Saturday night at Sun Valley Speedway was the 5th stop of the 2008 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series tour. The A&W "Cruisin the Dub" 300 was definetly a great race to see, and fans poured in the gates setting record attendance to watch some of Canadas best drivers in action.
Local driver Jason White was as ready as he has ever been for a race, he showed well in qualifying with a 9th place starting position in the 19 car field. "We were pretty happy to put the A&W "Cruisin the Dub" Monte Carlo in the top ten for qualifying". remarked White. "But we struggled to get the car set for the changing track conditions during the race". The temperature soured into the mid 30 range during practice and qualifying, then cooled off to leave many teams pondering what changes to make and keep up with the unpredictable track.
After dropping back to 15th due to a spin in turn two, Jason worked his way back up to 7th by the end of the long hot race. " This is our best finish ever but it feels like I could have done better" said White. " I made a huge mistake and overdrove turn two and looped it around, this allowed the leaders to put us a lapdown". Once Jason was a lap down it was an uphill battle from there, avoiding the wrecks and slowly moving up to the top ten.
At the end of 300 laps there were many teams out with a slough of problems including 5 blown motors. The RZ Racing team is happy that Jason brought the car home in one piece and crew chief Brian Uptigrove believes that his crew has a big hand in keeping the car out for the entire race. "Races are not only won on the track, but they are won in the shop just as much", stated Uptigrove. "We obviously have been working very hard to keep our cars tuned up, as well we are happy to be working with AMS engines who provide us with reliable power and McColl enterprises for helping maintain our equipment".
The 7th place finish put White into 11th spot in points and moved him ahead of fellow rookie of the year contendor Alex Tagliani for freshman honors. "Overall it was a good day for the team" stated White. "We advanced three positions in points and got some more confidence going into the next few races, hopefully we can continue to finish races and be consistent".
The teams will now head to Edmonton for the Grand Prix weekend July 26th, then its off to Montreal for the "NAPA 100" on August 2nd.
In a sport where more sponsor dollars equals more speed the RZ Racing Team is thankful for all of their marketing partners leading into this years NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. Special thanks go out to: A&W, Diamond lils trucking, Zimmer Wheaton GMC, Powder Ventures Excavations, Douglas Lake Equipment, T.A Lubes (Sunoco), KAL TIRE, PRAXAIR, RE/MAX (Paul Toporowski), Peaks Media Inc., RTR Performance, Zimmer Autosport, Sleemans Brewery, Mackdaddys Nightclub, L'Cat Autographics and Thompson Valley Sand and Gravel.
Race dates and results are posted on
www.NASCAR.ca 
Linkback: https://www.canadianracingonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=7919.msg47834#msg47834
