As you may have seen in our earlier posts, CarLocate.com has sponsored the Corrie Stott Racing team and its No. 02 car for the first few NASCAR Nationwide Series races this year. Last weekend, the CarLocate.com Crew had a chance to check out the Sam’s Town 300 race in Las Vegas.
Andy Ponstein was the driver of the No. 02 car for the Sam’s Town 300. He showed a couple of good runs in practice, and when it came time for qualifying, he drove the No. 02 car as hard as it would let him. With 51 entries and only 43 spaces, eight cars had to be cut from the starting field and unfortunately the No. 02 car was one of those. Corrie Stott Racing did all they knew how to do to make the car as fast as possible, but there was just something beneath the surface they couldn’t uncover in time to make the car fast enough to qualify. At that point, it seemed CarLocate.com wouldn’t make the race as a sponsor.
However… as luck would have it, there was a rain delay at the Sam’s Town 300 and that led chance to add our sponsorship to Danny Efland and his car! (Danny drove the CarLocate.com No. 02 car at the DRIVE4COPD 300.) With some creative last-minute brainstorming between Corrie Stott’s team and Danny’s team, it was decided that CarLocate.com would race with Danny and his No. 07 car. The teams scurried to make the CarLocate.com decals and applied to them to Danny’s car minutes before the start of the race.
We’re proud of Danny’s 23rd place finish at the race and can’t wait for the race in Bristol on March 20.
We took a number of pictures at the Las Vegas race. As soon as we can sort through them all, we’ll post them up on the blog.
In addition, after each NASCAR Nationwide race, Danny Efland has been writing about his experience. Below are excerpts from Danny’s write-up about the race in Las Vegas.
After the great run at Daytona in the CarLocate.com sponsored Corrie Stott Chevy we moved on to California for the Stater Brothers 300 race where an engine problem relegated me to a 41st place finish. Then on to Vegas for the Sam’s Town 300 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. I had to fly home to attend classes at school (the University of South Carolina) while the crew stayed as guests at the Stratosphere, Las Vegas Hotel and Casino for the week between the races. While they contended all they did was work hard on the race car, I got a more complete picture when I arrived in Vegas Wednesday night. After all they were in Vegas at the Stratosphere!!
Practice went well on Friday and the crew thought we could put the car in the field. In the Nationwide series (these are the Saturday cars before the cup race on Sundays) 43 cars start the race but there were 51 entries. Rain was in the forecast and being a new team we would not have the option of a rain out start under the NASCAR rain out rules so we were anxiously watching the weather reports.
Saturday dawned partly cloudy and rain appeared imminent but held off long enough for all 51 cars to make a qualifying attempt. We were all thrilled with our 27th place qualifying!
During the rain delays CarLocate.com agreed to come on board as a sponsor to make it possible for us to run all out. Corrie Stott provided the pit team. You remember this was the same sponsor and team that supported me in Daytona. As the rain ended and I strapped in, I felt good about our chances.
During the race we gambled (after all this was Vegas) and put ourselves off the normal pit sequence. It paid off and we spent considerable time on the leader board in the top 15 but I managed to do on pit road what I have not done on the highway - get caught for speeding! I just got onto pit road a little ‘hot’ and the resulting pass through penalty put us a lap down that I was never able to make up. Even so getting back to 23rd place at the end of our first full race with our very small and new team made the all night flight home seem shorter!
The CarLocate.com crew who attended the race with us were great and I want to thank them for making this possible and hope to work together with them in the future.
See you at the Races!
Danny Efland Racing