High And Low For John Ryan Fitzpatrick at The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series
May 28, 2007
The opening round of the new NASCAR Canadian Tire Series at Cayuga Speedway was full of highs and lows for the Milwaukee Electric Tools Chevrolet team with John Ryan (J. R.) Fitzpatrick behind the wheel. Unfortunately the end result was a lower than the team was worthy of.
The Fitzpatrick Motorsports prepared Milwaukee Electric Tools car has been one of the quickest on track from their first laps of the season at pre season test sessions and that trend continued for round one of the series at Cayuga Speedway. “The car is great” said an enthusiastic J. R. Fitzpatrick after practice. “We’ve got lots of speed and it handles really well”.
The Milwaukee Electric Tools Chevy was quick in qualifying as J. R. Fitzpatrick held the provisional pole for much of the session. He was bumped back to second late in the running, but another blow struck as J. R. was moving the the Milwaukee Electric Tools car in tight confines onto pit lane. A brake line was sheared on the left front. By rule during an impound race such as this, as soon as the team began work on the car, they surrendered their starting spot and were forced to fall to the back of the field. “It’s disappointing” said Fitzpatrick. “I was moving the car to where the officials wanted us and we have this problem. But the car is so good we’ll be competitive”.
J. R. Fitzpatrick and the Milwaukee Electric Tools Chevy was one of the fastest cars on the track right from the drop of the green flag on the 200 lap event. J.R. disposed of cars quickly and efficiently and moved back into the top-ten and would battle with the leaders for position. Several other difficult circumstances would eventually play out and frustrate the Fitzpatrick Motorsports Team.
After a routine pit stop for tires and adjustments, J.R. is ruled to have stopped the Milwaukee Electric Tools Chevy outside of his pit box and penalized by being put to the end of the longest line. “We had the car to go fast but things like this worked against us in this race” said Fitzpatrick. “That and some of the aggressive driving, we had the toe knocked out on our car just twenty laps in. Then we got bumped again, shuffled out of our position in the top five and it made it worse. This is one of the most aggressive races I’ve seen” he concluded.
Unfortunately for the Milwaukee Electric Tools team their misfortune was not over yet. More contact would damage the centre link of the car and finish their night early. “The centre link looks like a banana, that’s how hard guys were racing out there. ”
