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| Post Race Chatter: Some Notes and Quotes From Around The Trans-Am Paddock |
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sleeping. I proved you could make the inside pass in Turn One." Hayner led
from lap 12 through lap 26. "Unfortunately, on the restart, I got a little
loose and Brian got alongside me and made a clean pass to get back in the
lead. I decided to follow him for a while, but John Paul was running very
strong then, and he managed to come up alongside me. I knew he was going to
try to make a pass, and he did, but then he bobbled. I got a great jump off
the previous corner, and pulled up alongside him heading into Turn Three.
Unfortunately, when he started to come back over and I backed out of it, it
hooked the wheels on the cars, and it spun him out. Out felt badly about it;
I certainly didn't try to hit him. But as it turned out, the contact broke a
tie rod on my car, so I when I went to turn into the next corner, the car
just went straight into the guardrail and got torn up pretty bad. That was
the end of my race."
Bob Ruman has quietly made his way into fifth in the points. Ruman had a very impressive run going at Lowe's until a right front tire began to lose air, and blew on the final lap. "I knew the right front tire was going down about ten laps to the end," said Ruman after the race. On the restart at lap 39 (of 44), Ruman passed G. J. Mennen to put him in 7th. "The vibration kept getting stronger and I had to slow in turns three and four, which allowed Leighton [Reese] to catch up to me. Reese passed me on the beginning of last lap, but I passed him back in turn five going back onto the oval. After that, my tire went down and Reese re-passed me again. As we approached the chicane, Reese's tire blew and he hit the wall-I had to take the escape road to make it through. We were both able to limp as fast as we could to the finish line, but three more cars got by me in that stretch. Both Reese and I parked it on track after crossing the finish line and 'cried in our beers' about our flat tires. We had a tough time finding the right set-up this weekend. We had never run a Trans-Am race at Charlotte and had to do a lot of experimenting-which hurt us a bit in qualifying. But the car was better for the race. I could feel the front tire going away on the last two laps and had to compensate in my driving to try to save it to the end and we almost made it," said Ruman
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