PIT
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Tale of Two Halves at Iowa for Drew Brannon | Newton, IA (September 19, 2009) Prior to the halfway break at the ASA Challenge Series Iowa 100, Drew Brannon was moving to the front, after the competition caution the handling went away for the Florida teen who brought home the ASI Limited Chevy in tenth place.
Brannon had shown throughout practice and qualifying that the SS Green Light team was fast and ready to face the 32 competitors who journeyed to the 7/8 mile track in central Iowa. Brannon qualified second behind Dillon Oliver and would start the race from the 9th position.
At the drop of the green flag Drew was trapped behind a slower car and fell back to the twelfth place. He reported to Crew Chief Butch Miller the car was loose, but as the tires heated-up the handling of his Chevy improved and the No. 08 began to charge to the front.
The first half of the race was plagued with cautions, which slowed Drew’s advance to the point. By the 29th lap, he had moved back to the top-seven and was one of the quickest cars on the track. An incident on lap 39 brought out the races fourth yellow, ASA Officials decided it was close enough to halfway to make the stoppage the competition caution and allowed the teams to come to pit-road for adjustments.
The SS Green Light crew made minor adjustments and bolted-on a set of two-lap scuffed tires that had been used during a mock qualifying run in practice. The green fell on lap 43 and Drew immediately knew something was wrong with his car. It was so loose he nearly spun-out on several occasions dropping back to the twelfth position again.
This time, the handling did not come back as it had earlier in the race and Drew struggled to recover the lost positions, fighting the ill-handling car to a tenth place finish.
The waning laps provided plenty of action at the front as point leader Brian Campbell and pole-sitter Oliver swapped the top spot several times before contact sent Campbell spinning with only four laps to go. Oliver would go on to win the event and Campbell would end up twentieth, the last car on the lead lap.
“We were so good in practice, I really thought we would have something for them today,” said Miller. “That set of tires is the same set we used for our mock qualifying run and didn’t have the results we expected. We checked everything out and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Sometimes you just get a set that doesn’t react how you expect and that is what happened today. I feel we had a better car than tenth place.”
Drew Brannon the SS Green Light team will try to secure the ASA Late Model South Division title at Brannon’s home track in Punta Gorda, FL on October 3rd for “The Best Show in Town 100”. Brannon leads Dustin Dunn by 120 points going into the South Division season finale.
For more on SS Green Light Racing, visit www.SSRacingonline.com or email: pr@ssgreenlight.com.
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