NASCAR Driver Secures 24th Place at First Richmond International Raceway Appearance
RICHMOND, Va. (April 24, 2016) – Rainy weather may have limited track time for NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) regular Ray Black Jr. as he got ready to make his debut start at Richmond International Raceway, but the driver of the No. 07 ScubaLife.com Chevrolet was resilient during the ToyotaCare 250 and extended his Top-25 streak to three races when he placed 24th on Saturday.
After having all NXS on-track activity rained out on Friday, Black and his SS Green Light Racing team prepared for a single 55-minute long practice Saturday morning. The two heat races of the weekend followed practice, with lineups being set by the rule book in lieu of a qualifying session.
“It is what it is on weekends like this,” explained Black. “There’s nothing anyone can do about the weather so we prepared the car the best we could and went from there. We had a new car at the track this weekend, so it wasn’t an ideal situation but we kept working hard and it paid off.”
As Black completed his heat race, he reported a serious vibration whenever he used the brake. With limited time to fix the issue between heat races and the main, the team realized it would be an issue they would have to work with throughout the race. The vibration would turn out to not cause any major problems and Black was able to compete as he normally would.
As the majority of the main was completed under green, Black dealt with the handling of his car to the best of his ability and raced mostly around his starting position of 29th. With just under 20 laps remaining a wreck brought out the first yellow of the race and took out 10 competitors. Black expertly avoided the wreck and capitalized on some additional spots during the final restart to bring the No. 07 ScubaLife.com Chevrolet home 24th.
“That was a tough one,” said Black. “The brake vibration didn’t turn out to be a major problem, but I did have to drive a little differently with it. It was once again a great team effort this weekend! We fought hard the entire time and were able to keep up our streak of solid finishes.”
Next up for Black and his team will be the Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, April 30 at 3:00 p.m. ET.
Fans can keep up with Ray Black Jr. by following him and his sponsor, ScubaLife, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @RayBlackJr and @TeamScubaRacing.
