Ben Rhodes at Concord Speedway on August 4th, 2012
LOUISVILLE, KY (August 6th, 2012) – Ben Rhodes and the #9 Stanley / Alpha Energy Solutions Ford for Marcos Ambrose Motorsport headed to Concord Speedway (NC) on Saturday, August 4th, to race in the UARA-STARS Late Model Stock 150-lap event on the unique half-mile track. After starting ninth, Rhodes worked his way to the lead at lap 57and was pulling away from the field while still conserving tires, but on lap 65 the motor expired, ending his race early.
On Friday during the series practice session and the two practice sessions on Saturday, Rhodes and the team worked on the handling of the car. At the conclusion of practice, the car was close to where they wanted it for the night race.
“Last week we didn’t get much testing time on the track, so we really thrashed hard during Friday’s practice and the two practices on Saturday,” said Rhodes. “My crew really worked hard making multiple changes to the car to get it handling a lot better from when we rolled off the trailer. We weren’t sure how we were going to qualify, but we felt the car would be good once the sun set.”
Starting from the ninth position, Rhodes quickly found his #9 machine was fast. By lap five of the 150 laps, he was already up to fifth, and by lap 20 he worked his way to the third position, just cruising, saving tires for later in the event.
“I wasn’t running the car very hard because I wanted to keep the tires on it for the end of the race, but the car wanted to keep moving forward, so I let the car dictate our race pace,” explained Rhodes. “My main goal was to keep up in the top five while making sure not to spin the tires.”
At lap 40, Rhodes was up to the second position, and on a restart at lap 56, Rhodes made the move to the front.
“On the restart I could keep the pedal down on the outside line, so I used the momentum through the dog-leg going into turn three to take the lead. When I got to the front, I continued my tire conservation mode, but we were still able to pull away from the field.”
Unfortunately, as Rhodes approached turn three on the 65th lap, he lost power and had to pull his car to the pits with an expired engine.
“It didn’t give me any indication of issues until it went,” said Rhodes. “I believe we dropped a valve. It was disappointing because I had such a fast car and we were just taking it easy.”
Rhodes was credited with a 19th-place finish.
“While the end result is disappointing, everyone on the #9 Stanley / Alpha Energy Solutions team was pumped up after our strong early showing. Billy Smith (crew chief) and the guys did a great job this weekend, and we are looking forward to Tri-County next weekend.”
The next race for Rhodes and the #9 Stanley / Alpha Energy Solutions Ford Fusion will be the UARA-STARS Late Model Stock event at Tri-County Motor Speedway (NC) on Friday, August 10th.
For more information on Ben Rhodes, please contact Jason “Stix” Buckley of STIX FX Entertainment at (704) 519-5528 or [email protected], and make sure to keep up to date on Ben Rhodes’ racing career at www.benrhodesinc.com, and follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/benrhodesinc and Twitter at www.twitter.com/benrhodesinc.