Stacy Compton overcame a mid-race spin on Saturday night at Iowa Speedway to make a come back charge for 16th in the inaugural Lucas Oil 200 at the 0.875-mile paved oval in Newton, Iowa. Despite grabbing their 16th top-20 finish in 17 starts this year, Compton and the Wyler Racing team were disappointed with the finish after pacing several pre-race practice sessions near the top of the speed charts.
"I'm not really sure what happened," said Compton after the race. "The first day in practice, we felt like we had a top-five truck and the second day, it was the same thing. We didn't make a lot of changes at all. Once the race started, I don't know if the temperature change affected us or what, but we struggled and we weren't the only ones that were caught off guard a bit."
Compton was on target for a great qualifying lap on Saturday when he laid down a first lap of 23.413 seconds at a speed of 134.541 miles per hour, but his No. 60 SafeAuto Toyota Tundra got loose coming out of turn four and he had to abort his second lap. "Everyone was picking up two to three tenths on their second lap and I think we had one of the fastest first laps of anybody out there," Compton explained. "I felt like the second lap would have been a lot better, but I got real loose and had to abort the lap right there at the start/finish line. We got really loose off of turn four and weren't able to complete the second lap."
Compton still thought he could race his way into the top-10 in the opening laps, after taking the green flag in the 13th starting spot. "It was a decent starting spot and I felt like within 20 laps we would end up in the top-10, but our truck was too tight and we never could get it freed up," he explained. "We worked on it all night. Marcus (Richmond, Crew Chief) made some good pit calls, as he always does and we felt like we had a good truck but we just can't figure out why our truck got so tight and wouldn't turn. We didn't fight that in practice at all and we never expected it."
Compton ran as high as 11th in his first start at the Iowa short track, and overcame a late race spin that occurred while battling with David Starr for position. The two spun in turn one on lap 111, bringing out the caution flag. "David and I were both racing as hard as we could," Compton explained. "We were trying to get to the front and we just ran out of real estate. Both of us were looking for the same spot. It looked like we both got loose and chased it and there wasn't enough room for both of us in the same spot. We were fortunate to come out with minimal damage and unfortunately, he was not." Compton fell one lap down to the leaders but became recipient of the "Lucky Dog" award on lap 128 when two trucks wrecked in turn four, bringing out the sixth caution flag of the night.
Compton's team never gave up, throwing adjustment after adjustment at their truck throughout the night. "We had some adjustability built into the truck, but apparently not enough," Compton continued. "We're not sure what happened. Marcus and I, along with our entire team, were probably as disappointed as we've ever been because we felt so good about our truck in practice. We're not sure what happened. We spent several hours after the race talking about it and we've got some ideas; we just can't put our fingers on it right now."
