Press release about Jeff Pollard

[NickHolt]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Sept. 13, 2003

 

Contact: Chuck Licata, 512.736.8230

 

Pollard happy with HMP finish – and happy there’s no damage to his car

 

As he continues his pursuit of the Texas Super Racing Series (TSRS) points championship, Houston’s Jeff Pollard figures there’s no margin of error for his #17 race team – or any of the other three races teams who are in serious contention for the series championship.

 

That’s probably true, considering there are just three more races left in the TSRS season. The TSRS Triple Crown series of races – Sept. 27 at Thunder Hill Raceway (Kyle), Oct. 4 at Houston Raceway Park and Oct. 11 at San Antonio Speedway – will decide the TSRS championship, which right now has four contenders: Pollard, Ronnie New of Austin, Tommy Gural of Elgin and Mike Yale of Houston.

 

New leads the points chase with 645 points, followed by Gural (580), Pollard (575) and Yale (565).

 

“We still have an excellent chance to win this thing (the TSRS championship), but we can't make mistakes,” Pollard said after a fourth-place finish Sept. 6 at HMP. “We're going to have to show up to every race with a well-prepared race car, stay out of trouble and finish well. We've used up all the “margin for error” we can afford. I think that the points chase is going to come down to the last race in San Antonio, and we intend to be right in the thick of it.”

 

Pollard feels he and his #17 crew escaped the TSRS race at HMP pretty well. They had just gotten their car back from repair after an accident at the Aug. 16 race in San Antonio and hadn’t had much time to work with it before the race.

 

“Obviously we're glad to have our car back still in one piece,” Pollard explained. “My crew (Jason Reeves, James Battles and Joe Thirols) worked very hard. We literally didn't finish the car until late afternoon Friday before the race. We threw it in the trailer and headed for the race track and were able to get in a couple hours of test time in before dark. The car was fairly quick but not well balanced. We worked on it again all day Saturday but never quite got there.”

 

“On the positive side,” Pollard continued, “there's not a scratch on it and that's hard to believe considering the number of accidents there were in that race. On the other hand, it was a frustrating race. We didn't have enough car to win the race, and that’s the first time all season that I have felt that way. To win one of these things, you have to have a lot go your way and you have to have a really good car. We didn't have time to really fine tune our car's balance before the HMP race, but fortunately we've got some time before the first Triple Crown race.”