Tony Raines Nazareth Race Report

Nazareth, PA-Tony Raines and his Bayer Consumer Care Racing team accomplished yet another mile stone this past weekend at the Nazareth Speedway by capturing their first pole, and Raines' first pole ever in the series, for Sunday's Nazareth 200.

"Well, the lap really didn't feel that good," Raines commented. "With the tires being harder, it really didn't feel like a really fast lap. My crew chief (Michael Kadlecik) came on the radio and he was kind of laughing."

"He said, 'I don't know how you did it, but you went faster than you did in practice'. So he was pretty happy, and I was a little surprised at the time, actually. It feels good. I know they've (the team) been on me a lot this year to try and qualify better and we've been close a couple of times so now maybe this will keep them quiet for a little bit."

The car that was brought for this event was the same car the Tony finished second at Richmond earlier this month.

"The crew chief likes this car," Tony said. "Actually, I wanted to bring the car from Loudon and I got overruled. So the crew chief is pretty proud of himself right now. All the cars are good cars. We made a few changes to this car after we made one sticker run for our qualifying effort, and it worked out for us."

After the start of the race on Sunday, Tony led the first 13 laps of the 200-lap race, before Kevin Harvick passed him to take over the first spot. Tony radioed into the crew that the car was a little tight going through the turns. With a long green flag run in the earlier stages of the race, crew chief, Michael Kadlecik didn't want to call Tony into the pits until the leaders started pitting or until a caution was thrown. This would cause the Alka-Seltzer car to tighten up even more and Tony to loose a few more positions. "The leaders will be pitting soon," Michael Kadlecik said on lap 91. "Tony isn't loosing too many positions, not enough to bring him in. He's holding the 5^th position." The leaders did start pitting and Tony was called in on lap 96 for fuel, four new tires, and some adjustments to make the car a little looser. He returned to the race in the 6^th spot.

Tony remained in the 6^th position for the rest of the race; while Greg Biffle went on to win.

"It was a pretty quiet race," crew chief, Michael Kadlecik said. "Not a lot of passing. The only passing going on was passing the lapped cars. The car was tight for most of the race. We just couldn't get that little bit of tightness out and the car was never as good as we could get it in practice," Michael continued. "We are still consistent, another top ten."

Raines has five consecutive top-16 finishes after this weekend and 6 top-tens for the season. He has moved up to be 7^th in the point standings, and only five points out of 6^th.

The Bayer Consumer Care team will be close to home this weekend. They will compete at the Lowe's Motor Speedway on Saturday. They will be taking the car they call "Lucky". The car has raced in Atlanta, Texas, and California, and has never failed to qualify outside the top ten.