After rain cancelled qualifying Friday afternoon, Weatherman lined up 13th on the starting grid to begin the 80-lap event. The race began under the yellow flag due to rain, but the green flag waved on lap two when Weatherman began his charge to the front of a very tough, talented field.
Weatherman was battling for a position in the top-10 on lap 25 when the caution came out for a car spinning in turn one. Being a fuel-mileage race, his crew chief, Sam Schram, asked Weatherman to pit for four tires, top off with fuel, and a rear adjustment to handle the tight conditions in the racecar.
“During the race we had a few problems on our first pit stop that resulted in a loose wheel, so we had to pit to fix it. However, we held our heads high and fought back the best we could. We had one of the fastest cars on the track once the problem was fixed, and we fought back to compete within the top-15 and higher throughout the race,” said Weatherman.
With two laps to go, the left rear tire went down that resulted in an 18th place finish for Weatherman.
“I thought we easily had a top-six car and I’m really proud of the effort the team did to get everything back in line,” Weatherman said. They work so hard for me and the rest of the team, and I can’t thank them for their hard work enough. Now that we know how the composite bodies work aerodynamically on these speedways, we will be more than ready for Michigan.”
Following a top-10 performance at New Jersey Motorsports Park on May 28, the Lira Motorsports teams headed straight to Pocono for the ARCA Racing Series open test to prepare for Friday afternoon’s race. The team’s prepped and tested the new intermediate/superspeedway composite body cars rather than the steel body that is typically run on tracks of that magnitude.
Weatherman believes the test impacted their performance in the race, in a positive way. The test really helped their understanding of the aerodynamics and handling going into the ARCA Series event.
“It was a long, but rewarding past two weeks for us. We have been gone nine days away from home, since New Jersey all the way to the end of Pocono. We worked as hard as we could during the test to get this car prepared for the race. From the beginning of the test to the race, the team made it 100 times better. We have an idea of the direction we need to go now with these new body cars.”
Kyle would like to thank St. Charles Glass and Glazing, NexGen Fuels, MOMO Motorsport, TraqGear, and Ford Performance for being a part of his team. He also would like to thank Carlos and Amanda for allowing him to be behind the wheel of the No. 58 machine.
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