Shaw’s Road Course Debut Nets 14th Place Finish

Lakeville, Conn. (July 3, 2010): DJ Shaw has been to Lime Rock plenty of times before. But he’s never driven on the 1.53-mile road course – not in a test, and certainly not in a race. In fact, he’s never competed on any road course before. Still, the 20-year-old Center Conway, N.H. driver was able to transition to the tricky left and right handers that road course racing demands, and post a 14th place finish in the NASCAR K&N 100 at Lime Rock Park.

” I was a lot faster than I was when I got here, but I was probably three or four seconds off,” said Shaw, driver of the No. 60 Precision JLM Chevrolet. “I was losing a lot in the last two corners. I was happy coming in – our goal was to get a top-15 finish or better – but I think we had a top-10 car today. I was racing Jeff Anton a lot in the race and he finished eighth.”

Shaw turned a best lap of 58.828 seconds in qualifying – a speed that put him 23rd on the starting grid for the drop of the green flag.

Patience was the strategy for the race.

Shaw ran as high as 19th in the first 20 laps of the race, and pitted by lap 17. He went a lap down after pitting, but continued to drive his own race and focus on his marks. He continued to move forward on the leader board and received the free pass during the caution on lap 34. It was time to gain some ground.

And Shaw was doing just that.

He made it up to 15th when he met his first real setback.

“I lost it in turn two,” he explained. “I got the lucky dog and was coming back around to take the green. I had a head full of steam so I started blowing by them all, and I got into one hot. I was still decent. I was racing Jeff Anton and the spotter was going in my ear and I got flustered. I forgot to downshift to second so when I tried to make the car turn with the throttle it just pushed up the track and I spun out.”

A full course caution was not waved and Shaw was able to get back on track, but not without losing a few valuable positions.

When the checkers flew on the K&N Pro Series 100, Shaw had worked his way up to a 14th place finish.

“We achieved our goal, and yeah, I’m happy about that,” said Shaw. “The car is in one piece, but the competitor in me always wants something a little better. We had a good car today and the guys did an awesome job. I can’t thank everyone enough on this team. We put in a lot of hard work for this finish.”

The K&N 100 will air on SPEED this Thursday, July 8 at 6 p.m. ET.

Shaw returns to action with the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East on Friday, July 30 at Lee (N.H.) USA Speedway.