Catchfence

“Top-Five For Olsen; Smith Derailed To 15th Place Finish”

Lakeville, Conn. (August 16, 2009): Mike Olsen posted a top-five finish in the Mohegan Sun 200, a NASCAR Camping World Series East event at Lime Rock Park Saturday afternoon, despite suffering from heat exhaustion in the latter stages of the event. His teammate and regular Fadden Racing driver, Jonathan Smith, was well on his way to a top-five finish, but was relegated to 15th after late-race contact ended his day prematurely.

Olsen and Smith both kicked off the event with strong practice times and were among the top-10 fastest cars all day. Olsen followed it up with a qualifying effort of 54.694 seconds to put the No. 61 Jack’s Auto Service Chevrolet in a sixth place starting position. Smith’s qualifying lap of 55.103 seconds was the 12th fastest time of the day.

At the drop of the green, Olsen dropped back to eighth after the cars worked their way through turn one, and Smith was able to work his way up to ninth. The two Fadden Racing drivers ran together until lap 20 when Olsen decided to pit for fuel.

Smith moved up to second as the leaders took their green flag pit stops with the No. 16 Fadden Racing Chevrolet coming down pit road at lap 28. Olsen, meanwhile, was running eighth. Smith returned to the track in fifth place as the green flag laps continued.

Smith was consistent throughout the 1.53-mile course and held off strong challenges from Eddie MacDonald for several laps before eventually being relegated to sixth place at lap 40. Olsen made it up to seventh by the halfway mark. The two dropped back to seventh and eighth, where they remained for the next 20 laps.

Ironically, it was on lap 61 that Olsen drove by Smith for the seventh position and it was go time for the two time series champion. He also got by Steve Park to move into sixth before caution came out for the first time since it went green at lap 14.

“I was really struggling with the heat towards the end of the race,” said Olsen. “The race went green that long run and I didn’t expect that. During the caution it got worse for me.”

The race went back to green at lap 76 with Olsen moving into fourth. Smith was running sixth when he got involved in a battle that resulted in an accident that would end his day.

“Going into the short chute in the esses there, the 37 drilled me in the back. That got me all out of sorts going up the uphill. He got to the inside of me and got cleared. I was going down the downhill. The car was still upset from what he just did and then he just drilled right into the side of me and shot me right off. At that point I figured I would just hold on and I’ll get a top-10 out of it. Then all of a sudden, I got hit again. I was pretty frustrated,” said Smith.

Olsen went back to green at lap 82 and dropped back to sixth, but was able to gain momentum on Jesus Hernandez at the checkers for a fifth place finish.

“I was going to the bottom to try and protect my position and then the caution came back out and I found out it was for Jonathan,” explained Olsen. “Those guys went to the bottom and I went to the top because I almost got up to Ryan Truex going into one and then I got shuffled into the marbles. I cut back in line and watched the 37 and 12 battle it out and then got a run on them on the frontstretch and got by the 12.”

The NASCAR Camping World Series East returns to action next month for the Heluva Good Fall 125 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on September 18th.

For more information on Fadden Racing, Jonathan Smith, or Mike Olsen, visit www.faddenracing.net.

- Fadden Racing Press Release