“In practice, I felt like we had really good long-run speed, solidly in the Top-10, if not better. Qualifying wasn’t great, I over-drove Turn One. I thought we were going to be pretty tight, but we were really loose, so we started at the back. We were going to take our time in the first stage, working our way forward, keeping the fenders on it. We knew we had a good GR Supra, so we were steadily making our way through the field, and I put myself in a bad position on one of the restarts on the bottom. I got loose and the air sucked off my door and backed it into the fence with the left side pretty good. The damage killed our chances of driving back toward the front. We maintained where we were even though we were racing pretty hard. It was hard to make up much ground after that damage. We were competing around 18th most of the final stage, but ended up really tight at the end and couldn’t gain positions. Overall, I learned a lot and I know we brought a good car, so I’m hoping we can take that and have a great weekend in Atlanta.
– Connor Mosack, Driver of the No. 24 Toyota GR Supra
“The goal for this weekend was to finally have a clean race and finish where we should finish. Every week so far has been Top-15 or better, and we were doing just that. We were in the top-15 pretty much all day. We even grabbed a couple of stage points. We honestly had a pretty solid race going. I even had a solid restart there (Lap 156), in the top-12 or so in good shape when a few laps later a couple of cars ahead of me got together. We had some light contact, and then I was hit from the left side and shoved right back into the mess, destroying our No. 26 Fire Dept. Coffee GR Supra. I’m actually impressed that we even limped it home there because that was a really big hit. We at least salvaged what we could points-wise, but we definitely didn’t finish where we should have and didn’t have much to show for our day that I feel we deserved. Hopefully, we at least got some good coverage there because our Fire Dept. Coffee car was good. We just really need a bit of luck on our side. I’m looking forward to Atlanta next week.”
– Kaz Grala, Driver of the No. 26 Fire Dept. Coffee GR Supra
KEY NOTES
No. 24 Toyota Team:
Connor Mosack practiced 21st and qualified 36th for the United Rentals 200 at Phoenix Raceway following a great save during his qualifying lap due to getting loose. Mosack finished 24th in the 200-lap event.
The No. 24 made up great track position throughout the first two stages.
On Lap 70, Mosack spun in Turn 2 causing damage on the No 24 GR Supra. Mosack had come back to compete for a Top-15 position in Stage 3 before late-race cautions and restarts led the 24 team to a 24th-place finish.
No. 26 Fire Dept. Coffee Team:
Kaz Grala and the No. 26 Fire Dept. Coffee team started the United Rentals 200 at Phoenix Raceway from the 13th position, finishing 34th in the 200-lap event.
The No. 26 Fire Dept. Coffee GR Supra battled within the Top-10 and was on-track for a solid top-15 finish. Grala gathered his first stage points of the season as he finished 9th in Stage 2.
On Lap 180, while running 16th, Grala was involved in a crash just before the Start/Finish line causing significant damage to the No. 26 GR Supra. Grala continued on but finished 34th.
