Eric McClure

Indianapolis, IN (July 27, 2008)—Hefty® Racing™ driver, Eric McClure, traveled to the Hoosier state this weekend to compete under the lights at O’Reilly Raceway Park. Competing in just his second start at the famous short track, McClure battled his way to a 27th-place finish in the 200-lap event.

During both practice sessions on Saturday morning, different mechanical set-ups were applied to the car in hopes of finding a balance of speed and consistency in lap times. Therefore, the Hefty® Racing™ team, under the direction of Carl Long (crew chief) made significant changes to the racing machine prior to qualifying. The result was a very “loose” handling condition and the 38th-fastest time for the Kroger 200.

At the start of the event, McClure immediately reported a “tight in the center, loose off” handling condition. “The car can’t pivot in the center; I have to wait too long to get on the gas; it’s hurting us tremendously in the center”, stated the young driver. The team took advantage of the first caution on lap 21 to receive a chassis adjustment and fuel. After receiving a speeding penalty on pit road, McClure restarted the event in the 33rd position.

As the race progressed, the handling continued to improve on the No. 24 machine. The team took advantage of three additional opportunities to make adjustments to the Hefty® Brand Chevrolet, with the last one occurring on lap 172. As the race concluded the team was credited with a 27th-place finish.

Eric McClure and the Hefty® brand Chevrolet will return to action on Saturday, August 16 at Michigan International Speedway.

Eric McClure quotes:
“We couldn’t rotate as fast as the other guys in the center of the corner and that caused us to be a bit late to full throttle off the turns. If we ran high we gave up the center. If we ran low, we gave up on exit, which hurt us on restarts. It was a tough situation. We adjusted wrong once and ended up an extra lap down, but Carl (Long) and the guys made good changes and by the end we got the car turning more consistent times for the tires we had. We improved by four or five laps from my first race here, so if we do that next year it’ll be pretty good.”