Dalton Sargeant and the No. 5s Victor Ford, Wauters Motorsports Ford Fusion had a weekend full of ups and downs on their way to a 16th-place finish in their first Winchester 400 together. Sargeant was racing well into the top-5 when a late race incident with 70 laps remaining took the 16-year-old stock car racing rookie out of contention.
Sargeant started on-track activity for the Winchester 400 on Friday with a pair of practice sessions to get acclimated with the historic half-mile speedway which he had never seen before. In both practice sessions, Sargeant set the seventh-fastest lap while the team worked on a race setup that didn’t lose grip over a long run. After Friday‘s practice sessions, driver and team were confident with their car and car setup, but all that was about to change. During the first practice session on Saturday morning, Sargeant made substantial contact with the outside retaining wall coming out of turn four. The incident forced the Wauters Motorsports team to make repairs to the No. 5s for the rest of the day, forfeiting the last two practice sessions. The No. 5s rolled out to qualify, with the team and driver not really knowing how the car would react with a completely different setup in the car. Sargeant still managed to qualify in the 19th position out of the 33-car field, all while trying to feel out the new car setup.
Saturday night saw the No. 5s Wauters Motorsports team make a slew of setup changes to combat the new suspension pieces, and as the green-flag flew for the 43rd running of the Winchester 400, Sargeant settled into position right outside of the top-10. 30 laps into the 400-lap event, a slower car ran into the left front corner while Sargeant was passing on the outside. The contact was enough to slow Sargeant’s progress and change the overall handling of the No. 5s, for the rest of the day the Wauters Motorsports team would attempt to fix the damage on each pitstop. On lap 100, Sargeant was able to crack the top-10, slowly and methodically making his way through the all-star field of drivers and cars. With veteran NASCAR crew chief Richie Wauters ontop of the pitbox, Sargeant had excellent tire and fuel strategy, the team stayed on their right side tires for the first 180 laps, only changing left side tires before lap 180. This meant the No. 5s team had new tires for the end of the 400-lap event, and Sargeant was just biding his time, waiting for the opportunity to come to pit road late in the event. By the halfway point in the Winchester 400, Sargeant had cracked the top-5 but was still being patient as he had older tires than most of the cars around him. A caution came out on lap 284 and Sargeant brought the No. 5s into the pits in the 5th position, through fast work by the Wauters Motorsports pit crew, Sargeant came out in the 3rd position right behind eventual-race winner Erik Jones. On the ensuing restart, while Sargeant was battling hard to keep his position, contact was made from the car directly behind the No. 5s. This left rear contact sent Sargeant straight into the wall, heavily damaging the rear and right side of the No. 5s. The crew did their best to repair the Wauters Motorsports Ford Fusion, but eventually had to throw in the towel due to a broken track bar. Sargeant officially finished in the 16th position, running 344 of the 400 laps.
Wauters Motorsports PR
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