Jeff Anton Fourteenth At Mansfield

August 25, Mansfield, OH--- Russell, Massachusetts' Jeff Anton hinted before Saturday's Mansfield 150, a NASCAR Camping World Series race held at the half-mile Mansfield (Ohio) Motorsports Park, that this race might be as good for him as the one at Music City Motorplex was earlier this season. That race saw Anton race into the top-five before a flat tire cut that charge short. Anton thought his No. 30 Engineered Floors/Fast Track Medical Systems Chevrolet would be just as good at Mansfield, but a race filled with cautions and uncooperative race traffic kept him from finishing up front. He was fourteenth at the end.

A problem that has confounded the Anton Racing team has been its qualifying, where the car actually ran slower in time trials on fresh tires than it did in practice on old tires. This held true at Mansfield, where Anton timed in nineteenth fastest.

"I didn't do as well in qualifying as I wanted to do," he said. "But I'm real happy with the car. It's really good off the corners and I can keep it low, which will be good for passing. In qualifying, the front of the car didn't seem to grip that well. It's not how we wanted it to work, but overall the car is good. We should be good on long runs today."

Long runs were not in the cards for the Mansfield 150, as a dozen caution flags flew and ate up a third of the race distance. With the race being made up of a series of short runs, Anton couldn't get to take advantage of his car's ability to perform well on long green-flag stretches. It started when Matt Kobyluck slowed with a tire going flat and Anton was trapped behind him, falling through the field. It got worse on lap 61 when Anton was spun out by another competitor. He drove away from the incident but had to visit pit road for adjustments and to make sure there was no damage.

From restarting outside the top twenty, Anton made it back to fourteenth in the remaining racing laps.

"We couldn't catch a break tonight, and that's all there was to it," he said. "We got stuck behind the 40 car when he had his flat tire and couldn't get around him. A couple of times we got stuck on the outside when the inside lane was the one that was moving. Near the end of the race we really got the outside to work well on the restarts, and I could get by a lot of cars on restarts. Once it got single-file I could catch up to the guys in front of me but I needed more time to get around them."

What upset Anton the most was the quality, a term he used loosely, of racing demonstrated by the younger drivers in the series.

"At the end there everyone was jumping the restarts and NASCAR wouldn't do anything about it," he said. "There were guys out there who would just hack you off in the corners when you were beside them, and one time I had to send one of them around. He was asking for it. Other than that, we couldn't get a break. The series has gotten pretty bad with all the kids that come in thinking they can rule the track. They're quick, but they don't know how to race. They're still learning the stuff that you should already know before you come here."

In three weeks, Anton returns to action at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the running of the Heluva Good Fall 125. That race is held on Friday evening, September 12, after NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying.

"We need to get our luck turned around," he said. "We haven't had any luck yet this year so hopefully it'll come to us at Loudon. We were sixth there last time but then we had a right-front tire go flat on us. We don't qualify that well, but we race well unless something stupid happens to us."

Kevin Swindell Makes Camping World Series Debut At Mansfield

August 25, Mansfield, OH--- Nineteen year-old Kevin Swindell made his first start in the NASCAR Camping World Series on Saturday night when he started seventh and finished thirteenth in the Mansfield 150, held at the half-mile Mansfield (Ohio) Motorsports Park. Swindell, son of World of Outlaws legend Sammy Swindell, raced a No. 9 Dodge Charger for Gillett-Evernham Motorsports, prepared by Dave Davis Motorsports of Denver, North Carolina.

Swindell, who's raced both dirt and asphalt sprint cars after an impressive run through the karting ranks, got his first start in NASCAR competition with practice at the Mansfield oval. He posted the seventh-best practice time in Saturday morning's session and was also seventh-fastest in qualifying.

"The day's gone fairly smoothly," said the Germantown, Tennessee driver. "Off the trailer we were competitive. It's the first time any of us has worked together so we got comfortable with each other and with the car. It's only the second time that car's been on the racetrack. I think we have a better car to race than we qualified, so we should have a good day. Seventh isn't bad, but I think we could have been a little better than we wound up. Overall, I'm happy with my first start and we'll work from there."

Swindell raced like a veteran through the early stages of the Mansfield 150, although the style of racing in closed-wheel cars was not what he was used to.

"It's definitely a whole different world," he said after the race. "The race pace was a little higher than what I expected. I thought there would be a little more of a patience factor to it, but overall it's a big learning experience seeing these guys really use each other up and use their fenders knowing the fact that they're not going to get a wheel up on another wheel. It's something I have to learn from and learn to deal with."

Racing in the top ten throughout the event, Swindell was poised for a great finish in his debut race but ran into trouble just thirty laps from the end. Traffic jumbled ahead of him and he got into the back of another car, sending that car spinning. NASCAR officials send Swindell to the rear of the field as a penalty. In the few remaining laps, he raced back from twentieth place to finish thirteenth.

"We had an awesome car," he said. "We deserved to finish in the top five, and maybe we should have been in the top three racing for the win at the end. We ran into a bad situation and that kept me from being there at the end to show just how good we could have been.

"I have to thank Gillette-Evernham and Dave Davis for giving me this opportunity and a car as good as this one. I found out who I can race with and who I can't, and that'll help in future races," Swindell continued.

Long Island Motorsports News encourages you to patronize our fine sponsors---

Disclaimer:  Views expressed by columnists and all others on this website are strictly their own, and may not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of the management of Long Island Motorsports News.

This website is optimized for most modern computer systems, which have the wider screen sizes of 1280 X 800 pixels.

Long Island Motorsports News, your source for racing coverage, is updated daily.

Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Long Island Motorsports News.  All rights reserved.