April 15, 2007
Matthews, NC

Consistency Continues with Third Place Finish in Dillon, SC

After a year and a half of work, the new Dillon Motor Speedway opened as a 4/10 paved oval on Saturday in Dillon, SC and the Allison Legacy Touring Series was the premier event of opening night. The Butler Motorsports Team tested Dillon two weeks ago and was happy with the results and coming off of a top five finish at Hickory last weekend, everyone was looking forward to getting back to the track.

With an hour of practice to start the day, Crew Chief Blake Harris brought the Horizon Technologies/Summitt Communications/Conterra Ultra Broadband down pit road a number of times as he and Josh worked to get the car dialed in. The second practice showed good times and Josh felt the car was ready for qualifying. Unfortunately, Josh couldn’t back up his practice times and qualified 8th out of the 25 cars that took time.

The new Dillon track is a very nice facility; however, it is a very tight race track and a very tough place for cars to pass. With that in mind Josh knew that he would have to be patient and when he got his opportunities he would have to be aggressive. He drove hard for all 50 laps, and drove one of his smartest races, as he worked to pass cars as the laps wound down. Josh rode in the fifth spot for much of the closing laps and badgered the 4th place car for a number of laps before passing for the position with five laps to go. Three laps later he got inside the third place car going into turn three and cleared him coming off of turn four as the white flag flew. Josh crossed the finish line one lap later as the third place finisher, his best finish of the young season. The finish unofficially moved Josh up one spot in the point standings…moving him up to third as he heads to the fourth race of the season on April 28th.

Josh on Saturday’s run: “I put us in a hole by not getting a good lap in qualifying and Dillon is a tough place to pass…but Blake and dad kept working and we just calmly got the car ready for the race. I remember talking to Blake (Crew Chief Blake Harris) just after qualifying and we were both still really confident about the way the car would race. Blake said he wasn’t going to change much because we both felt that I just left some on the track in qualifying and that we would be fine. I really had to work during the race to try and get to the front…Dillon’s a nice track but it’s so tight. My car was really good all night and there were times that I had to get pretty aggressive to get by people, but I did it clean. We had a great race, it was a good points day and we kept our momentum going.”

The Allison Legacy Series takes a weekend off but will be back on the track on April 28th as they visit the fastest track on the schedule, Concord Motorsports Park. If the weather cooperates, Josh will not take the weekend off, he will travel back to his dad’s hometown of Hartford, OH to race a dirt modified at Sharon Speedway. Check back early next week for results.