Justin Boston started the night from the pole and spent much of the early stages of Friday’s ZLOOP 150 near the front of the field, but a mid-race pit stop for adjustments cost him track position that eventually left the No. 25 ZLOOP Toyota Camry ninth at the finish. Boston’s Venturini Motorsports teammate Brennan Poole won the race.
“We started off the night really good,” Boston said. “We led some laps and I felt like we probably had a car we could have finished in the top five with. But we’re here to win, and when we came down pit road for our second stop, we felt like we weren’t quite able to beat the 41 (Ben Rhodes) and 66 (Daniel Suarez) so Billy (Venturini) took a pretty big swing at it. We put a rubber in the rear and we knew that would take a little bit of time. Unfortunately it took a little bit longer than we expected and it cost us a lot of track position. Once we were back in traffic dirty air just killed us. It was like we had a totally different racecar; it was just way too tight.”
After starting the pole, Boston dropped in line behind another of his Venturini Motorsports teammates Daniel Suarez before he jumped to the lead at lap 3. He led for five laps before settling in among the top five before the field jumbled following pit stops.
“After that first run I really thought we’d have a car that could get up there and fight for it,” he said. “But once we were back in traffic we were just way too tight. We loosened it up and much as we could and I tried as many different lines as I could, but nothing I did seemed to work. It’s a tough night when you have a car that could have finished in the top five and you finish ninth with it, but at the same time we’re here to win the race and I am 100 percent with Billy on that call. We did what we thought we had to do to win but it just didn’t work out for us tonight. We win as a team and we lose as a team and tonight we did what we had to do to try to win.”
Boston will stay at Kentucky Speedway to make his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut for Joe Gibbs Racing on Saturday evening. He drove the JGR No. ZLOOP Toyota Camry to 13th in the final practice for the VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300, giving him optimism heading into the race.
“I was pretty happy with the car for my first time in it,” Boston said. “We kept getting better and better throughout the day and by the end I was really comfortable. I was on the track behind the 9 car (NNS point leader Chase Elliott) and he wasn’t getting any smaller out in front of me.”
Boston’s Nationwide Series debut will be televised live Saturday evening on ESPNNews starting at 7:30 P.M. Eastern.
The next race for Boston and the No. 25 ZLOOP Toyota in the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards will be the season finale at the Kansas Speedway on Friday, October 3. The Kansas ARCA 98.9 is slated to go green shortly after 8:30 P.M. Eastern; the race will be televised live on Fox Sports 2 and ARCARacing.com will have live timing and scoring throughout the day.
Justin Boston PR
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