ARCA/CRA Super Series: Austin Theriault
Lucas Oil Raceway Park Race Report
SALEM, Ind. – Austin Theriault of Fort Kent, Maine, finished fifth in the ARCA/CRA Super Series Night Of Stars 100 at Lucas Oil Raceway Park in Salem, Ind., on Friday, July 26. Theriault qualified seventh in his first trip to the famed .625-mile oval outside of Indianapolis, and rallied to finish in the Top-5 to mark his sixth consecutive Top-6 finish in the Brad Keselowski Racing No. 29 Checkered Flag Foundation Ford Fusion. Theriault spent the limited amount of practice time at LORP dialing the car in after unloading at the flat track and felt that by the time the race ended the car was the best it had been all weekend.
WHO: Austin Theriault, Fort Kent, Maine
TEAM: Brad Keselowski Racing No. 29 Checkered Flag Foundation Ford Fusion
CREW CHIEF: Gary Crooks, Mooresville, N.C.
WHAT: ARCA/CRA Super Series Night Of Stars 100
WHERE: Lucas Oil Raceway Park, Salem, Ind. (.625-mile oval)
STARTED: 7th
FINISHED: 5th
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AUSTIN, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE DAY OVERALL AT LUCAS OIL RACEWAY PARK?
Honestly, it was one of the more challenging weekends we’ve had in a while. We unloaded and struggled with both cars, both Trey Mitchell and myself. With the limited amount of practice time and it being a one-day race, we spent the first practice throwing a whole bunch of things at the car. We made some gains on it, and in the second practice we just tried to focus on continuing to make the gains we made in the first practice. We kind of just ran out of time, and had to race with what we ended up with.
We made some changes before the race. Looking back at them, they might have been wrong way to go – but it was just the way everything ended up with the circumstances, there wasn’t much else we could do. We still ran a decent race. We finished better than we qualified, which was positive. I really felt like we had a Top-5 car, and that’s where we ended up finishing. It was another positive weekend where we learned some stuff, and we did some things we’ll be able to build on.
WHAT WERE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF THE TRACK?
The track was one of the more challenging race tracks I’ve been to, both to race on and to pass on. You really had to be a lot faster than the guy ahead of you to pass them. There wasn’t a bottom groove, nor was there really a second groove. Most everybody was running at the top of the race track near the wall. That’s where we were fastest.
You had to make up a lot of ground on restarts. We just weren’t fortunate to start on the outside on any of the restarts, but we stayed out of trouble and tried to take what the track would give us.
WHAT DOES THE RECENT STRING OF TOP-6 FINISHES DO FOR YOU AND THE TEAM?
It’s a positive to be able to do that, but we all know that we’re capable of winning. We could have won some of these races – just sometimes it comes down to the circumstances and how the races play out. Things just didn’t play in our favor in a couple of them.
It’s also ammunition for us to work harder and to try harder to try to turn some of these Top-5 and Top-6 finishes in the future into wins. It’s not a bad thing we’re doing this, it allows us to build on something when you’re not wrecking race cars and can finish Top-5 every week. It allows you to work on something bigger. Now we just have to work on being able to turn Top-5s into wins.