Burnett Keeps Top 5 Streak Alive at Auto Club Speedway

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Fontana, California – NASTRACK finished its third and final race of the “West Coast Swing” this past Monday night under the lights at the high speed two-mile oval that is Auto Club Speedway. This week however, using a little bit more patients and break pedal as the field was only slowed once for a spin on the front stretch. Pit strategy and tire management played a big roll the outcome of this weeks race as NASTRACK saw its fifth different winner in five different races. Chris Simard, who went through practice and qualifying as the fourth fastest machine of the seventeen that took time, was able to save just enough and make the right call down pit road to steal the win in the closing laps.

Steven Burnett, No. 5 Rocky Ridge Custom Trucks

Chevrolet Camaro

Started: 5th

Finished: 4th

Standing: 3rd

Recap: Burnett would set the fastest time in practice, but when qualifying rolled around, Burnett would start 5th after some miss ques. When the green flag waved, Burnett would jump up to 3rd. Burnett would tap the wall just enough at one point, which would drop Burnett to battle two drivers in 4th and 5th. Coming off turn two, Burnett and another driver would touch and send Burnett scraping the outside wall again. The only caution would fly around lap 18 and would give Burnett and the crew a chance to get the the car right. On the restart, Burnett would start 4th and stay in the top 5 the rest of the race. As the field would get shuffled around during green flag pit stops, Burnett would lead a few laps before making his last pit stop. Burnett would make a costly mistake and slide through his pit stop. This would send him back to 7th over six seconds behind the leader. Burnett would close the gap to 3.5 seconds and move up to 4th, but ran out of laps. Burnett said this in a post race interview: "The car felt great, just a error on my part cost us this race. I hate it, because the team worked so hard this past week. I was able to get another top 5, and that will help us with the new chase format, but I am still looking for our 1st win of the season. Got to thank all our partners, Rocky Ridge Custom Trucks, I am Second, The Weekly Racer, Puro Clean, HMS and Race Driven Graphics for their continue support of this race team. It's only in due time that we will find victory lane."

Justin Kern, No. 2 Waltz Engineered Sales, Inc.

Chevrolet Camaro

Started: 15th

Finished: 12th

Standing: 11th

Recap: Coming off of a season high finish of seventh at Phoenix and equipment fix in the cockpit of the simulator, Kern went into Fontana with the hopes of matching, if not bettering his finish from the week before. Yet another track on the circuit this sophomore has minimum experience with it the goal coming in was to keep the nose clean and as much fuel in the tank as possible. Posting practice times around the top five all night it was rather strange to both driver and crew to find them almost at the tail end of the pack come the end of qualifying. The Waltz Engineered Sales, Inc Chevy would roll off the grid fifteenth for the 70-lap feature.

“You know I don’t know what happened to the car there during qualifying,” Kern said. “We knew were weren’t the fastest of the group but we laid down some decent times in practice. Only thing I can think of was we just didn't hit the draft right for our flyer lap and had to start to the rear.” Kern would stay towards the latter half of the pack for most of the race looking to avoid the wrecks as Auto Club is known for three or four wide racing in the corners. Keeping the pack within the draft Kern was able to save enough fuel that he got off sequence with the lead pack by a large margin and even lead two laps. “That was our plan going into the race honestly,” Kern explained. “We learned a few things this past week when we tested down in Homestead. We were able to back off the throttle a lot and just use the draft to keep us up with the pack and run the high line to save tires. We were able to take the car two extra laps before pitting. We ran her bone dry – which ultimately killed us on pit entry, but was able to secure a third place finish. This time we got busted at the last second with a speeding penalty and lost two laps serving. Next time we will meet in the middle and make it perfect and grab that win so we can get Max Rev Motorsports, The Weekly Racer, Waltz Engineered Sales, Puro Clean, and Race driven graphics not only in victory lane but in the chase."

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The teams will make there way back towards the east coast as well as their next stop on the circuit – Texas Motor Speedway.