just look forward to running week to week and finishing as well as we can each time out, and maybe we can sneak a win in there somewhere."

The next race for McCarthy, who runs eighth in series points, is at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway.

"We were fast when we went there last year, but didn't get the finish we wanted, so it owes me one," he said. "I'm going to try a different setup for when we go back, but I can always fall back to what I had at Waterford if that doesn't work out."

-www.joeymccarthy.com.