Ray Black, Jr. and the No. 07 ScubaLife Chevrolet Silverado team finished 25th on Saturday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway. After racing inside the top 15, Black suffered a power steering failure during the closing laps to relegate him to a 25th-place finish.
Making his first start at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend, Black knew he would be up against a bit of a challenge. A difficult mile-and-a-half to master, the ScubaLife team expected a bit of a learning curve as they entered this weekend’s 200-mile event. With limited practice time, Black entered Saturday afternoon’s event with the primary goal of making it to the end of the race.
Rolling off in the 22nd position, Black learned a lot throughout the earlier stages of the race. After having the air taken off the back of his truck and spinning coming off the fourth turn just 11 laps into the event, Black quickly rebounded. Visiting pit road during back-to-back caution periods, the ScubaLife team made a series of chassis adjustments to tighten the handling of Black’s truck, which allowed the rookie contender to begin picking up positions on the track. Moving inside the top 20 by lap 40, Black continued to pick up positions until he was racing inside the top 15.
Coming off a top-five finish in Daytona, the ScubaLife team from SS Green Light Racing appeared poised to have another great finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend. However, with just 15 laps remaining in the event, Black started to feel a vibration in his truck. Not wanting to damage his equipment, Black brought the ScubaLife Chevrolet Silverado down pit road for the team to evaluate the problem. After changing four tires, the problem persisted and Black returned to pit road once more. Diagnosing an issue with the power steering, Black was able limp around to finish in the 25th position.
“It’s certainly been a roller coaster week for our ScubaLife team,” Black said. “We had a great finish in Daytona last week and we were hopeful that we could repeat that at Atlanta this weekend. However, even though we didn’t get the finish we wanted, it was still a great weekend for us. I learned a lot about how these trucks handle on mile-and-a-half racetracks, and specifically how they handle in traffic. With so many intermediate tracks on the schedule, that will be very important throughout the season. Honestly, the race on Saturday night was probably the most fun that I’ve ever had in a racecar. There’s a technical aspect to the track and you really had to drive the car; you couldn’t just drive wide open the entire race. It wasn’t a race that relied entirely on the horsepower that you had under the hood-you had to know when to lift and when to get back on the gas. It was a lot of fun.”
Ray Black Jr. PR
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