NASCAR

BNS: Stafford III: Greg Schaefer race notes

Greg Schaefer picks up another points position after finishing thirteenth at Stafford. Hatboro, Pennsylvania's Greg Schaefer moved up another place in the NASCAR Busch North Series points standings to ninth after taking a thirteenth place finish ...

Edited: Dec 22, 2003, 5:59 AM

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Greg Schaefer picks up another points position after finishing thirteenth at Stafford.

Hatboro, Pennsylvania's Greg Schaefer moved up another place in the NASCAR Busch North Series points standings to ninth after taking a thirteenth place finish in the third and final trip to Stafford Motor Speedway for 2002. With one more race to run, Schaefer sits ninth in the season standings.

The Stafford weekend did not start out on a high note for the Rite-Way Electric team, as the team struggled in practice and qualifying. Schaefer's time trial lap of 20.333 seconds (88.526 MPH) was only good for the twentieth starting position.

"We were very loose," he said. "The car wasn't predictable all day in practice. It's been tight and loose, and we've gone back and forth about five times and never hit it just right. Usually we hit it right in the race, so we should be all right."

Schaefer's race started with his moving up a couple positions at the start, then going all the way to fourteenth under the first caution. Under the second caution, which came out on lap 56, he pitted with many other lead lap cars for new right-side tires and adjustments. He returned to the track in nineteenth. As other cars pitted during the balance of the race's eight yellows, Schaefer continued to move up and was running inside the top ten, in ninth, shortly before 100 of the 150 laps were run. But the car was not handling well on short runs, and short runs were tough to come by as the cautions were frequent in the race's second half. Schaefer ran in ninth until there were just thirty-five laps to go, when he was forced out of the top ten and back to thirteenth, where he finished.

"I kept it on the lead lap, kept it out of trouble and brought it home in one piece" he said after the race. "It got too tight in the center of the turns and too loose off, and we had to decide on which one to fix. We tried to fix it during the pit stop and I think we made it better, but it was better on long runs rather than short runs, and those late restarts dropped us back. We were good after five or ten laps, but I don't think we got a five or ten lap run in there at the end. I was hoping for better. We didn't run well here in the day last time, but we run better at night. I guess it takes two different setups to get around here in the day versus the night. We're getting better, we're learning, and we'll make it better for next year."

Schaefer will now concentrate on preparing for the final race of the year, which will be held at Lime Rock Park's road course on October 12th.

-ajc-

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