Joey Polewarczyk grabs a second place finish in the 2011 Labor Day Classic
(Barre, VT) – Joey Polewarczyk delivered on a promise to himself and his team during the ACT Labor Day Classic, held at Thunder Road Speedbowl on September 4.
That promise was to bring home a great finish and by coming away with a second-place finish, he did just that.
“It was a great day for us, we had a great car. I knew it would come down to who had the freshest tires on at the end and, well Nick (Sweet) got us at the end.” Joey would add, “It is still a great confidence building day for us”
Joey started eighth in his heat race and finished fourth, which was one position out of qualifying for the main event. Joey used a consolation race win to secure a fourth place starting spot on the 30-car starting-grid.
Polewarczyk had his #97 Poles Automotive, NH Precision Ford Fusion following the top-5 cars around the track for the first portion of the race, when a car slide up the track and Joey touched his rear bumper, sending the car spinning around. Race Control put Joey on the rear for causing the yellow flag to come out.
“I thought we were in trouble at that point but as it turned out, we were going to pit for adjustments at the first chance we had anyway, so it worked out for us”
On a lap 100 caution, Joey, and team decided that they better pit and put on two new right side tires. Joey would say after the race, “It’s a tough call when to pit for right-side tires. There have been so many long, green-flag runs that it‘s hard to peg an exact time. You certainly cannot go in under green flag conditions or your day is over.”
“Nick used a later caution to put on his tires and he caught us on lap 187, we really tried to race him clean, he was the faster car at that point because of the fresher tires.”
Joey and the team are very happy to come away with a podium finish at Thunder Road and they will use this as they look to repeat in the upcoming 49th Annual Vermont Milk Bowl, held at Thunder Road in early October.