Photo Credit: Mike Holloway/OnPitRoad.com
After taking it easy the first half of the race, Ty Dillon would make a charge to the front in the second half to post a fifth place finish. For Dillon, it marks his third straight top-six finish after finishing sixth at Charlotte Motor Speedway and fourth at Kansas Speedway.
With rain falling overnight and washing the rubber off of the track, Dillon took it easy the first couple of runs, not wanting to cause tire issues for himself.
“We started off and I think everybody figured with the track being green that it’d wear the tires out pretty bad,” he commented. “I took it easy as possible the first run and it had the cords showing so it kind of scared us a little. So we kind of managed the next couple of stops to make sure our right front was good to go. Once we knew that we were good, I was able to attack the track pretty well.”
Those concerns for Dillon were brought up after the cords started to show on a pair of right front tires in practice with 40 laps on each of them.
Dillon would then make his way up into the top-five, battling for spots just outside of the top-three as the race wore down to the end, crossing the finish line in the fifth spot. In the past 11 races this season, Dillon has posted only two finishes outside of the top-10 to currently sit third in points, 40 points behind points leader Chris Buescher.
“I’m just proud of what we’ve been doing the past nine or 10 weeks,” Dillon commented. “Just getting a ton of top-fives and you kind of look back at Dover and think what it could be right now. But, it’s not over for us for sure. We still have a lot of laps left, but I’m proud of my guys and what we’re able to turn into here lately.”
Buescher crossed the finish line in the 11th spot, admitting post-race that he was points racing. Dillon says while he doesn’t focus on what Buescher is doing, he knows its going to take a mistake by Buescher to catch him.
“It’s going to take that mistake and he’s doing the right thing right now,” Dillon said. “e just need to manage our own race and try and get to victory lane and max points, and we’ve been doing a pretty good job lately. As the weeks go on, he’s going to feel more pressure to mess up and hopefully we’re there to capitalize.”
