WS: Phoenix: Thompson Motorsports race report

Teamwork Shines for Thompson Motorsports at Phoenix
Team Loses Four Cars in Desert Duel but Leaves Optimistic

JEROME, IDAHO (April 10, 2010) There are some races that a racer wants to win more than others and there are some races a racer would rather forget. The NASCAR K&N Pro Series race this past Thursday at Phoenix (AZ) Raceway was both for Thompson Motorsports. The team fielded two cars for the 100-lap race but left with four bent cars, one top ten finish, and a bunch of work to do.

While many would complain about the outcome, team manger and NASCAR veteran driver Brett Thompson sees the silver lining. We are building our organization and running a second car this year and it was great to see how well the entire Thompson team came together and worked through the issues we had," Thompson offered. "I would really liked to have had different results but this team proved we can win races and contend."

Contend they did. Despite losing two primary cars in separate practice incidents, Brett Thompson qualified his back-up RTTI Chevrolet in the 14th position and rookie Taylor Barton qualified his FullTiltPoker.Net Chevrolet in the 21st position.

The game plan was simple for both teams. Stay out of trouble and take what the track would give. Thompson quickly moved through field over the first half of the race and ran inside the top ten, moving as high as third until he pitted for right-side tires around lap 75. The moved looked to be playing out perfectly as he had the freshest tires of any of the front-runners late in the race.

But his advantage went out the window when a slow leaking left rear dropped Thompson out of the top five and ultimately expired sending Thompson hard into the turn three wall on lap 98. "I am disappointed," Thompson said. "We had a really good car and one that was capable of winning but we had a tire going down the last ten laps and well, we all know what happened."

On the other side of the spectrum, Taylor Barton had an uneventful race by most standards, but he left Phoenix scoring his first series top ten finish. "I am thrilled and amazed," Barton said. "I learned a lot and mainly to just stay out of everyones way and stay out of the mess.This race was really about seat time and learning to drive a big track and we accomplished both. To leave Phoenix with a top ten finish is just awesome."

Awesome is right, Barton moves his FullTiltPoker.Net Chevrolet into sixth in the point standings after two races. The team only plans on running the first five races this season in order to preserve their rookie standing for a full run at the title next season. The next event for Thompson Motorsports is the NASCAR K&N East/West challenge at Iowa Speedway May 21-23.

-source: thompson motorsports