April 28, 2008
Matthews, NC

Consistency Continues With Top Five Run at Concord

Four races into the 2007 Allison Legacy Touring Series season, only three drivers can say that they have four top five runs…and Josh is one of them. The Butler Motorsports Team was looking forward to being close to home on Saturday and racing in front of family and friends as the team visited Concord Motorsports Park in Concord, NC…less than 30 minutes from Matthews, NC. The team tested the Horizon Technologies/Summitt Communications/Conterra Ultra Broadband Monte Carlo at the track the Thursday before the race and was able to turn a few laps under last years pole speed. So when Saturday rolled around the team was excited to roll the #11 out of the trailer.

With only one 30 minute practice the team decided to go with their qualifying and race tires and make as few laps as possible before Josh would line up for qualifying. Luckily, the car was still just as good as it was during Thursday’s practice, even though it appeared the track has slowed down considerably due to the blazing sun. Josh took the track fourth out of the 25 cars that were signed up for the 50 lap event and put up a lap that was a tenth of a second quicker than last years pole and let everyone know that he had a car to contend with. Late in the qualifying session two cars would beat Josh’s lap (one car by 2 one thousand of a second) and Josh would line up a solid third for the main event.

The start of the 50 lap race was far from what everyone had hoped for as Josh pushed up off of corner # 2 and before he could find the bottom again he was running tenth. Josh relayed to Crew Chief Blake Harris that things were fine and now that he was back in line on the bottom he would be coming to the front. It didn’t take long for Josh to make good on that. Josh moved into 8th spot about 15 laps into the race and within one lap had found the bumper of the front seven cars all running nose to tail. With the high line on the track working well through turns one and two, it would take a lot of patience and some good timing to pick off the cars in front of him. With patient aggressiveness, Josh found himself inside the top five with about ten laps to go and started to work on the fourth place car. A couple laps later Josh would move into fourth and as much has he tried to track down the front three…he would cross the finish line fourth, with his fourth consecutive top five. The finish kept Josh in third place in the Championship standings and slightly padded his lead over fourth place.

Josh on Saturday’s run: “I can’t believe that I couldn’t find a hole at the beginning of the race and I had to work my way back up from tenth…its hard when you put yourself in a hole like that. My car was perfect in the middle to late stages of the race; we were pulling up on the cars in front of us by two or three cars lengths going into turn three. I wanted to get to the top three so badly that I overdrove the car a little and it started getting tight on me…but all in all we got another top five finish and we didn’t do anything to hurt ourselves in the points. I know that since those first two in the points have too much experience to do anything stupid…I am going to need to win some of these to have a shot. Consistency like we have shown the first four races is really building our confidence and we feel we can win every time we show up at the track. I have a ton of confidence in what Blake is doing with the car and I am really having fun driving what he is giving me.

Next weekend I get to go up North and drive the dirt modified for the first time this year. I’m not looking to set the world on fire but I am really excited about getting in the car again. We’re hoping to make the race and stay on the lead lap so I can get some experience for the AMRA shows coming up.”

With an off weekend in the Legacy Series, Josh will head to Hartford, OH to race the Boardman License Bureau/Institutional Foods #52 E-Mod owned by his Uncle Mike. It will be his first race at the 3/8 mile Sharon Speedway, the track owned by Nextel Cup driver Dave Blaney. The next Legacy race will be Wednesday May 9th at Florence Motor Speedway with a 50 lap main event. Check back next week for details of the trip north.