Talladega, AL (November 1, 2009)-In an exciting last lap pass, Aric Almirola in the No. 15 Graceway Pharmaceuticals™ / AKAwareness.com Toyota Tundra pushed teammate Kyle Busch to post one-two finishes for Billy Ballew Motorsports Saturday, October 31, 2009 at Talladega Superspeedway in the running of the Mountain Dew 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race.
From the time the team unloaded the No.15 Tundra, Almirola was strong and showed that in qualifying with a fifth-place starting position for the scheduled 94 lap event.
At the drop of the green-flag, Almirola was fast, holding the bottom line as the trucks ran three and four-wide on the aero-dependent race track holding the bottom line pushing the leader around the racetrack. Almirola’s Tundra was dominant picking up the lead on lap 48 and again on lap 50 to lead for a total of 15-laps.
The No. 15 Graceway Pharmaceuticals™/ AKAwareness.com team knew they had the truck to beat, but on lap 65 the team pitted for the last scheduled fuel stop and was only able to get one can of fuel in the truck. The team was concerned that they may not have enough Sunoco fuel to finish the race, and Almirola was encouraged to conserve wherever possible. Luckily the cautions helped Almirola save fuel and he was able to jump out with Busch to overtake Todd Bodine in an amazing last lap dash giving team owner, Ballew, his first one, two-finish in his 300th-NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start.
Busch to show his gratitude to his Billy Ballew Motorsports teammate drove down pit road past the entrance to Victory Lane to congratulate and thank Almirola.
Almirola spoke of the trip Busch made down to him after the race, “It meant the world. As hard as it is to win these races, he’s won a lot of them and he knows that it was a team effort today. Congratulations to Billy Ballew in his 300th start in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and he got a one-two finish so that’s pretty awesome for him.
“It was a good race, it was fun. We had a good truck. I’m real proud of Doug George (crew chief) and all the guys on this team. Everybody at Billy Ballew Motorsports did a great job and worked really hard. We had two awesome speedway trucks and it showed today. There were not very many people that could hang with us (Kyle Busch) when we got together and we proved that a couple times throughout the race. We tried not to show our cards too much in the beginning. It paid off and it was a one-two finish for Billy Ballew – I just wanted to be one bad.
“In the beginning of the race, Todd (Bodine) was behind me and I was behind the six (Colin Braun) and I never touched the six, Todd (Bodine) never touched me and we were just cruising around, just riding. I was riding seriously half to three quarters throttle just to make sure that I didn’t run into the back of the six (Braun). 30 laps into the race, all of the sudden I was getting slammed from the back. It was for no reason really, we weren’t going anywhere. The guy in front of me wasn’t going to go any faster from me slamming into him. A couple times I actually burned the brakes up, the brakes went all the way to the floor board just to keep from running over the people in front of me. If we knocked our grill and our duct work in, then we had to come in to take tape off then we surely weren’t going to have a shot to win. I think people were really aggressive and didn’t need to be.”
Tying his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series best finish of second, Almirola has now posted six top-fives this season for Billy Ballew Motorsports. Almirola racked up the NASCAR Loop Statistics in the Mountain Dew 250. He was rated as the top driver in ratings which is calculated by combining the following categories: Win, Finish, Top-15 Finish, Average Running Position While on Lead Lap, Average Speed under Green, Fastest Lap, Led Most Laps, Lead-Lap Finish. Almirola’s lowest position in the race was 12th-place position and had an average running position of first-place in the 98-lap race, which is the sum of the driver position on each lap divided by the laps run in the race.
Almirola and the rest of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series teams will head next to Texas Motor Speedway on Friday, November 6, 2009 for the 23rd-event of the 25-race season in 2009. For more information on Billy Ballew Motorsports, Aric Almirola and AK Awareness please visit www.BillyBallewMotorsports.com, www.AricAlmirola.com and www.AKAwareness.com.
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