Fleeman, Gresham Motorsports Fast But Foiled At Lanier Speedfest CRA Super Series Show
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BRASELTON, GA (January 31, 2010) – You’d have never guessed Russell Fleeman hadn’t been in a CRA Super Series Late Model Stock Car in more than a year based on his performance in Sunday’s Speedfest 250 at Lanier National Speedway.
“I think the last time I drove a Super was at Nashville in 2008,” said Fleeman, who was making his first-ever appearance in a Gresham Motorsports ride. “I really enjoyed having a big horsepower engine under the hood again. The whole weekend was really fun. That is, until we got wrecked and knocked out of the race.”
Fleeman had little time to get used to the seat normally occupied by Max Gresham as cold, wet weather washed out all but a few laps of practice over two days at the Braselton, GA paved oval. Still, the veteran driver was able to qualify his No. 11 Gresham Motorsports racer 13th in the stellar field of 32 cars with a lap of 13.894 seconds.
“We knew we had a really good car, but we had so little practice that we had to make the decision to pretty much qualify with our race set-up,” said Fleeman. “I always like to make a run at the pole and I especially would have liked to do that for the Gresham’s but Gene (GMS crew chief Gene Roberts), the crew, and I talked and we decided the best thing to do was to have a good set-up for the race.”
The team strategy decision quickly paid off as Fleeman rocketed his way into the top-10 just three laps into the event and ran as high as seventh before the race was flagged to a half for a halftime break on the 125th circuit.
Back on the track and ready to make his move to the front, Fleeman’s day was short-circuited when he was swept up into a multi-car accident on Lap 129.
“I’m not exactly sure what happened, but it looked like the car in front of me got tangled up with a lapped car,” Fleeman stated. “I got slowed down and would have missed it, but then David Stremme hit me from behind and shoved me into the wreck. It was really a shame – we were sixth or seventh at the time – and we were just cruising, waiting for the race to shake out and pass the cars in front of us one at a time. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to do that.”
His Gresham & Associates sponsored racer too badly damaged to continue, Fleeman called it a day and was officially credited with 22nd in the final running order. NASCAR Sprint Cup star Kyle Busch took the win followed by Steven Wallace, Jeff Fultz, Bubba Pollard and Drew Bannon.
“They have a great group of guys over here at Gresham Motorsports,” said Fleeman. “I’ve know most of them for a long time and they run a first-class operation. The goal was to win. There were a lot of great cars and drivers here and to run as well as we did says a lot about how good this team is. They usually have a good outcome. Even though we ran well, that unfortunately wasn’t the case for us today.”
Gresham Motorsports will field cars in several different divisions this season including an entry for Max Gresham in select 2010 ARCA events. The team is actively pursuing qualified candidates with sponsorship funding interested in campaigning its Super and Pro Late Model entries in 2010.
For more information about how to get involved with the Gresham Motorsports Super and Pro Late Model programs, please contact Gene Roberts at gene@greshamotorsports.com.
For additional information about sponsorship/partnering with the Gresham Motorsports ARCA effort or with Max Gresham’s NASCAR K&N Pro Series ride fielded by Joe Gibbs Racing, please contact Tony Gresham at tgresham@greshaminc.com.