It was very similar to his inspired drive from the back to come within a lap of winning the recent NASCAR Nationwide Series road course event at Road America, Elkhart Lake!
Alex Tagliani stormed back from last place on the starting grid to score a 5th place finish in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series presented by Mobil 1 “Jiffy Lube 100 presented by La Petite Bretonne” at Circuit ICAR, Mirabel Quebec on Sunday.
The NASCAR/IndyCar and SportsCar racer, race winner and former Indianapolis 500 pole sitter was put “tail” on the ICAR starting grid for an unauthorized engine change.
Regardless, it was evident off the green flag Tag’s # 18 Team EpiPen/Dicom Express/Tagliani Autosport Dodge Challenger was an extremely quick stock car. Alex started to move up in the running order immediately, moving up from 28th to 5th at the checkers, without the aid of caution flags on the 2.1 mile, 14-turn road course on the former runways at Montréal–Mirabel International Airport, just north of Montreal.
“We started the difficult weekend with problems with gearing and set up. We tried something as a back up and we missed most of the second practise. Going into qualifying, we tried something else and that didn’t work. On top of that we blew the engine. The unapproved change meant we started the race from last place on the grid, which was obviously not what we wanted. It was hard work from the team who were up until 1 AM Sunday morning to fix the car and get it ready. But we finished strong! From 28th to 5th with no cautions! We had a car to fight for the lead, but we never got the yellows we needed to do a re-start to take advantage of our car’s potential. It was just one of those races when you wanted some yellows.
But a top 5 is good for our team to score some points for the # 18 car plus some owners points,” Tagliani concluded.
Tagliani now has one win, four poles and seven top 10 finishes in 18 career NCATS starts.
The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series presented by Mobile 1 now heads out on their Western Swing to Edmonton International Raceway, Wetaskiwin Alberta July 11th, and Auto Clearing Motor Speedway, Saskatoon Saskatchewan, July 16th.
“We have a big week coming up in Edmonton with lots of design unveiling and media planned! It’s home base for my Tagliani Autosport business partner and friend Colin Livingston, President of CanTorque Incorporated, so I’m really looking forward to that! I’m also looking forward to racing on the oval in Saskatoon. It’s a very beautiful track and I’m hearing lots of good things about the facility!”
The NCATS Jiffy Lube 100 presented by La Petite Bretonne at ICAR will be telecast on TSN on Sunday July 13th at 11 a.m. ET and on RDS on Thursday July 17th at 9:30 p.m. ET.
Tagliani’s NCATS entry is in partnership as brand ambassador with Pfizer Canada Inc., the Canadian distributor of The EpiPen® epinephrine auto-injector. Alex himself lives and races with a severe allergy to nuts, and carries the allergy awareness/Pfizer/EpiPen message across Canada through his NCATS racing program.
To raise funds for Anaphylaxis Canada, The Tagliani Foundation is staging a Golf Classic and Gala at Celine’s Le Mirage in Montreal September 30th. For more information on the Foundation: TaglianiFoundation.org
Fans are invited to follow Alex and The Tagliani Autosport Team on Facebook and Twitter all season long: Summeroftag.com Tagliani.com TaglianiAutosport.com
