Tommy Ritcher Scores Third Career Win; Dwyer Fights For 2nd
A driver considered “spoiled”, “daddy’s boy” and “talentless” by the trolls and haters of the AAROs fan base has actually made a pretty big name for himself and has had a nice career so far despite having his father be a legend. Tommy Ritcher has had a rough start to 2018 but has silenced his critics after scoring his THIRD career win, all in his #2 Ritcher Racing Ford. Ritcher has really built something with this #2 team and they continue every year to impress even when things are looking gloom. With his win at Daytona, Ritcher once again has solidified his Ford into locke’s in contention, and plans to push for a championship despite his slow start.
“Did y’all not see Mikael Carter last year?” asked the winner, “He started with maybe 3 races in the 30s! We got a win within 3 races, we’ll be okay, folks. Thank you so much to my team, my father, the management and of course Ford and all of our sponsors for this. I wouldn’t want to be with any other team and I just hope Casey, Clyde and Tyler can all keep going and push each other to continue our run as a team here. I love it here.”
Ritcher, despite just edging his way into the Dollar General 200, virtually came out of nowhere after a big crash occurred early in the race. That crash would be just one of two cautions in the race, the other happening on the final lap. Ritcher had to hold off rookie sensation Caine Dwyer at the end, something he said, was not easy.
“He’s incredible,” Tommy said, “It may have looked easy but man oh man I think I was looking in the mirror more than out my windshield! Man what a guy to compete against, hopefully he can continue his nice run, it’s good for us and the league to have guys like that, not to mention he’s just a good ol’ Canadian guy, great kid, good head on his shoulders. Looking forward to more of that in the future.”
The win would be Ford’s third in three races.
Dwyer was pleased with his second place result, especially after avoiding the big wreck on the high line, slowing down just enough to make an impressive move as cars wrecked all around him. Dwyer was humble about it, as expected.
“Yeah I’m fortunate we made it though there. Trust me I shouldn’t have made it through that, I feel so lucky. So happy for these guys, congrats to Tommy by the way, drove a very good race. Couldn’t get around him at the end but maybe if ya gave me another two laps I could do it, just got too tame near the end there.”
Dwyer now leads the points standings after taking the top spot away from Tyler Deefer, who finished a respectable 13th. Deefer was pleased with his teams performance, despite not really being a contender all race.
“This is what you have to do if you want to win championships. A 13th place finish on a day where I’d say we had around a 30th place car. It’s not the best but for today we will take it and continue to push through Miami.”
McGuire Scores Career Best 3rd, Solid Day for JN Motorsports
It was a quiet yet solid day for 3 of the 4 JN Motorsports drivers that saw their only rookie Seth McGuire score a career best finish with a 3rd place result in the Dollar General 200. McGuire had one of the fastest cars all race long, and continued throughout the entire race, making a late race push that ended up being just short.
“Good run, we ran well.” said the youngster, making just his 3rd career AERS start, “Boys gave me a solid car, and it only got better. Gotta thank them, my sponsors, JN, family, everyone. Real proud of this accomplishment.”
Meanwhile, Shawn Glossum also had perhaps the best car in this race, running up front during green flag pit stops and coming out of them with a huge lead. Unfortunately for him and his team, the 9 would be held up by Jared Kash and other lap traffic that pushed him back to a 12th place finish.
“Ya we deserved a lil better today if ya ask me.” he shared, “We we’re great and very fast, was fun.”
Glossum has really been on a tear this season, just hasn’t had the finishes to show for. He’s led laps in all 3 events.
Mikael Carter had a very quiet run in his #39 and stayed out of trouble, only to sneak into the 6th spot late in the running.
“Honestly I’m just glad to leave this place,” he said, “I can’t stand running superspeedways. We’ve already got our Miami plans in order and we’re confident there. We ran well there last year and I’m expecting a similar setup next week. It’ll be fun.”
Last edited by Jesse Pizzajarvi on Wed Mar 21, 2018 11:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
VerizonGuy12 World Racing Legend
Posts : 1984 Join date : 2010-03-13 Age : 27
Subject: Re: 2018 AERS Race 3 - Daytona (Dollar General Daytona 200) Tue Mar 13, 2018 10:42 pm
SILVER GREEN RACING Report:
SGR has solid day despite results not showing it.
Two weeks ago, Roger Sweeney had a talk with his team about the poor performance that had happened following Livonia, with Sweeney notably stating, "Championships aren't won in Week 1". It has appeared that mantra has carried on as for the second week in a row, a SGR car has placed in the top 10, with rookie Keith Jesse serving as the honors with a 8th place finish.
"Lap traffic is always going to be an issue. at a track like this, and it certainly affected the outcome of this race." - Keith Jesse.
With Jesse's 8th place finish, he takes over as the highest SGR car in the points, and currently sits in 11th, just 7 points shy of being in the top 10.
Brad Kurtis also had a good day, but a slow stop during green flag pit stops mired Kurtis to the back of the field, as he placed back in 20th with teammate Darcy Lusk coming in right behind in 21st.
"You have to have all aspects of the team to do our job, but sometimes, mistakes do happen, and we suffered from it." - Brad Kurtis.
Jason Miller suffered the low light of the team as he was involved in a wreck on lap 20, that dropped him out of the race.
"Everyone was piling in you had nowhere to go, I wished we could've kept going, but the radiator was badly busted so we couldn't do anything with it."
Miller finished 39th, and dropped to 37th in the points meaning he would have to qualify his way into next weeks race.
2018 AERS Race 3 - Daytona (Dollar General Daytona 200)