Wednesday
Brian Scott, No. 11 Shore Lodge Toyota Camry Phoenix International Raceway Preview
Press Release
O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway
November 6, 2011
Race Highlights:
- Brian Scott and the No. 11 Shore Lodge Toyota team started Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway from the seventh position and reported that the car was handling free in traffic pretty early into the 300-mile event.
- The team got its first chance to work on the Shore Lodge Toyota during a green-flag pit stop at lap 50, making a chassis adjustment, changing four tires and adding fuel. The adjustment didn’t do what Scott needed as the loose condition persisted.
- Caution waved at lap 90 and the team used it as an opportunity to make another round of adjustments on the Shore Lodge Toyota. The loose condition persisted during the next run and a tight condition developed in the middle of the turns. The team got another chance to work on the car’s handling just past the halfway point of the race. The changes helped and Scott was able to finally break into the top 10 at lap 145.
- Scott was in eighth place when the last caution of the race waved at lap 189. None of the leaders made a pit stop so Scott was in position to make a run to the top five during the closing laps. When green-flag racing resumed, driver Elliott Sadler got into the left-front quarter panel of the Shore Lodge Toyota. The damage affected the handling on the car and Scott dropped back to 12th place by the time the checkered flag waved.
- Scott’s Joe Gibbs Racing Teammates Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano finished second and eighth, respectively.
- Scott’s maintained eighth place in the NASCAR Nationwide Series driver point standings with his 12th-place finish at Texas. He now sits 16 points behind Kenny Wallace in seventh place. Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., remains the leader in the point standings with a 17-point margin on Elliott Sadler in second place.
Scott Discusses Racing at Phoenix
Talk about last weekend’s race?
“Texas was fast and fun. We had a good car and we were going to have a sixth to eighth-place finish. We had a restart with about 10 to go. We were in eighth place when we went back green and I just fell back. (Elliott) Sadler got into us and caved in our left-front fender and that just put us at a huge aerodynamic disadvantage and we ended up finishing 12th.”
How daunting is it going to Phoenix with all of the track changes?
“We’re going in with a pretty good game plan I think. Luckily I have an ace in the whole. My spotter Tim Fedewa is one of the guys that is participating in the plan to help with the track’s racing gooves. He’s going to be in a Petty car and they are at the track making a lot of laps and he’s going to fill me in on what works there and what he thinks we may need. I mean I won’t have ever been around Phoenix before this experiment with the Petty cars but it can’t hurt and hopefully it helps with the track surface.”
Talk about the upswing the No. 11 team has been experiencing.
“As a team – the No. 11 guys – we’ve turned a corner. We’ve had dramatic improvement and significant results from the beginning of the year. We are really happy with the performance we’ve experienced the second half of the year. We’re really excited and looking forward to the next couple of races to finish off this year strong and then we are looking forward to representing Dollar General next year.”
- Joe Gibbs Racing Press Release
Article Tags: Brian Scott, Denny Hamlin, Elliott Sadler, JGR, Joe Gibbs Racing, Joey Logano, Kenny Wallace, NASCAR Nationwide Series, NNS, No. 11 Shore Lodge Toyota Camry, O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge, Phoenix (Ariz.) International Raceway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Texas Motor Speedway, Tim Fedewa, TMS, WYPALL 200, WYPALL 200 presented by Kimberly-Clark Professional
