Sophomore ARCA RE/MAX Series driver Patrick Sheltra heads to Michigan International Speedway this week looking to recover from a disappointing finish in last Saturday’s Pocono ARCA 200 and put himself and his Sheltra Motorsports team back in contention for the 2008 ARCA RE/MAX Series championship.
Sheltra looks for his second top-five finish of the season at Michigan International Speedway, a speedway that’s been known to spawn first-time winners. Sheltra is hoping when the checkered flag flies in Friday’s Racing for Wildlife 200, his No. 60 Dodge Charger is the one heading to victory lane.
“Pocono is behind us, so I’m eager for Michigan,” said Sheltra, who will make his third career ARCA start at the two-mile oval. “We’re back with a Dodge Charger and armed with a fresh RC Consultants engine and we’re ready to be in contention for the win Friday afternoon.”
The monstrous Michigan International Speedway has provided great racing and great finishes for teams and fans in the past. The Indiantown, Florida native doesn’t see a change in race number nine Friday.
“Michigan is a fun place to race,” sounded Sheltra. “It’s a track with a lot of room and plenty of racing. You can go three, four and even five wide at Michigan and that’s exciting! Of course racing like that comes with its territories. You have to have a strong car and a strong motor. We’re confident in the car we’re bringing and we know that the engine failure we suffered at Pocono is in the past and we don’t anticipate having it happen again.”
Sheltra Motorsports joined a plethora of other ARCA RE/MAX Series teams last month for a open test at the Brooklyn, Michigan race course and the team was confident following the session.
“The Michigan test went pretty good,” Sheltra said. “We brought a new Dodge Charger to the track and it adapted very well. Our main objective with the car was to shake it down and make sure that we didn’t face any major obstacles when we returned for race week. We’ve made some aggressive changes that I think will pay off for us.”
Crew Chief John Hayden has elected to bring Sheltra Motorsports chassis number 11 to Michigan International Speedway this weekend. The only time the automobile has seen the track was during the open ARCA RE/MAX Series test at MIS in May. Chassis number 15 will serve as the team’s back-up automobile. This is the same piece that the Whitesville, Kentucky based team competed with at Pocono Raceway last weekend.
Sheltra added, “Our Dodges have been a great addition to our team. We’ve been strong with all of them. We’ve ran in the top-10 with all of them. I don’t expect any different on Friday afternoon. We acquired this piece from Penske Racing, so we’re hoping that we can stroll into victory lane on a same weekend where Penske Racing is in attendance.”
With finishes of 33rd and 14th at Michigan International Speedway in the past two years, the avid race car driver knows an exceptional run will help him climb the point’s ladder and recover from the point’s blow the team suffered following their finish at Pocono Raceway last weekend. Currently, Sheltra is 315 points from the top-spot and only 155 markers from the top-five currently locked by Frank Kimmel.
“We have to get back on track. We lost a lot of points last weekend at Pocono Raceway,” Sheltra commented. “We cannot afford something to go wrong this weekend, we’re trying to win a championship and we can’t afford to have any more misfortunate like we had at Pocono. The points are just too tight. We have to put ourselves back in the top-10 Friday.”
Entering Michigan, Sheltra has 33 ARCA RE/MAX Series starts to his credit with a career best finish of second at Toledo Speedway (May 2008) with two additional top-five finishes (third) at Illinois State Fairgrounds (August 2007), (fourth) at Berlin Raceway (July 2007) while holding additional top-10s at Kentucky Speedway (May 2008), Kansas Speedway (April 2008), Iowa Speedway (April 2008), Kentucky Speedway (June 2007), DuQuoin State Fairgrounds (September 2007) and Toledo Speedway (October 2007). An eighth place qualifying effort at Kansas Speedway (April 2008) is Sheltra’s best time trials efforts to date. He has controlled the ARCA field once for four laps.
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