April 22, 2007
Thompson's Ice Breaker

Following a one-week weather postponement, the NASCAR’s Whelen Modified Tour opened the 2007 season with Thompson International Speedway’s (CT) annual ‘Ice Breaker’ event. 

Out of 47 entries, Renee qualified 13^th – lining up for the 150-lap race on the inside of the seventh row. From the start, the SpaceFitters No. 90 machine looked strong – pulling away from the field along with the lead pack. Before lap 20, Renee was in 10^th place.  

On a lap-23 restart, ahead of Renee, the field checked-up going down the backstretch. The No. 90 car was running on the outside and got squeezed into the turn three retaining wall. 

“A strut on the right front came back and cracked the fuel pump,” Renee explained. “The fuel pump is really located in a bad spot in these cars. NASCAR needs to mandate a change, like they have with the Cup cars, so this can’t happen. That ended our day way too early.” 

“When you qualify like garbage, you run with garbage. However, we had a respectable qualify run and were running in the top-10.” It was especially frustrating for the team “because this type of deal doesn’t happen as much in the front of the pack as it does the back. It was way too early to be running like that and I’m pretty frustrated that we got taken out,” said Renee.

“We’ve got some work to do to the car – but we’ll be ready for Stafford next week.” The WMT will run a 200-lap race next weekend at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway. Qualifying is scheduled for 1 PM on Saturday (April 28), with the race going off on Sunday at approximately 2:30 PM.

Between now and then, be sure to tune into SPEED on Wednesday, April 15 at 8 PM. Viewers can watch as Renee and her team continue to compete on Setup – SPEED’s latest reality TV show.