JOANIDES STARTS LAST AND DRIVES HOME TO A 5TH PLACE FINISH AT MADERA SPEEDWAY

Going into Madera, Nick Joanides and the Colorfast/Jackson Race Cars Monte Carlo have had they type of season you wouldn't even wish on your worst enemy, having bad luck find them in every conceivable way throughout the season. The team dedicated alot of time to making changes to the car during the off weeks to improve upon their sub-par performances at the last few oval races and in practice it appeared to be paying off as they were among the top 5 cars in practice times. Nick had high hopes for a strong qualifying run, but the back luck seemed to find a way back as brake fluid poured all over the left front tire causing the tire to lock up under braking and sending the car up the race track, resulting in a disappointing 20th place run. With only 16 cars taken to the main event on qualifying time, Nick was forced to run the qualifying race to make the main event. Only the top two finishers transfer to the main. Nick was in the second a final transfer position on a lap 4 restart when the third place car nailed Nick in the rear bumper entering turn one, sending Nick sideways up the track. Nick managed to hang on to the car and drove to the outside in turn 3 to take back the second position, where he did finish to earn the last starting position in the main event.

When the green flag dropped, Nick wasted no time in charging to the front. He stayed in the high groove and with Jim Pettit in tow, picked up 12 positions by the time the first caution flew at lap 24. From there on out, the field was two by two for the next 50+ laps from positions 4th through 15th. With the field so tightly bunched up, Nick was right on the bumper of another car for the entire race which prevented any air getting to the radiator and caused the car to overheat. Nick still managed to weave his way through traffic and was running 5th with about 25 laps to go when the water temperature gauge pegged at 260 degrees forcing Nick to back off the cars in front to allow air into the radiator. He managed to hold off Eddie McKean for fifth place at the finish. "With the way our luck has been this year, I was just waiting for the engine to blow with two laps to go, but I've got to give alot of credit to our engine builder Ed Hansen for building such an awesome engine that could survive that kind of heat to the finish" said Joanides. "I think we could have actually finished better had it not been overheating, but with the year we've had and considering we started last, I'm really happy to finally get back to running up front the last two races and get a solid top five finish" Joanides continued.