Brandon Bendele ready for ROMCO

[NickHolt]

Premier Motorspots, San Antonio, Texas

 

Release: May 20, 2004

 

Brandon Bendele, Hottest Driver in Texas in 2004, Returns to Houston Motorsports Park for ROMCO Texas Tornado Tour

 

Houston, TX -- San Antonio's Brandon Bendele, driver of the # 8 Premier Minerals Chevrolet Monte Carlo, returns to Houston Motorsports Park this Saturday, May 22, as arguably the hottest driver in Texas.

 

Two weeks ago, the 29-year-old Bendele upheld the honor of Texas racing as NASCAR returned to Houston for the first time in over 30 years for the NASCAR AutoZone Elite Division Southeast Series "Leak Sealer 150." Bendele led for 85 laps and finished third behind series leader Jason Hogan of Cleveland, Georgia and former series champ Jeff Fultz of Cincinnati, Ohio to end the night as top Texan. The last time Bendele ran at HMP, he won the final race of the 2003 ROMCO "Texas Tornado Tour" to take the championship.

 

This week, he comes into HMP only one point behind the leader in the ROMCO Texas Tornado Tour, and the most recent ROMCO winner: Bendele won the third round of the series at Corpus Christi. Does that record give him added confidence coming into this weekend?

 

"Yeah, specially coming off the last race," he said this week. "We won in Corpus, and we ran third in the Southeast Series race. Most of the ROMCO guys haven't had the chance to run on the track with the new surface sealer the owners have put down."

 

Bendele qualified on the pole for the first race of the season, at Thunder Hill Raceway near Austin, but an inverted start put him fourth on the grid. He ran with the leaders on the tight Thunder Hill track until a car spinning in someone else's oil or water hit the # 8 with enough force to end Brandon's night. He finished 16th, then took sixth at Texas Motor Speedway before winning at Corpus.

 

"We made some small improvements to the ROMCO car over the winter, so we were feeling pretty good going into the season."

 

In the last three seasons, Bendele won 15 of 18 races to win his second NASCAR Weekly Racing Series Sunbelt Region championship in 2001, was rookie of the year on the Texas Tornado Tour in 2002, and won the ROMCO Texas Tornado Tour title in 2003.

 

He qualified fifth for the Southeast Series "Leak Sealer 150" two weeks ago, but this time benefited from the inversion of the top six qualifiers and started second. He got a good start, stayed with the leader and took the lead himself on lap 16. He led the next 85 laps until being passed by points leader Hogan (on his way to a second win) and then Jeff Fultz.

 

"We got beat by two pretty good race drivers," Bendele smiled afterward, in what was a major understatement. At that, Fultz, who is the winningest active driver in the series, only beat Brandon to the line for second by the length of his hood.

 

Bendele and the Premier Motorsports team will defend the ROMCO Tornado Tour title and run selected NASCAR AutoZone Elite Division races to prepare for the entire Southeast Series in 2005.

 

Thanks to dominating performances in winning his two NASCAR Weekly Racing Series Sunbelt titles, Bendele has won over half of the 90 feature races he has run. Fans who've watched him win at HMP and those who saw him for the first time two weeks ago will get to watch him at Houston Motorsports Park again on Saturday.