Johnny Sauter and the Allegiant Chevrolet team started from the 3rd position for Wednesday night’s UNOH 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Sauter fell back to the fifth position as the green flag waved and maintained his position while fighting a truck that was loose on entry and tight on exit. The tight-on-exit condition worsened as the teams approached the end of stage one, with Sauter falling back further to the ninth position.
Under caution for the complete of the first stage, crew chief Joe Shear, Jr., called his driver to pit road for four tires, fuel, and an air pressure and chassis adjustment. The No. 21 lined up seventh for the start of the second stage and Sauter gained three spots on the restart but ultimately began to struggle with the tightness on exit. With 20 laps remaining in stage two, Sauter told the team he needed a big adjustment to get through the final stage. He completed stage two in the seventh position before coming to pit road for four tires, fuel and another chassis adjustment.
Sauter lined up fifth for the start of the final 110-lap stage. He worked his way up to the second position on lap 139, battling for the lead before lap traffic slowed down his progress. Sauter held on to the third position until the final caution of the night on lap 196, setting up a green-white-checkered finish. Sauter spun his tires on the final restart, causing him to lose three positions on track to finish sixth.
Quote
“It seems like we are just struggling with our race setup lately. We were really good in practice and qualifying and when the rain came in we knew it would change the track a little but I didn’t expect for us to be that different. Thankfully we are really just looking for that second win to move us up in the playoff standings. I still feel like when we get to that final seven-race stretch we’ll be fine, but it would be nice to have a little bit of momentum leading into that. The No. 21 team did a great job improving the handling for the final stage tonight, we just really didn’t need that caution at the end.”
Additional Info
– Wednesday night’s sixth-place finish is Sauter’s sixth top-10 in nine starts at Bristol Motor Speedway.
– Sauter is second in the driver championship points, 42 points behind the leader, with one win and 10 playoff points.
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