RIDGEWAY, VA :: Annabeth Barnes is hoping to make the field in her second attempt to compete in the Martinsville DuPont Credit Union (MDCU) 300 at Martinsville Speedway. Last year, Barnes was involved in an early accident in her respective heat race and ended up missing the field by three positions after advancing to the Last Chance Qualifier.
This season, Barnes is more optimistic about her chances to make the field. If she can stay out of trouble in the heat race, she feels the car will be strong enough to compete. During last week’s open test, she focused mostly on the handling of the racecar, saying that the track was tightening up throughout the day.
“I think the car’s better than it was last year. All we’ve been working on today is keeping the car free because, as the rubber gets on the track, it’s been tightening up,” Barnes said during Wednesday’s test session. “When we unloaded, the car was pretty good. As we went through the day, we’ve been working on a lot of different things, trying to see what will be best fit for race day adjustments that we’ll make when the track tightens up.”
Barnes’ sophomore season has been just as challenging as her rookie season was last year when she raced for Rev Racing through NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity. But now, Barnes is ready to put that behind her as she looks ahead to Martinsville.
“We’re really excited to be here,” Barnes stated. “We’ve had a rough season. We just had a lot of motor issues mainly. We kind of feel like we have a good strong motor in it.”
Barnes will be racing for Kim Hunter McCorkle and KHM Racing in Sunday’s race. The KHM car is a new car that Barnes began racing this season. Barnes also feels confident that the motor setbacks she has had this season have been figured out and resolved.
“We just got this car for this year and it’s been really good,” Barnes explained. “As far as set up wise, I feel like the car’s been a lot better this year than what we had before. We’ve just had the hardest time with motors. We’ve had two blown motors and we just couldn’t get one running and then we went to a different one. We finally actually borrowed a motor, a real cheap crate motor, just to try to see if it was better than the built that we had and it was faster so that was saying a lot because, if anyone knows anything about builts, you put a lot in to those and the builders put a lot in to those so, for just a crate, we just kind of borrowed to be faster, that kind of told us about that.
“So, we’ve been working on the built, trying to get it where it needs to be, going to the chassis dyno a lot and we think we finally have the built, the original, to what it needs to be now.”
After missing the field by three positions last year, Barnes’ expectations are to make the race first, then to survive the race if she’s going to have a chance to take home the grandfather clock that awaits the winner.
“I mean it’s all about making the race,” Barnes remarked. “It’s getting through the heat races, like last year, we got taken out on the first lap of the heat race, so, getting through the heat races, getting in the race, once we’re there, once you get in the race, it’s about surviving. I think if we get in to the race, I’m good on long runs. I feel like, in the actual race is my strong suit so I feel like if we get in the race, we’ll have a good car.”
Earlier this year, Barnes was a contestant in the PEAK Stock Car Dream Challenge. Barnes said her experience in that competition, where she learned from drivers like Clint Bowyer, Michael Waltrip and Danica Patrick, helped her immensely during testing at Martinsville – mostly when it comes to feeling out everything in the car and providing feedback.
“I think that the biggest thing there really applies to this test day, really feeling out what the car’s doing and what changes to make because that’s what they were really adamant about really making sure that we are aware of that knowledge because that’s something that goes important in to like the Cup Series, coming out on test day, looking at it from all angles and knowing what you’re going to need to put in on race day so I’ve been putting that in today and I was really lucky to have that experience and learn that stuff.”
Annabeth Barnes has developed a lot over the last year and now she’s hoping to take lessons learned throughout the season – good and bad – and take them to Martinsville on Sunday as she chases Late Model Stock Car racing’s ultimate prize.
