MARTINSVILLE, VA – With morning practice now in the books at Martinsville Speedway, the fastest drivers are looking ahead to the rest of the day in hopes of locking themselves in the field for the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 later tonight.
Timothy Peters, Philip Morris and Stacy Puryear all, unofficially, were among the fastest cars in a field where the Harrington Enforcer and Chevy SPEC Upgrade motors are reigning supreme. Already, minor tweaks have been made to the rules to equalize the competition and allow the Ford Crate engines to be competitive.
“I got to run the Harrington and the SPEC,” Five-time and current NASCAR WHELEN All-American Series national champion Philip Morris told Race22.com. “Harrington is tremendous down the straightaway. The SPEC motor, you can carry your momentum through the corner, just let go of it and have your car cutting. There are a lot of Harringtons here, a lot of SPECs here, a lot of diversity at this track so it will be fun to see how it plays out.”
For Morris, the goal in afternoon practice is to not over-adjust the car because qualifying, and the feature race, will be run at night under different weather condition.
“I think we’re in the hunt for the pole for sure,” Morris said. “Really looking forward to taking the checkered flag, that’s what I’m looking for. I think we have a car that will do it if we don’t mess it up trying to go too fast in qualifying or mess it up trying to set it up for a racetrack like we’re on today. A lot of guys are going to set up for this track and you’ll never see it after 7 o’clock.”
Timothy Peters was, unofficially, fastest in testing with a 20.35 second lap on the stopwatch. Despite that, Peters feels he needs to find more speed for Saturday night’s race.
“The good part about Martinsville is that everybody is on the same playing field,” Peters stated. “The car is balancing good but I don’t think we have the speed that we probably need but we’re going to work on it. It isn’t from a lack of effort. It would be nice to sit on the front row that way you don’t have to run the heat races. I’m just proud of everybody at Nelson Motorsports and what Barry Nelson has done for us.”
Stacy Puryear was also fast in the morning practice session. Much like Morris, he is trying not to over-adjust while also hoping to lock himself in on the front row later this evening.
“We have a super-fast race car for sure. Working on it, tweaking on it still. There’s a lot more we can gain out of the nose, getting that sealed off and just getting the car a little bit tighter up off the corner. We’re a little bit too free right now. We’re in the sun. We were too tight last year, we were still fast, but we were too tight. Hopefully when the sun goes down, we’ll be right where we need to be.”
Practice will resume at Martinsville Speedway at 4pm. Qualifying will get underway at 8pm. Race22.com will have continuing coverage of Piedmont Racing Expo Pole Day at Martinsville Speedway on Solid Rock Carriers Raceday Live presented by Performancenter Racing Warehouse.
