Annett was 13th in both Nationwide Series practice sessions on Friday at
Gateway, but the team had an unforeseen issue when they went out to
qualify on Saturday afternoon, and the young driver started the race in
38th. Driving from the back of the pack to secure his second top-10 finish
of the season, Annett finished the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250
presented by Ventrilo in seventh as the highest finishing rookie and with
the most green flag passes of any driver. This was Annett’s second
seventh place finish of the 2009 Nationwide Series season, with the first
being at Kentucky Speedway in June.
“It was a battle all night. We started 38th in the field, but it was
great to see our No. 15 team never give up and just keep moving the car
closer to the front,” said Annett. “We’ve struggled some this
season, but we’ve been aiming for consistency. Earning this top-10
finish is definitely a good start to getting where we’d like to be.”
Annett was up 10 spots to 28th in the first five laps of the 200 lap race.
The rookie drove his No. 15 Ventrilo Toyota Camry into the top-20 by lap
30 with lap times consistent with those of the top-eight drivers. Battling
for the lucky dog pass, Annett earned the free pass for the fourth restart
of the race on lap 95. Now on the lead lap, Annett was working his way
from 17th into the top-15.
Only taking tires and gassing up on pit stops, the No. 15 Germain Racing
pit crew encouraged Annett to conserve fuel during the last 75 laps,
worried that with fuel they would be 3 laps short of making it all the way
if the team didn’t make another stop.
The seventh yellow flag of the night was thrown on lap 176. Annett was 8th
at the call of the caution, and under the direction of Crew Chief Mike
Hillman Sr., the No. 15 came to pit road and opted to take only two right
side tires and a fuel top-off.
Restarting in 6th with only 19 laps to go, Annett drove into the top-five
and up to fourth on lap 183. In a strong battle against some of the top
competitors in the series, Annett finished seventh in the
Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 presented by Ventrilo in the Ventrilo
sponsored No. 15.
An excited Annett said, “We’re really happy with our seventh place
finish tonight. I’m really proud of the entire No. 15 Germain Racing
group and pleased with the calls Mike Hillman Sr. made on pit road,
especially with the two tire stop at the end that put us in position for
the last 15 lap run. I’m happy that we were able to earn a top-10 finish
with the folks from Ventrilo there to see it.”
Looking forward to the next two weeks of Nationwide Series racing, Annett
noted, “Our short track program just keeps improving. With two more
short track races coming up in the next two weeks with ORP and Iowa,
we’re definitely looking forward to it.”
Annett heads to O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis, Indiana this
week, up one spot in driver points to 14th. The No. 15 Germain Racing team
will compete in the NASCAR Nationwide Series Kroger 200 at O’Reilly
Raceway Park on Saturday. Live TV and radio coverage of the event starts
at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN and MRN Radio.
For more information on Michael Annett, please visit www.michaelannett.com
and www.germainracing.com.
About Ventrilo and Flagship Industries:
Flagship Industries Inc, located in Maryville, Illinois, was founded in
2003 to pursue the development and marketing of the Ventrilo product line
which was originally started in the spring of 1999. Due to its superior
sound quality, reliability, scalability, user interface and ever evolving
feature set, Ventrilo has become the preferred group communications tool.
Ventrilo 3.0.0 is the next evolutionary step of Voice over IP (VoIP) group
communications software. Ventrilo is also the industry standard by which
all others measure themselves as they attempt to imitate its features.
More information can be found at www.ventrilo.com.
- Rising Star Management Group Press Release