The  "Racing For Clean Air" Team Captain Andy Santerre
"Truex Outsprints Santerre, Leighton in Busch North 125"
By ALLEN LESSELS
Sunday News Sports
LOUDON—Brad Leighton did not have quite enough to catch Andy Santerre. And Andy Santerre did not have quite enough to catch Martin Truex Jr.
So there they raced yesterday for the last 25 laps of the New England 125 NASCAR Busch North Series race that capped a day in front of 52,000 fans at New Hampshire International Speedway.
Center Harbor's Leighton who has seven wins here, passed rookie Ryan Moore and caught Truex and Santerre and took a series of runs at Santerre. But couldn't get by him.
Santerre, in turn, took even more shots at Truex. He got inside the leader a number of times, but could never complete the pass.
And that's how they finished: Truex followed by Santerre, followed by Leighton, followed by Moore.
All of them took something positive from the race.
Truex, who has been running part time on the Busch tour and part time on the Busch North tour, won for the second time here overall, won for the second time in his four North races this year and collected $13,500 on a day when he thought he was in trouble.
"I thought I was a sitting duck the last 20 laps," Truex said. "I thought he was holding back. He was right on my bumper and I thought he was riding and waiting for the last five laps."
Truex knew his car was not the best at the end, but he had just enough to hold off Santerre and appreciated how clean the race went.
"Anybody else probably would have touched me on the quarter panel (bumped him out of the way) and been on their way," Truex said. "But Andy doesn't race like that and knows I wouldn't do it to him."
Santerre, who has won three races this year, took a shot at the win but also managed to increase his lead in the North series points race.
"I was happy," Santerre said. "I stayed on his back bumper so long, sometimes a guy cracks when he's leading. I tried to rattle him and get up there and make a run, but he was running a perfect line."
Leighton raced for the first time this season. He sort of retired after last season and plans t o go to five races this year— including the second North event here in September—with his new Irving Oil team.
Truth be told, he thought the team could do better than third yesterday.
"We didn't get any practice with other cars," he said. "We didn't get out in time this morning."
Thursday, he practiced 17 laps.
"But not with anybody in front of us," Leighton said. "If we'd done that, we might have realized what we had for aerodynamics and maybe could have made adjustments."
While he and Santerre looked like they were getting nice low lines, putting them in prime position to pass, Leighton said, they were actually too low and the aerodynamics of their cars were thrown off. The track has been paved lower in the corners, so what looks like a good low line may not be, he said.
That said, grabbing third after spending much of the race back around seventh was satisfying.
"We did make a couple of adjustments and tightened things up," Leighton said. "We took some tape off the nose and that definitely helped it. Then we could go,"
In those last 25 laps, his car was two tenths to three-tenths of a second faster than the leaders. Leighton said, and he helped make a race of it.
Moore moved from fourth to second in the North point standings. He passed Matt Kobyluck, who was sitting in second and was knocked out by a crash on the 23rd lap, and passed Kelly Moore, his father.
Kelly Moore was 12th yesterday. Michael Johnson was fifth and Mike Olsen of North Haverhill sixth. Dale Quarterley, Dave Dion of Hudson, Thomas Carey and Brian Hoar filled out the Top 10.
Six caution periods in the race covered 37 laps and the average speed was 90.ll4 miles per hour. Truex started on the pole and led the first 32 laps, pitted and gave up the lead to Dennis Demers for 14 laps, and held the lead for the last 79.
Despite the pressure from Santerre and Leighton.
|
©2006
by Castle Products, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
info@castlepackspower.com
webmaster@castlepackspower.com |
