Moffitt Tightens Grip on Points Lead at Pensacola

by | Apr 18, 2013 | NASCAR, NASCAR K&N Pro Series

Grimes, IA – Brett Moffitt, driver of the #11 Don Valley North Toyota Scion Toyota for Hattori Racing Enterprises (HRE), made his 50th career start at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, FL on Saturday night in the NAPA Auto Parts 150. He took the green flag on Saturday evening with a six point lead in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship point standings. By the time the checkered flag waved, Moffitt had extended his lead to nine points over his nearest competition.

The race teams arrived in Florida for the third race of the season a day early in order to participate in an open day of testing allowed by NASCAR prior to the inaugural NAPA Auto Parts 150. This was the first stop for the Series at the storied half mile asphalt raceway and the first stand-alone points race ever for the Series in the State of Florida. Teams were allowed to test the racing surface for the majority of the day, and the #11 HRE Toyota team, owned by Shigeaki Hattori and led by Crew Chief Dave McCarty, made good use of their opportunity to learn about track conditions. Five Flags is regarded as an “intermediate short track”, and its banked surface called for a somewhat different set up than the team had used the prior weekend at Greenville Pickens. Fine-tuning to compensate for those differences was the object of the open day of practice.

By the time the teams came out for K&N Pro Series East practice sessions on Saturday afternoon, the #11 Toyota was running laps in the 17.6 second range, or just under 102 mph around the banked half mile track. Qualifying was slated for the warmest part of the afternoon, and Moffitt managed to lay down a lap of 17.260 seconds or 104.287 mph to put his car into the 4th slot, giving him a starting position on the outside of row 2. Moffitt used his time from the 1st qualifying lap and brought the car in before completing his second qualifying lap, due to a very tight condition.

At the drop of the green flag, that tight condition persisted, and Moffitt began to drop quickly back through the field, falling almost immediately from his 4th place starting spot to the middle of the pack. By lap 15, he was struggling to hold onto the 12th position. Around lap 27, the car finally began to come back to him, and although Moffitt was not able to advance, he was at least able to close the door on 2 more contenders who were looking to improve their positions at his expense. As the handling improved little by little, he began to turn his fortunes around, and by lap 42, he was back inside the top 10 in 9th position. By lap 68, he had climbed up to 8th. On lap 72, Moffitt was scored in 7th position and was working hard to retake the 6th spot. He moved to the outside line, but could not make the pass for 6th stick and settled back in line in 7th. Although he had pulled even with the 6th place car again by the time the competition yellow waved on lap 75, he had not been able to complete the pass and was scored in 7th at the break.

Because the Series had never raced at Five Flags before, a 10 minute break was allowed at the half way point so that teams could make necessary adjustments. Teams were allowed to change 4 tires, but they were not permitted to raise the hoods for other adjustments. Moffitt explained to his team, “The car is coming to me, but we still need to get through the center of the corners better.” Dave McCarty and the crew added a rubber in the right rear and dropped the track bar, as well as making a slight air pressure adjustment.

Moffitt took the green flag for the restart from the inside of Row 4. The adjustments made by the #11 team over the break improved the handling enough that Moffitt was able to move back up to the 5th position by lap 85. With 50 laps to go, he was pressuring the 4th place car, and by lap 112, he had retaken the 4th position, winning a 4-way battle for the spot and regaining all of the positions he had dropped at the beginning of the event.

During the final caution of the evening on lap 136, Moffitt reported to the team that, “The drive off coming out of turn 4 is pretty much gone,” but he continued to hang onto his 4th place position until the end.

Although there had been action all night back in the pack, once the green flag waved, there were no lead changes whatsoever. Ben Kennedy, great grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., managed to capture the pole and lead every lap wire-to-wire.

Moffitt, the Series points leader, offered the winner his congratulations as he climbed out of the car. “Ben Kennedy was definitely the class of the field tonight. No one had anything for him. Ben and the #96 team really deserved this win, and we want to congratulate them. I also want to thank my guys for giving me a good car tonight. We battled a very tight condition from the start of the race, and had to drop back through the field and ride for a while to keep from wadding it up. Eventually, it started coming back to me, and we were able to work our way back up to 4th, which made for a good points night for us. My guys never gave up. They made good adjustments at the break, and we were able to get a solid finish.” Moffitt and the #11 HRE Toyota team have now scored 3 consecutive top 5 finishes in all 3 of their starts this season. (more…)