Ben Rhodes started deep in the field Saturday night, September 1st, in the Bobby Isaac Memorial Late Model Stock 150-lap event at Hickory Motor Speedway (NC). While slowly moving his way up through the field, contact from another car sent him sideways onto the turn four apron, which damaged his steering, forcing the #9 Stanley / Alpha Energy Solutions Ford to the pits and out of the race.
During the practice sessions Friday and Saturday before qualifying, Rhodes and the Fat Head Racing / Marcos Ambrose Motorsport crew had the car fast for race runs, but new tire “sticker” runs was a concern. That showed during qualifying as Rhodes timed in 25th of the 34 drivers.
“Our car took a handful of laps to come in after putting on new tires,” said Rhodes. “We knew we were going to have a little trouble during qualifying, but being back in 25th wasn’t at all what we expected. It put us in a hole and I knew I had to be cautious while still getting up on the wheel early to make our way towards the front.”
Early on in the race, Rhodes was able to move up some positions and was approaching the top 15, but on lap 50, contact from another car sent him sideways in the corner, damaging his car. Just after the halfway point he pulled the car in to the pits where his crew saw the car was misaligned.
“I couldn’t wait until my tires came to me as everyone was going pretty hard at the start,” said Rhodes. “Once they came in, I started making up some positions. Unfortunately I got turned down on the apron as I was making a pass for position, which bent some steering parts on the car and knocked the toe out. I tried to nurse the car around, but when the leaders went by I brought it to pit road as soon as I could get to the low lane.”
Rhodes was credited with a 34th-place finish.
“This was a frustrating weekend, but we are going to use the frustration as motivation to figure out why the car wouldn’t qualify well and make the changes for our next race. We qualified in the top five our last two races at Hickory, so we know how to get it done.”
The next race for Rhodes and the #9 Stanley / Alpha Energy Solutions Ford Fusion will be the UARA-STARS Late Model Stock event at Kingsport Speedway (TN) on Friday, September 14th, 2012.
For more information on Ben Rhodes, please contact Jason “Stix” Buckley of STIX FX Entertainment at (704) 519-5528 or stix@stixfx.com, 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.