Early Friday, the team took the #11 Sonny's BBQ Ford Fusion to Buggy Pletcher's shop so that he could scale the car out. Austin's crew chief, Dave Pletcher, was unable to make it to this race, so his son, Buggy, replaced him for the weekend. The team arrived to the track with a completely different setup than what was used two weeks prior. After making a few adjustments during Friday practice, the car started to handle better, and Austin was able to click off some quick laps.
On Saturday, a tire issue would arise. The tires that were being run weren't the ideal size for the racetrack, and the tire supplier hadn't brought enough for the team to purchase another practice set with the right sizes. This would force the team to try to guess how the car would handle when the qualifying tires (which were the right size) were put on. During the Saturday practice, Austin would relay as much information about the handling of the car as he could to the crew, so they could make the necessary adjustments. During the final practice, Austin would find himself in the top 5 in practice speeds, and he felt good about how the car felt.
For qualifying, the new tires were bolted on and Austin went out and drove as hard as he could for 2 laps. Unfortunately, since the team had been practicing on tires that didn't have the correct stagger (the difference between the circumferences of the left and right side tires) the car handled differently when the good tires were put on. Austin's first lap was a 16.158, which was still good enough to put him 5th. The fastest qualifier pulled a 8 inversion, meaning Austin would be inverted to start 4th.
On the start of the race, Austin would quickly move into 3rd and shortly thereafter, move into 2nd. With the leader having pulled a half-straight away ahead, Austin spent the next 30 laps tracking the him down. As soon as Austin caught the leader, he would pull low to try to take the lead, but the leader put a block on, causing Austin to lose a position. Austin rode in 3rd place for almost the whole race, not being able to put up a challenge for the win because the car started to get “loose” off of the corners. With 5 laps to go, the car that had been in 4th for much of the race dive-bombed into the corner, hitting Austin's bumper and causing him to spin into the wall. The car wasn't too damaged so Austin was able to baby the car around for the last 5 laps to finish 8th. During post-race interviews, Austin said, "I'm really disappointed in how things turned out. We had a good top 3 run going there, and we got dumped. We were fixing to be 3rd in the points after this race, but I believe we will now remain in 4th place, with 5th place being really close to us. Oh well, I guess that's just racin'. I would like to thank my crew and also Buggy Pletcher and Dave Wilson for helping us out this weekend. Hopefully we can rebound at Charlotte County and get a good win."
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