Perseverance Leads Kobyluck, Mohegan Sun Racing Team To Top-15 Finish At Iowa
Perseverance Leads Kobyluck, Mohegan Sun Racing Team To Top-15 Finish At Iowa
Earns Seventh Place Finish In East Series Point Standings
Newton, Iowa (May 18, 2009): Matt Kobyluck posted an overall 15th place finish in the Long John Silvers 200 at Iowa Speedway Sunday evening despite battling an ill-handling racecar. The Mohegan Sun Racing’s finish in the only East/West combination race bolstered the team to third in the NASCAR Camping World Series East point standings with a seventh place East Series finish.
“The car was tight in the middle of the corner up off,” explained Kobyluck. “I couldn’t carry a lot of corner speed and that was where I was lacking.”
The team brought a brand new, untested racecar to Iowa Speedway but thrashed to find the perfect combination for the race. Kobyluck was able to pick up 8/10th’s of a second from his practice times when the Mohegan Sun Casino Chevrolet hit the track for qualifying Sunday afternoon. The effort earned the team a tenth place starting position in the 200-lap race.
“We had limited practice time to figure out what the car wanted and what was going to make it work,” Kobyluck said. “We were definitely happy with the improvement from practice to qualifying.”
At the drop of the green, Kobyluck knew the team was in for a long day. The car wasn’t handling right, and the changes that would move it in the right direction were impossible to do on pit road. When the field came down for pit stops at lap 80, Kobyluck took on four tires and fuel, and the team made adjustments to try and free it up.
“There was nothing we could do on pit road that would make a drastic difference,” he said. “We needed to change front springs and we couldn’t do that. We just had to live with what we had.”
Kobyluck made the best out of the car, and rallied in the second half running as high as eighth at one point. The defending East Series Champion wheeled the car to a 15th place finish by the time the checkers dropped, but was the seventh highest East Series driver in the final rundown. Points are awarded based on each individual team affiliation with the Camping World Series East or West.
“We brought the car home in one piece and earned seventh place points,” Kobyluck said. “There are a lot of positives that came out of this race. I couldn’t have done it without the help of my crew, who worked really hard this weekend. They certainly put in a hard-fought effort.”
The 2009 season thusfar has yielded three top-10 finishes in three starts. The series returns to action on Saturday, May 30th at South Boston Speedway in Virginia. Kobyluck finished fifth in last year’s event at the 4/10th of a mile short track.
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