Power steering issues hamper a top-10 finish for the No. 15 Graceway Pharmaceuticals ™ / AKAwareness.com team Friday, November 6, 2009 at Texas Motor Speedway relegating the team and driver, Aric Almirola, to a 14th-place finish.
Almirola placed the Billy Ballew Motorsports NASCAR Camping World Truck Series entry in the seventh-place position on the starting grid for the 147-lap race on the 1.5-mile Ft. Worth, Texas track.
From the beginning of the WinStar World Casino 350k truck race Almirola radioed in to the team that the truck was loose. Despite the handling issues Almirola maintained an eighth-place position on the racetrack.
While running in the seventh-place position on lap 67 Almirola called to crew chief, Doug George telling him that that he had lost the power steering in the truck making it difficult to steer and maneuver the Graceway Pharmaceuticals ™ race truck around the Ft. Worth, Texas track.
George and Almirola discussed opening the hood of the Tundra to try to isolate the problem under caution but feared losing valuable track position. Instead they played with strategy taking on only two-tires when many other teams took on four-tires. This gave the AKAwareness.com team the lead on lap 94.
Unfortunately, the mechanical issues continued relegating the No. 15 Graceway Pharmaceuticals ™ / AKAwareness.com Tundra to a 14th-place finish Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway.
According to NASCAR Loop statistics Almirola stayed in the top-15 for 166 of 167-laps and maintained an average position of 8.551-place in the WinStar World Casino 350k.
"We had a really good truck in Texas, obviously didn't show in our finish," Aric Almirola said. "But the AKAwareness.com Tundra was really good in practice and we ended up seventh in qualifying. We were on-track for a solid finish but the power steering gave out about 40 laps into the race and it was everything I had to steer the truck around the track. We thought about coming in to fix it but we would have lost so much track position and at a place like Texas you just can't afford to lose it. The AKAwarness.com crew had really good pit stops all night and got me out front at one point, but by then my power steering was shot and it was a lot to hold onto with hard charging Hornaday, Kyle Busch and Bodine behind me. Just looking forward to Phoenix next weekend."
The No. 15 Graceway Pharmaceuticals™ / AKAwareness.com Toyota Tundra team heads next to the Phoenix International Raceway for the running of the Lucas Oil 150 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race Friday, November 13, 2009. Aric Almirola will pilot the Billy Ballew Motorsports entry on the 1-mile track in Chandler, AZ.
