Catchfence

Aric Almirola posts a second-place finish in the running of the Lucas Oil 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Iowa Speedway after a late race call to take two tires on a pit stop on the 7/8-mile race track in Newton, Iowa. Almirola posted a career best finish piloting the No. 15 Graceway Pharmaceuticals, Billy Ballew Motorsports entry after starting in the eighth-place position for the 200-lap race.

From the start of the inaugural Camping World Truck Series event at Iowa Speedway, Almirola reported that the race truck was tight into turns one and two and free into turns three and four and were to make adjustments on the first pit stop. On lap 57, while in the fifth-place position, Almirola then reported he felt something dragging or that he thought the sway bar may be unhooked. As the team debated coming in under the green flag conditions the caution flag fell on the speedway.

The Billy Ballew Motorsport team took on four tires and looked under the truck to see if there was an issue with the sway bar. The No. 15 Graceway team discovered that nothing was amiss, making trackbar adjustments to assist with the handling. The lengthy stop pushed Almirola back to the 11th-place position on the restart on lap 63.

Almirola had advanced to the 10th-place position but knew they had to do something to gain more track position as the laps moved past half-way in the race. The team, lead by Doug George, made the call on the next pit stop on lap 112 to take only two tires to gain track position. The strategy worked putting Almirola back out on the track in the lead on lap 114. Almirola held the position for three laps but lost the spot to the eventual winner of the race, Mike Skinner in the No. 5 truck on lap 117.

Almirola maintained the second place position during the long green flag run on the track when the caution returned to the track on lap 193, forcing a three-lap shootout. Almirola did what he could on the restart but he did not have enough to take the position bringing home a second-place finish for Billy Ballew Motorsports and Graceway Pharmaceuticals in the inaugural Lucas Oil 200 at Iowa Speedway. This marks Almirola’s fourth top-five and sixth top-10 finish in eight 2009 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts for Billy Ballew Motorsports.

“It was a weird night,” Almirola said. “We weren’t very good either in practice yesterday and my guys worked really, really hard. They were dirty from head to toe, covered in grease and everything else yesterday. We changed everything but the driver and just couldn’t find any speed. We went pretty much back to how we unloaded and fired off today and we were really good. Not really sure what we were fighting there yesterday but our Graceway Pharmaceuticals Toyota was real good today. We struggled a little bit in the pits tonight but thankfully enough this tire was hard enough that we could take two tires there at the end and we held on for second.

“I’ve run in the truck series quite a bit and to not get any better finishes than this is obviously a little disappointing. To be able to come home second, and that is a career best, I’m proud of that. I’m proud of all my guys and I’m proud of Billy Ballew Motorsports. It seems like we’ve run really well. We’ve run top-five I think six or seven of the last eight or nine races that we’ve run. We’re always up front. We’re always running good. It’s a lot of fun and I enjoy racing when you can race like that. I want to thank Billy Ballew a lot for the opportunity that he’s given me. Man, we’re just so close and if we keep running like this and if we keep putting ourselves in contention to win races and we can see the front eventually it will happen.

“Our first stop was pretty bad and we just lost so much track position. I knew we had to get it back. I told Doug (George, crew chief) we had to get it back somehow, someway so we took two tires. That was a great call on Doug’s (George, crew chief) part to get us back up there. I just want to thank Graceway Pharmaceuticals for coming back onboard this weekend. Billy Ballew (team owner) is just trying everything he can to get this race truck to the race track every single weekend and Graceway Pharmaceuticals stepped up big for us. I just want to thank them and thank these fans. What an awesome race track and the fans here are just awesome and so enthusiastic.

“Obviously the thought crosses your mind that you want to take the lead. You don’t ever give up on yourself or your race team. So anytime you’re running second with five to go you’d think that you’d like to have a shot to win the race, but man (Mike) Skinner was unbelievable tonight. His truck was really good. It turned really good. He had good forward bite and our truck just wasn’t good enough to do that. If we made it turn good, it would turn too good. And if we snugged it up it wouldn’t turn good enough. We really were on a razorblade tonight as far as trying to get our truck to handle the way we wanted it to. It would just go from loose to tight and we could never get a happy medium.”

Almirola’s run put both Billy Ballew Motorsports entries in the top-10 in 2009 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Owner Points for the first time since 2007 when the independent team owner began running two, full-time Truck Series teams. Ballew has had an entry in the Series for the past 14-years. The No. 15 Graceway Pharmaceuticals Tundra sits in the 10th-place position and the No. 51 Miccosukee Resort/Graceway Pharmaceuticals truck is in the second-place position just 203 points out of the lead.

Almirola will return to pilot the No. 15 entry at Gateway International Raceway Saturday, September 12, 2009.

- Billy Ballew Motorsports Press Release