May 6, 2006
Hickory, NC

Long Night Leads to Top Ten Finish at Hickory

It took over an hour to run the Allison Legacy Series main event at Hickory Motor Speedway on Saturday night, but in the end Josh Butler came home with his second consecutive top ten finish. Josh’s car was good during the two practice sessions but it still left everyone looking for about two tenths of a second to be able to compete with the top ten teams. A gear change, a last second change by crew chief Blake Harris and a great lap by Josh picked up three tenths during qualifying and put the Horizon Technologies/Conterra Ultra Broadband Monte Carlo 8th on the grid out of the 29 cars that would start the event.

Trouble struck early in the 50 lap event as Josh got into oil and oil dry coming out of turn two around lap 10 and he spun the car while running 8th. In 24th after the re-start Josh started moving back through the field, picking up one or two spots every green flag run. He had made his way back up to 15th, when a wreck coming out of turn four blocked the track and Josh spun the car to avoid driving head on into the accident. Again re-starting deep in the field, Josh worked his way up to 8th, before being passed with one lap to go and settling for his second consecutive 9th place finish. The finish moved Josh up a spot to 12th in the point standings…only 8 points out of 10th as the series heads to Florence Motor Speedway.

Josh on Saturday’s Run at Hickory – “Another top ten run is great for us. It was a long night with a lot of cautions and we were lucky to not get caught up in more of those wrecks than we did…some were really close. I had a lot of confidence in the car with the set up that Blake put under me…and I really felt that I could drive the car as hard as I had to so I could get back through the field. Hickory Motor Speedway has so much history, with so many great drivers have run, and won, there…it was cool to run at the track.”

A quick turnaround will take the Allison Legacy Series to Florence Motor Speedway, in Timmonsville, SC. on Wednesday night May 10th. Qualifying will start just after 6:00pm with the 50 lap feature starting around 7:00pm.