Lady Luck Down on Jason White at Vegas

Jason White saw a promising run vanish on Saturday when a cut right front tire on the No. 23 GunBroker.com Chevrolet caused a two-truck accident in Turn 2  in the closing laps of the Smith’s 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The unfortunate turn of events relegated the series veteran to a 14th-place finish.

White, forced to a back-up truck following a crash in the closing minutes of final practice on Friday, started the 146-lap event from the 23rd position. Unhappy with handling of his GunBroker.com machine in the opening laps of the event, White took every opportunity under caution to come down pit road to the attention of his crew.

After a shock adjustment, 35-laps into the event, the GunBroker.com Chevrolet came to life. When the fifth caution flag of the afternoon was waved at lap 42, White elected to stay out when most of the front-runners had to come down pit road. When racing resumed, the No. 23 machine was scored fourth.

White maintained a position inside the top-10 for the next 91 laps, running as high as fifth and poised for his second top-five finish at the 1.5-mile tri-oval until contact with another competitor, with eight laps remaining, ultimately cut a right front tire sending the GunBroker.com machine into the Turn 2 wall.

White was able to make it back to pit road for repairs and finish the race but extensive damage resulted in a 14th-place finish, eight laps down to the race winner, Ron Hornaday.

Jason White Quotes:

“It’s unfortunate that we had to go to a back-up for the race today. Our primary for this race was good, really good. We were making a mock-qualifying run in final practice Friday and I went for it, knowing that to win you had to start up front, to start up front you had to qualifying up front and to qualify up front, you had to be good in practice. I just got loose in turn two and the rest is history. It happened with minutes left in final practice so we headed out for qualifying blind and as a result I started 23rd.”

“Chad (Kendrick) and the guys did a really good job at the beginning of the race getting the truck free enough for me to be competitive; it was way too tight in the early laps. We finally opened up the front shocks and the truck came to life. We were competitive today and I knew if we just survived we would be ok.”

“Coming out of turn four I made contact with the 32 of Blake Feese and ultimately cut a tire ruining our day. There were definitely some highs this weekend but we had our share of lows as well. The results don’t show how hard my guys worked this weekend. They were able to bring out the back-up and make it just as competitive as our primary and that is evidence that our time is coming. We will re-group and focus on Talladega. There are still four races left to show everyone we can do this.”

Notes:

  • In 21 starts, the Joe Denette Motorsports team has one top-five, three top-10,eight top-15 and 13 top-20 finishes.
  • White currently has an average starting position of 18.6 and an average finishing position of 18.1 in 2011. The veteran driver has led 50 laps and completed 95.03 percent of laps attempted (3114 of 3277).
  • White is currently 17th in the 2011 NCWTS driver point standings.

JDM PR