Aric Almirola piloting the No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction NASCAR Camping World
truck finished in the third-place position in the running of the AAA Insurance
200 presented by JD Byrider race Friday at O'Reilly Raceway Park.
Almirola placed the No. 15 Billy Ballew Motorsports entry in the 15th-place
position on the starting grid with a time of 22.763 seconds at a speed of
108.492 miles per hour for the 200 lap race.
Almirola advanced to the eighth-place position when the first caution flag fell
on lap 39. The No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction team opted not to pit, while all the
trucks behind Almirola came down pit road for four fresh Goodyear's.
On the restart, Almirola had old tires and was unable to keep the truck up front
and fell victim to going a lap down to the leaders.
After a long green-flag run, the caution finally flew on lap 94 and allowed for
the No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction truck to come down pit road for four fresh tires
and adjustments. Restarting on lap 101, Almirola started double-file next to
leader and teammate Kyle Busch. Almirola knew he had to stay with the top bunch
of trucks to ensure he would be awarded the Lucky Dog on the next caution.
Fortunately, Almirola stuck with the top-four trucks and was in the position to
receive the Lucky
Dog when the caution flag flew on lap 161. Putting the No. 15 RedTop Auto
Auction truck back on the lead lap, Almirola motored forward passing trucks two
and three-wide to advance to the top-10. Two more yellow-flags flew over the
field on laps 173 and 187, and Almirola had worked his way up to the
sixth-position going into the final 10-lap shoot out.
For the restart Almirola put on the pressure moving to the third-place position
where he and other competitors put heat on the leader. The four truck battle
continued as the laps clicked off.
Almirola battled for position all the way to the checkered flag driving off the
turn four corner, securing a third-place finish in the AAA Insurance 200.
"We had a great truck. We started the race 15th tonight and drove up to sixth
and the first caution came out and we were, 'Pit? Don't Pit? Pit? Don't Pit?'"
Aric Almirola said. "So we stayed out and I thought we were fine. We rode around
in sixth there for a while and I don't know if we had a right-front (tire) going
down or what but all of a sudden we couldn't go. We went from being right with
the leaders to not even being able to run in the same ballpark as them. We got
really, really tight and lost a lap and I was so disappointed but I knew we had
a good enough truck to not give up. Once we put new tires on it, it was right
back to the same truck it was. I ran right there with the leaders and was
fortunate enough to get a caut ion and get the 'lucky dog' and we come back in
and got four more tires and man, it was just like night and day difference. I'm
really proud of Richie Wauters (crew chief) and everybody on this Billy Ballew
Motorsports truck tonight. They give me awesome trucks every week and it's a lot
of fun to race
"You could tell everybody who didn't have tires. That was fun. It was a lot of
fun to race on. It's a lot of fun when Goodyear brings a tire like that where
the tire really falls off and tires mean a lot."
"We were definitely fast enough to win. We just needed some more laps. That
caution right there at the end really hurt us. I was a little bit better than
(Dennis) Setzer and he was on the same tires that we were and I was on better
tires than (Ron) Hornaday and (Mike) Skinner. Congrats to (Ron) Hornaday. Four
in a row, that's incredible."
