Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Team CANUSA Overcomes to Post Three More Top-Tens

(Dorchester, ON) – Jamie Ramsay and his APC / Total Lubricants / CANUSA Chevrolet Impala SS were back in action Friday night August 13 at Delaware Speedway, and entered the evening third in the championship point standings.

The night started off with a heat race and Ramsay rolled from the back of the field. He would slice his way through traffic for a third-place finish, and picked up three bonus points. Ramsay spoke about the race, "It was a good run for us, but I think we have something broken in the rear end. It was the same type of problem that we had a few weeks ago at Sauble Beach."

The 35-lap feature closed out the night and Jamie started last, with a new part on his Chevrolet. He explained, "We had to make sure the rear end didn't move anymore, so we took a ratchet strap that we tie the car down with when it's in the trailer."

The #22 was able to work his way from the back of the pack to sixth by the halfway point, but contact with Mat Box led to Ramsay having to go to the rear of the field again with just 17 laps to go. "I got into Mat, and it made our night even tougher because we had to restart at the tail of the pack"

Jamie wheeled his way through the field again, and followed Jamie Cox in the team car to a seventh-place finish. "We had a decent run, especially when you consider how bad the rear end was."

Jesse Kennedy started on the pole and led start to finish, with Andrew Gresel finishing second. Point leader Ron Sheridan had to come from the back of the field to his third-place finish.

  1. Kennedy, 2. Gresel, 3. Sheridan, 4. Scott Lindsay, 5. Matt Pritiko, 6. Jamie Cox, 7. Jamie Ramsay.

The team returned on August 20 for the final pair of features in the Triple Crown series for 2010, and qualifying was the first order of the night. Ramsay ripped off a tremendous lap of 18.931 seconds, good enough for the third quickest time of the session, behind Sheridan and Lindsay. "That was a good effort for us. We normally don't qualify well, and we didn't beat fourth and fifth by much – they were at 18.933 seconds. It was nice to see the front of the field when they dropped the green though."

The first feature rolled with Ramsay on the inside of the second row, and he was able to slide into line in third before Steve Robblee passed him on lap four. John Urlin would get Ramsay just after the halfway point, and after a spirited battled with Gresel, Jamie closed the deal with a fifth-place result. "We were fast at the beginning of the race, but as it went on, we would get tight, loose, and then tight again, all in the same corner. We'll take the top-five and get ready for the second feature."

Sheridan led wire to wire from the pole with Lindsay and Robblee in tow to extend his point lead in the first feature.

1st feature – 1. Sheridan, 2. Lindsay, 3. Robblee, 4. Urlin, 5. Jamie Ramsay, 10. Jamie Cox.

The team swapped the rear gear for the second feature to try to get more acceleration off the corners, and found a loose ball joint that was fixed. Ramsay accepted the green silk from the outside of the third row, but he would experience trouble early as the outside lane failed to get up to speed as quickly as the inside lane. By the time he finally found his way into the racing groove he had been punted back to 12th.

Jamie slowly worked his way back through the field, avoiding wrecks and picking off cars one at a time. He claimed seventh and was able to enter a duel with Sheridan for sixth in the closing laps of the 25-lap main event. With just a lap to go, Jamie made a move on the point leader and edged out Sheridan for sixth-position. "The start killed us. We were so far back by the time we got going. It was tough coming up through the pack again after that, and I had to dig for every position I got. With Ron at the end, I wanted that position and was going to stick it in there. He gave me some room, and we finished sixth. We have to starting beating the #81 [Gresel], because he's the guy we're racing for third in points."

Jamie Cox started on the pole and led the first seven laps before Kennedy took command. Cox was able to post a career best second-place finish as he held off Gresel for the silver medal.

2nd feature – 1. Kennedy, 2. Jamie Cox, 3. Gresel, 4. Lindsay, 5. Robblee.

Championship standings (with three events remaining) – 1. Sheridan – 1370 points, 2. Lindsay – 1345, 3. Jamie Ramsay – 1243, 4. Gresel – 1242, 5. Box - 1177

For more information on Delaware Speedway,Total, CANUSA, APC or CANUSA Racing, please visit http://www.delawarespeedway.com/, http://www.total.com/, http://www.canusa.on.ca/, http://www.autopartscentres.com/, http://www.canusamotorsports.webs.com/, or contact Luke Ramsay at (519) 268-7070.

Media release and photos by www.maudsleymotorsports.com.