Southern Super Series: Austin Theriault
World Crown 300 Race Report
JEFFERSON, Ga. – Austin Theriault of Fort Kent, Maine, finished fifth in the Southern Super Series World Crown 300 at Gresham Motorsports Park in Jefferson, Ga., on Saturday, August 10. It was Theriault’s second straight Top-5 in one of Super Late Model racing’s most prestigious events. Theriault qualified sixth in the Brad Keselowski Racing No. 29 Checkered Flag Foundation Ford Fusion and tried to play the tire strategy game in the second half of the event, but a long green-flag run to close out the race thwarted that plan and left Theriault running fifth at the checkered flag.
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: World Crown 300
WHERE: Gresham Motorsports Park, Jefferson, Ga. (.500-mile banked oval)
STARTED: 6th
FINISHED: 5th
********
AUSTIN, IT LOOKS LIKE YOU GUYS WERE GOOD BUT NOT GREAT IN THE WORLD CROWN 300.
Yeah, you kind of hit it right there. It’s a little bit of a disappointment. At the level we’re racing, a Top-5 isn’t bad, but I think we’re plenty capable of more.
We pitted on Lap 100 for tires, and when the caution came out again on Lap 180, we just made some adjustments while everyone else took tires, hoping we’d have another caution later on – but it went green right to the end. We had almost 200 laps on our tires. That’s quite a lot of laps on them. It wasn’t a horrible finish taking all that into account, but it could have been better.
WHAT WERE YOU FIGHTING?
It rained before qualifying, and I don’t know if that had something to do with it. The way we ended practice, we were actually a little free. But when we went out to qualify, the whole balance of the car went the complete opposite direction. I think some of the guys that were too free, it probably benefited them.
I felt like we had a car that was capable of running in the Top-5, but if most everything fell in our favor, that would have helped us out. The car wasn’t perfect in practice, but those weekends are hard to get where you just put it on jackstands and wait for qualifying. You don’t really find those weekends. We were still trying to make the car better, and I think we made some gains. I really appreciate Clay Rogers taking some time on Friday when I was in New Hampshire to work with Gary (Crooks) and get the car tuned in. They found something that helped when I showed up on Saturday.
HOW DID THE IMPOUND AFTER QUALIFYING EFFECT YOUR RACE?
We kind of chased the track for a little while. It was really slick, and a little free (in practice). We tightened it up a little and worked on trying to get some grip in the car. Maybe we went a little too far in qualifying, because we were a little snug then.
With the impound, we couldn’t make any adjustments after qualifying. The track cooled down and gained a little more grip than we expected. We struggled a little bit throughout the race trying to get the car to turn a little better in the center of the corner. I’d say we made it a little bit better, and we were faster at the end of the race, but we didn’t have the tires we needed to run up front. We were one of two or three cars that had tires left in the pits, because we had that long green flag run at the end.