Series Rookie Muscles Through Mechanical and Handling Issues for Top-10 Finish
June 4th, 2012 – The fifth stop on the 2012 UARA-STARS Late Model Stock tour took place at Anderson Motor Speedway on Friday, June 1st. Series rookie Ben Rhodes, fresh off a fourth-place finish in a local 100-lap Late Model Stock event in North Carolina, headed to the South Carolina track looking to continue his strong 2012 season of racing. At the conclusion of 150 laps of racing on the tough, worn out track, Rhodes was able to drive his #9 Stanley / Alpha Energy Solutions Ford Fusion to a sixth-place finish. Rhodes and the Marcos Ambrose Motorsport team headed to the track on Thursday to get some practice time in on the track. On Friday, the team took what they learned and made adjustments, getting the car comfortable on the track.
“We were not the fastest car in the first practice session on Friday, but that wasn’t our goal,” said Rhodes. “We spent Thursday testing out various things and we continued on Friday trying to make it handle over a long run. We got the car where we thought we should be and ended up making a mock qualifying run towards the end of the second practice. We were third fastest, giving us momentum going into qualifying.”
During the qualifying session, Rhodes timed in with a 15.665-second lap. That put him third of the 27 cars there.
“That was a great effort by our team,” explained Rhodes. “We have really ramped up our qualifying program, and starting that far up would allow us to save tires easier during the race instead of starting so far back and having to race to stay in touch with the leaders. Also starting on the inside line was where we wanted to be at for the start of the race.”
When the green flag flew, many of the other racers wanted to go faster than Rhodes. 50 laps in, Rhodes slid back to 13th.
“It might have looked a little bad to our fans, but we had a plan at the start of the race and we were sticking to it. Some of the other drivers wanted to go hard early in the race, and we knew we had to take care of the tires, so I just ran my race, and if they passed me for position, I let them go.”
With the competition burning their tires off early, mid-race Rhodes started to move forward without much effort, and with 30 laps to go, he was seventh and looking to push the button to move to the front, but the car started to develop mechanical and handling issues.
“The brakes started to get a bit spongy,” explained Rhodes. “Along with the brakes, I was losing a lot of my forward bite. It was hampering my efforts to get back up there, and I ended up losing a few positions. I was able to get back to seventh with under 10 laps to go and wanted to get a few more spots, but I couldn’t push the car any harder without wrecking.”
Rhodes crossed the line in seventh, but after post-race tech where the leader was disqualified, he was credited with a sixth-place finish. 
“We all expected to have a better finish, but with the handling going away and the brakes fading, we will take sixth and move forward. Jamie Yelton, Billy Smith and the entire Marcos Ambrose Motorsport crew worked hard this weekend and we logged a lot of great information. I also learned a lot about the different lines at the track. The #9 Stanley / Alpha Energy Solutions Ford Fusion will be better the next time we come back to Anderson Motor Speedway.”
Next up for Rhodes and the #9 Stanley / Alpha Energy Solutions Ford Fusion for Marcos Ambrose Motorsport is the UARA-STARS Late Model Stock event at Newport Speedway (TN) on Saturday, June 16th. For More on Ben Rhodes, visit his website at www.BenRhodesInc.com, and make sure to follow Rhodes on Facebook and 
Twitter for updates during the week and race day updates at www.facebook.com/benrhodesinc and www.twitter.com/benrhodesinc.