Piekarski Salvages a Top-15 Finish at Thunder Road

Piekarski Salvages a Top-15 Finish at Thunder Road
Nashua, NH – The second race of the 2005 ACT Tour was held this past Sunday at Thunder Road in Barre, VT. Forty-three cars filed through the pit gate to enter the Merchants Bank 150. Among the entries was 2004 Rookie of the Year and Nashua native Brenton Piekarski. This was Piekarski’s fourth career trip to Thunder Road with mixed results in previous outings. After running in the top ten for much of the day, a flat tire would put Piekarski down a lap, finishing in the fifteenth position.

"This is the best car we have ever had at Thunder Road," said Piekarski after a round of practice.

"The laps times are good and the car is handling very well," continued Piekarski.

Piekarski attempted to make the feature event through his first qualifier, but ended up in an incident, which caused damage to the car. Moving on to the second round of qualifying, starting third in the B-Main, Piekarski had a chance to test the car under actual race conditions and went on to win the qualifying race.

The heat win placed Piekarski in the 25^th position of the starting grid for the 150-lap main event. Piekarski knew it was going to be a tough climb to the front, but also knew he had a car capable enough of getting there.

"The Toyota of Nashua/Collision Centers of New Hampshire car was great today. It was fast and I didn’t have much trouble climbing to the front," said Piekarski.

"I made a mistake after climbing into the top 10 when a caution flew. I didn’t get slowed down quick enough and was sent to the rear of the field for that," expressed Piekarski.

While the penalty was costly on a track where track position is so very important, Piekarski was determined to climb back to the front and did just that as the laps started to wind down. By lap 115, Piekarski was once again up to the 7^th position when a tire went down. Piekarski pitted to replace the tire, but the incident caused him to lose a lap to the leaders.

"It’s disappointing to know that we had a car very capable of a top five finish today," said a discouraged Piekarski.

"We had the best outing we have ever had here and I guess that is the silver lining we take with us to Oxford next week," said car owner Mark Piekarski.

Piekarski did manage to claw his way back up to the 15^th position before the checkers flew. He was the first car down a lap to the leaders.

Piekarski and the PBJ Motorsports team will move on to the Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford Plains, ME this Saturday for a 100-lap race.

Off the race track, the PBJ Motorsports team was awarded the third place honors in the annual Thunder Road Car show held in downtown Barre.

For more information about the PBJ Motorsports team, please log on to www.pbjmotorsports.com.

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