Tony Raines Milwaukee Preview
LAST RACE (Kroger 300
Presented by Oreo) -
Tony Raines and the No. 33
BACE Motorsports Team broke into the top five for the first time this season
with a third place effort at Kentucky Speedway. Raines was forced to make his
way through the field after starting in the 30th starting spot. The
top five finish was aided by a flawless pit stop from the No. 33 Team with just
25 laps remaining. The excellent effort in the pits placed Raines in the sixth
spot for the restart on lap 179. Once the field went green, he was able to pass
the No. 12, 27 and 10 cars to move into the third spot. The No. 33 Aleve
Chevrolet took the checkered flag 0.717 seconds behind race winner Todd Bodine.
2001 RACE AT MILWAUKEE
- Tony Raines
posted his first top 10 at The Milwaukee Mile last year when he drove his No. 33
Chevrolet to a tenth place finish. Raines qualified in the 14th
position for the 2001 event. Struggling with a loose handling race car during
the 250 lap event, he reached as high as the seventh position. While other
teams took a gamble with fuel mileage and elected not to pit, Raines brought his
No. 33 entry to pit road with only 24 laps remaining for a splash of gas in
order to reach the checkered flag.
STANDINGS
- With his third place
finish, Raines picked up two positions in the Busch Series drivers' points
standings moving into the 16th spot, 294 points out of the top 10 and
just four points out of the 15th spot. BACE Motorsports team owner,
Brian Baumgardner currently sits in the 18th position in Busch Series
owners' points standings.
THE CAR
- Chassis No. 30, the car Tony Raines will drive this weekend at The Milwaukee
Mile will make its fourth appearance of the season. Raines also drove No. 30 at
Las Vegas (accident), Richmond (engine) and New Hampshire (running). No. 30 is
a new car for the 2002 season, the first chassis ever built in-house at BACE
Motorsports.
FIRST COMES LOVE
.
Tony Raines returns to the
Milwaukee this weekend, a city that he called home while he was racing the ASA
(American Speed Association) Series. The time spent in Wisconsin was productive
for Raines as he captured the 1996 ASA Championship while a Milwaukee resident.
"I definitely love coming back to Milwaukee," Raines said. "Sue and I still have
a lot of good friends here and it makes it fun to come here for this race once a
year and get to catch up. I was fortunate and had a lot of success while I
lived here when I was running in ASA. I've also had a couple of top 10s here in
the Truck Series and in the Busch Series so this city is a stop that I look
forward to each season."
THEN COMES MARRIAGE .
No. 33 team owner
and spotter, Brian Baumgardner, has been absent from his duties for the past two
NASCAR Busch Series events and with very good reason. Baumgardner wed his
fiancée, Bari Moorefield, in a ceremony held in Charlotte on June 8, the same
evening as the event at the Nashville Superspeedway. The new Mr. & Mrs.
Baumgardner would also miss the following event held at the Kentucky Speedway
while honeymooning. That did not stop driver Tony Raines from trying to give
the newlyweds the perfect wedding gift as he nearly missed scoring his first
Busch Series victory at Kentucky finishing third with Eddie Pardue, crew chief
for the No. 74 Winston Cup Team, filling in for Baumgardner in the spotter's
position.
THEN ALONG COMES A BABY
CARRIAGE .
No, not for the newlyweds described above but instead for No. 33 crew chief
Michael Kadlecik. Kadlecik and his wife Brenda are expecting their first child,
due to arrive in mid-August. The off-weekend proved valuable for the soon-to-be
parents as they made final preparations to the nursery in anticipation of
welcoming home the newest member of the Kadlecik family.
TONY RAINES ON THE MILWAUKEE
MILE - "Milwaukee
is a favorite stop for me on the Busch Series schedule, especially since I lived
here while I ran the ASA Series. It gives me a chance to come home, so to say,
and catch up with some friends that I don't get to talk with much any more.
"I ran here in the Truck
Series for two years and we finished in the top 10 the first year and in the top
15 our second year. But it was the opposite in the Busch Series. We struggled
our first two years here and last year we finished in the top 10 so hopefully
we'll improve on that finish this weekend. It's a great facility and the key to
getting around it is to definitely have to have the right set-up. We've bringing
back one of the strongest cars we've ran so far this season so we're looking for
a good run."
CREW CHIEF MICHAEL "DOVER"
KADLECIK ON THE MILWAUKEE MILE .
"It's really your typical
flat track, a lot like Loudon. It's tough to pass there so set-up is key and
being tight will be your worst enemy at a track such as Milwaukee. This race
doesn't usually come down to fuel mileage so as a crew chief we know that the
outcome may depend heavily on the calls that we make in the pits. Take two
tires, four tires or just fuel, you never really know what call will win the
race. A lot of the times it's not the best car that wins. But then again, I
think that is what makes our (crew chief's) jobs fun."
ON THE TEAM'S FIRST TOP FIVE
OF THE SEASON .
"You'd like to pin it (the third place finish at Kentucky Speedway) as a turning
point for us but the team has been very upbeat the entire season. It's not like
we've been going to the track every week, running in 30th place and
something happens to us. We've been running in or near the top 10 all season
when something happens so we know we have the ability to run up front but we've
just had more than our fair share of bad luck this year. The guys have been
shown a lot of strength and character this year by keeping positive every week.
The finish in Kentucky just reinforced the ability that we know we have to run
up front every week."
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