Special from Inside Line Promotions – BIRCH RUN, Mich. (June 13, 2018) – Mandy Chick built a lot of confidence thanks to a strong run last Friday during a JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour event at Birch Run Speedway, which hosted the Masters of the Pros 200.
“I was really excited to run this race since it’s double the number of laps we were used to running,” she said. “I like the longer races so I knew we were going to run well.”
A solid qualifying effort has been a goal of Chick’s all season long. Chick’s qualifying result of 11th gave her the starting position on the inside of the sixth row for the feature event.
“We’ve been working on trying to get our qualifying efforts a little bit better this season,” she said. “My dad came on the radio and told me to just give him a 15.7 second lap time and I went out there and came up with a 15.79 second lap time, which was good enough to give us a mid-pack starting spot amongst the high level of competition that was there. It was definitely cool to be able to see the hard work pay off and get that much closer to our goals.”
A competitor that outqualified Chick made the choice to work on his race car and fall to the rear of the field before the green flag. That advanced Chick one position to start from 10th and be on the preferred outside groove for when the green flag was waved.
“My car was really hooked up on the outside, we caught some lucky breaks and we were able to start on the outside for a lot of the restarts as well,” Chick said. “I struggled with a tight race car all day so being on the outside allowed me to arc my corners a little bit more and make it work. It was awesome being able to race hard with veterans like Bubba Pollard and Johnny VanDoorn as they have so much experience and success in these cars.”
Chick battled inside the top 10, running as high as second, against some of the top late model competitors in the United States. She finished the race 16th and is currently sitting a strong third in JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour championship standings.
“It’s kind of frustrating to see the result we had versus the car we had,” she said. “We had a really good car despite being tight, but we pretty much put 170 near perfect laps together. After the first pit stop and taking two tires we had a rocket ship, but as the run went on the car went back to being tight. Then after the last caution we had some good laps, but it got so tight the last 30 laps that I just couldn’t hold the position and we fell back. Overall, it was a good weekend and there was great racing. I’m hoping to carry that momentum into Salem.”
Chick’s next race will be this Saturday at Salem Speedway in Salem, Ind., with the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour.
