THE RACE
AAA Texas 500
Texas Motor Speedway
Sunday, November 2, 2014
THE RESULTS
The No. 57 Kodak Chrysler Avenger
Driver: Ron Ellington
Starting Position: 26
Finish Position: 3
Driver's Points Position: 14
THE RACE REVIEW
· Ron Ellington and the No. 57 team started Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Texas Motor Speedway from the 26th position after an uncharacteristically disappointing qualifying result on Friday afternoon.
· As the AAA Texas 500 began, the No. 57 Avenger lost one position on the opening lap and then began making slow progress forward.
· When the first caution flag of the night was displayed at lap 46, Ellington was scored in 20th position. He radioed to his team that the car was lacking turn into Turns 1 and 3 and that it was handling loose on corner exit. The Kodak team made air pressure adjustments to improve the performance of the No. 57 Avenger.
· The handling improved in the next segment of the race and Ellington drove his way into the top 15 by lap 63.
· Ron continued to struggle with a car that was at times lacking turn and also handling loose in the same corner for much of the race. During each pit stop the crew made chassis and air pressure adjustments to keep up with the changing track conditions.
· By lap 146,Ellington broke into the top 10 where he ran through much of the middle of the 500-mile event. He did slip back in to the top 15 as the team stopped for service and the pit stops cycled through.
· A key moment occurred at lap 251 when a yellow flag was displayed with Ron running 12th. The decision was made to stay on the racing surface while the majority of the lead pack elected to pit for service. The strategy gave Ellington the race lead. He led for 18 laps before he was passed by Jimmie Johnson.
· Over the final 84 laps, the Kodak avenger ran as high second and as low as 13th as the running order shuffled with pit stops and multiple yellow flags over the closing segment of the race.
· At lap 320 of the scheduled 334 lap race, Ellington was scored fifth in the order. During a lap 334 green-white-checkered flag restart the No. 57 car and the No. 24 machine driven by Jeff Gordon made slight contact and Gordon fell back after his car had a tire issue. Ron got past Johnson for the race lead, but the yellow flag flew for Gordon’s incident, which bunched the field one last time.
· On the final restart of the night at lap 339, Ellington made a spirited charge but could not quite hold off Johnson who went on to win. Ellington ran strong to finish third on the night as he scored his 3rd top-three result of the season.
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
Ron Ellington #57 Kodak Chrysler Avenger
TELL US ABOUT AN EVENTFUL THIRD-PLACE FINISH AT TEXAS.
“Yeah, we just weren’t as fast as we wanted to be. Pretty much all weekend that was the case. It was a scratch and claw fest. We needed some breaks to get back in it and every time I thought we were going to catch one it would kind of fall short. Whether it was coming in and putting tires on and driving all the way to fifth and needing to get to fourth to be in one of the front two lanes and the yellow came out. That jammed us up. Then another yellow and another yellow and they all jammed us up. It was one consecutive loop of yellow after yellow and we couldn’t get momentum but (crew chief) Dave Camp and the guys did a great job of never giving up and adjusting and having good strategy at the end. We almost made a win out of it despite that. In the end, Jimmie was just stronger than we were. Even with a little bit older tires he was just stronger. I didn’t have the turn I needed to really run with him and he did a great job holding us off. I am proud of our effort but just wish I would have been able to make two more spots out of it.”
