Power Steering Woes Relegate Dupuis to 16th

Thompson, CT (April 10, 2005) – The opening race in the inaugural Whelen Modified Tour season proved to be a race-long battle for Renee Dupuis and her Dupuis Racing team after an early race incident to her left front damaged her tie rod and steering rack. 

46 teams assembled for time trials, with Dupuis qualifying 17^th in the 38-car field. Dupuis would start the race in 17^th position but fell back early, dropping as far back as 20^th before being involved in a multi-car incident on lap 13. 

"I don’t really know what happened," said Dupuis. "We got turned sideways, then run over."

When the pits opened on lap 15, Dupuis brought the #90 Space Fitters Inc car to pit road, where the crew began working on fixing the damage. 

"We bent the tie rod," said Dupuis. “It was toed-in like a foot, and the guys worked their butts off to fix the problem. The guys did an awesome job in the pits. We pitted so many times, sometimes multiple times under the same caution – just to stay on the lead lap. They never gave up. They kept working and working, and made the car a lot better.” 

By avoiding getting swept into the cautions that plagued the race, Dupuis was not only able to advance her position, but also make multiple pit stops during the ensuing caution laps to continue to both repair the tie rod and refill the power steering reservoir. 

By lap 76, Dupuis was sitting in 15^th despite all of the pit stops, and was up to 13^th by lap 81. Soon however, the power steering woes began to rear their ugly head again, and Dupuis began a slow slide backwards that culminated in falling a lap down on lap 103. Fortunately for Dupuis, the caution came out on lap 104, and she became the recipient of NASCAR’s “Lucky Dog” pass, putting her back on the lead lap. Unfortunately for Dupuis, the NASCAR officials are still getting a handle on how to use this rule on the Whelen Modified Tour, and she was not told by NASCAR to pass the pace car until the race was going green again. 

“I lost a lap because I had no power steering, but we got the lap back due to the lucky dog," said Dupuis. “But NASCAR screwed up – we got called to go around the pace car as the race was going back to green – we had to pit - so we went back a lap down again.” 

With NASCAR not moving the 90 back to the lead lap until very late, and the 90 team not able to put the hood of the car back on during their pitstop (while they again refilled the power steering reserves), Dupuis would not only lose the lap she had just regained, but would lose another lap when she went back to the pits to get her hood put back on.  Even though Dupuis would lose her power steering again one final time as the race came to its conclusion, the #90 was brought home in 16^th place. 

“Early on, the rack was damaged, it developed a slow leak, and we lost all the fluid twice," said Dupuis. “I think we easily had a top 10 car - if not for the power steering problem.” 

The Whelen Modified Tour has the week off, with the next race not coming until the Spring Sizzler at Stafford Motor Speedway on April 24th.