Looking to continue his strong run for the third week in a row, Brennan Newberry entered the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) UNOH 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway with momentum on his side.
For the first practice session to prepare for the 200-lap event, Newberry secured the ninth position on the leader board and followed up with 12th place in final practice. Moving to qualifying the Wednesday night race, Newberry had a fast No. 24 Qore-24 Chevrolet Silverado, but an on-track incident in turn two, forced the team to unload the back-up truck.
Prepared to make his move from the back of the field from the 35th starting position, Newberry strapped in to his Qore-24 Chevrolet focused on moving up one position at a time in his march to the front of the field.
With the lights on and the green flag in the air, the NCWTS started the UNOH 200 and Newberry quickly began using patience with his Chevrolet as he made his first laps on the track in the back-up truck.
The first caution of the race came on lap two for a spin and crew chief Eddie Pardue called Newberry to pit road to top off with fuel. The race restarted on lap seven with Newberry in the 35th position.
Settling in for a long green-flag run, Newberry was able to work his way up to 30th when the second caution of the race waved on lap 70. Reporting to the team his truck was very tight, Newberry pitted for four tires, fuel and adjustments to help with the handling. The race restarted on lap 77 with Newberry running 30th.
With a quick caution on lap 81, Newberry radioed the team that his Chevrolet was handling better after the initial set of changes. Newberry opted to pit again for another quick round of adjustments. The race restarted on lap 88 and by the half-way point, Newberry was scored in the 28th position as spotter Rick Carelli encouraged him to keep doing what he was doing and run the guys in front of him down.
As the race closed in the on the final 50 laps, Newberry was able to move up to 27th with Carelli telling him his lap times were better when he ran the bottom of the race track. Newberry gained one more position as the laps ticked off and the field moved into the last 25 laps of the 200-lap event.
The fourth caution came out on lap 178 and Newberry quickly radioed his team that he needed a small adjustment to help tighten up his Silverado. He pitted for four tires, fuel and a track-bar adjustment. The race restarted on lap 186 with Newberry in the 23rd position, but as soon as the green flag was displayed, the yellow was again flying for the final caution of the race.
Following clean up, the race was restarted for the final time on lap 193 and Newberry finished 25th in his first trip to Thunder Valley and the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile.”
Newberry Knowledge:
“My first Bristol race was nothing short of exciting. I was thrilled to have the Qore-24 Chevy run in the top 10 in practice, but I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me for the race. The UNOH 200 reminded me a lot of my short-track roots, so it was no surprise to me that our NTS Motorsports team would need to work hard every lap. I was fortunate to bring the truck home unscathed, and I’m thrilled to head to Canada for our first NCWTS road-course race of the season.”
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