ARCA

Salem: Robb Brent race report

Patience Yields Top-10 Finish For Robb Brent At Salem SALEM, Indiana (April 8, 2009) - - ARCA RE/MAX Series driver Robb Brent wasn't expecting to win in Sunday's Kentuckiana Ford Dealers 200 by Federated Car Care at Salem Speedway but the Shelby ...

Published: Jun 19, 2009, 7:49 PM

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Patience Yields Top-10 Finish For Robb Brent At Salem

SALEM, Indiana (April 8, 2009) - - ARCA RE/MAX Series driver Robb Brent wasn't expecting to win in Sunday's Kentuckiana Ford Dealers 200 by Federated Car Care at Salem Speedway but the Shelby Township, Michigan native welcomed a top-10 run awarding the Justin Allgaier Motorsports team their first top-10 effort of the 2009 season.

Brent, driving the No. 36 Orchard Chrysler Dodge Jeep automobile invaded the half-mile speedway last weekend hoping to set off his first year of full-time competition on the right foot.

In the lone practice session of the weekend, Brent posted the 18th fastest effort after notching a time of 18.053 seconds at 110.674 miles per hour. Despite a couple spackles with the wall during practice, Brent was satisfied with the effort. "Practice makes perfect," stated Brent, who will continue his studies at Northwood University pursing his Bachelor's degree in Automotive Marketing / Business Management while negotiating a 21-race schedule in ARCA. "Our Orchard Chrysler Dodge Jeep machine is pretty good. It's all about right now finding a setup that I'm comfortable with."

With Brent and new crew chief Bobby Blount putting their heads together, the 2008 ARCA RE/MAX Series championship team headed into ARCA qualifying optimistic. Wheeling his car around the track, Brent delivered a time of 18.535 seconds at 107.796 miles per hour. The effort put the team 18th on the starting grid.

"We lost some speed from practice but much of the field did too," sounded Brent. "The car is pretty good and with the more laps around here the more comfortable I'm becoming. We're going to try and keep the fenders on and hope for a good run."

Threating skies saw the green flag for the Kentuckiana Ford Dealers 200 drop shortly after 2:00 p.m., Brent buckled in behind a group of racecars. Early on, Brent wasn't making much progress but found himself comfortably riding in the top-15.

A few quick cautions early in the event allowed the 22-year old driver to catch his breath before radioing to his team that his car was pretty good, he was just biding his time.

The team opted to bring their driver down the pit lane on lap 42 where the team made a chassis adjustment and added Sunoco racing fuel.

Back to racing, Brent continued to progress through the top-15. The team made another pit stop on lap 68 where the Michigan native grabbed two tires and rejoined the competition.

In the second half of the event, Brent would make one more pit stop just after halfway which would assure the driver plenty of fuel and a solid racecar underneath him to continue to climb through the running order.

The race would see an extremely long green flag run late in the race which caused Brent to fall off the lead lap but fight hard enough to cross the line 10th awarding the team with their first top-10 run of the year.

The event also secured Brent's first top-10 finish on a short track.

"We'll take that," said Brent. "Everyone worked hard this weekend at Salem and it showed by our results. The seat time at this track really paid off. This place is hard to navigate but we overcame the odds and I think even turned some heads."

With a weekend off, Brent will regroup and prepare to head to Rockingham Speedway next weekend for the Carolina 200 on Sunday, April 19. Brent tested at the one-mile oval last month in preparation for his ARCA debut at "The Rock."

-credit: Robbbrentracing.com.

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