Jeff Pollard press release

[NickHolt]

This is from Chuck Licata:

 

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Pollard: ‘We’re still in the hunt’

Houston resident Jeff “J.P.” Pollard entered the Aug. 16th Texas Super Racing Series (TSRS) race at San Antonio Speedway coming off a win in Houston and holding the overall series points lead.

Unfortunately for the #17 race team, that didn’t last very long.

Early in the race, Pollard was rolling along, making his way up to second place within 13 laps. The #17 Pontiac Grand Prix was hotter than the mid-August sun as Pollard moved up on race leader Robert Stewart.

“Our car surprised us with how fast it was in the race,” Pollard remarked. “We really hadn’t been very good in practice and didn’t qualify well (Pollard qualified eighth, then moved up to fifth on the dice-roll invert). Our team made some small changes before the feature race. But more than anything, I think that once the sun started to set, it cooled off the track and the track came to us.”

Pollard moved up on Stewart, but both cars collided coming out of Turn 4 on the half-mile track. Neither front-runner, nor San Antonio’s David Edwards (who bumped with Stewart), survived the collision.

“I had a good run going into Turn 3,” Pollard recalled. “Robert slowed for a lapped car inbetween Turns 3 and 4. I saw an opening low and, coming off of Turn 4, we got together. I’m not sure if he came down or if I pushed up, but I’m told it was a combination of both. I hate that something like that happened, and I hope the other cars involved weren’t as damaged as badly as ours.”

Needless to say, the race for Pollard, Stewart and Edwards was finished a little earlier than they had hoped. As for the #17 car…”We wiped off the right-front suspension and bent the front clip,” Pollard revealed. “There’s also come rear suspension damage, but it appears to be confined to the bolt-on stuff. The car is pretty torn up, but it’s fixable.”

Pollard added, “Obviously, our crew is disappointed, but on the other hand I think it has fired them up as well. We’d been really lucky all year, and hadn’t suffered any significant damage going into the SAS race. Given that we basically have to rebuild the car, the crew sees this as a chance for us to shine. We’re very anxious to get the car back from the chassis shop (which they did on Thursday) and get going.”

However, despite the bad outing (and the fact that Pollard drove the car on three wheels right after the accident), Pollard stayed right in the TSRS points chase. With five races remaining in the season, Pollard sits with 510 points, 35 behind points-leader Ronnie New of Austin. Mike Yale of Houston, who won the race in San Antonio that day, is second with 520 points, while Tommy Gural of Austin resides in fourth place with a 505 point total.

“Each of the top four drivers has had a ‘bad’ night,” Pollard started, “so I guess we were due. The good thing is that we’re still in the hunt for the championship, and right now, that’s all we can ask for. It’s a great situation for us, and we’re fired up and ready to run again in Houston (on Sept. 6).”