CHINA GROVE, N.C. (March 22, 2008) – Coleman Pressley had a memorable debut in the No. 23 Jasper Engines & Transmissions Chevrolet for R3 Motorsports at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday.
After starting 37th, the 21-year old, third-generation driver quickly showed the talent and speed of his car by vaulting into the top-25 by lap 10 and the top-20 by lap 35. From there, the team utilized their pre-planned pit strategy to maintain a top-20 run to garner a top finish.
Coming in a little too aggressively for a caution stop on lap 52, while running 20th, Pressley overshot his stall just enough that NASCAR called for him to back up to get the nose back across the line.
From there, the Jasper Engines crew finished the stop sending Pressley back out to line up 27th on the restart. The young shoe started picking up the spots lost on pit road and was running 23rd when the caution waved again on lap 23. That turned into a red flag to clean up the wreck and the race restarted on lap 95 with Pressley lined up third.
This came about because of the pre-race pit strategy Plattenberger and the team came up with of when to pit, no matter how the caution flags fell. When the green waved, Pressley stayed out of trouble, raced his competitors clean and was running 16th when the caution waved again on lap 124.
Under the caution is when the No. 40 Chevrolet of Mike Bliss made contact with the right rear of the No. 23 Chevrolet. This spun Pressley and caused heavy damage to the car.
The talented and tenacious R3 pit crew did what they do best by making repairs under three-consecutive caution stops to keep Pressley on the lead lap. When the race restarted on lap 132, Pressley was lined up 25th.
From there, he moved back up into the top-20 and remained there through several cautions and pit stops. On lap 228, while running 15th, Pressley was running the bottom line with Bliss to his outside when the No. 23 spun coming out of Turn 4 and made contact with the interior wall.
With a heavily-damaged front end, the car was brought to the garage area for repairs. However, with too few laps and too much damage, Pressley’s top-15 run was cut short resulting in an undeserving 31st-place finish.
The good news is the No. 23 Chevrolet ran strong with Pressley ranking seventh in the category of “most cars passed” and ran up front without incident. The team will return to action at Nashville Superspeedway on Saturday, April 3 with Robert Richardson, Jr. behind the wheel.
Coleman Pressley Quotes: “First, I can’t thank the team of R3 Motorsports and Jasper Engines and Transmissions enough for making this all possible. The car was great, we were racing great, the pit crew was great and we were headed for a great finish.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t get the finish we deserved and I hate the car got tore up the way it did there. The crew tried to fix it so we could come back out and race, but the radiator was busted up and wouldn’t stop leaking, so we had to cut our day short.
“I learned a ton out there and really, really feel good about how we came from 37th to 15th there. As of right now, my next race is at Richmond at the end of April and I can’t wait to get back out there again.”
Sponsorship Inquiries: R3 Motorsports is still seeking primary partnerships to fill out their 2010 NASCAR Nationwide Series season. For more information, please see contact via www.R3Motorsports.org to get involved.