SPARTA, Ky.: Austin Cindric won his first oval race in the NASCAR Xfinity Series on Thursday night at Kentucky Speedway, but the real story came from eighth-place driver Kyle Weatherman.
In just his 15th career NASCAR Xfinity Series start and seventh of the season for Mike Harmon Racing, Weatherman wheeled to his first career top-10 finish in the Shady Rays 200.
It was also a career-best finish for Mike Harmon’s team in 280 career Xfinity Series races dating back to 2008.
Sure, Weatherman may have had help in the last lap when a wad of cars junked themselves on the backstretch and into Turn 3, but Weatherman showcased speed in his No. 47 Chevrolet throughout the night and put himself and his heavily underfunded team in the right position at the right time when it counted most.
“It was awesome,” said Weatherman. “It was a great car from the beginning of the race. We didn’t have great speed at the start, but we kept adjusting on it. Kept fine-tuning it to make it better.
“Tonight, we had Jason “JJ” Judd – a police officer killed in the line of duty on a motorcycle – carrying his nameplate. This is 100 percent for him.”
With a two-lap shootout in NASCAR overtime, Weatherman said the race was complete chaos on the last lap, but he was in a good enough position to avoid the carnage and carry home a top-10 finish.
“It is amazing to finish eighth,” Weatherman said. It was craziness there on the last lap. Three-wide in the middle, pretty crazy, there was so much going on, but in the end, it came out on the positive side for us.”
Working on a limited budget this weekend at Kentucky, Weatherman said his Mike Harmon Racing team did not use their full allotment of tires for the 136-lap race and could use more tires for Friday night’s Alsco 300.
“We changed tires three times tonight – short of the full allotment,” added Weatherman. “We’re short on tires tomorrow though and it’s a longer race. Hopefully, our finish tonight will spark some interest and we can get have enough tires from start to finish that would be amazing.”
Knowing there would be an invert for Friday night’s race Weatherman had hoped to capitalize on back-to-back top-15 finishes at Pocono and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, where a third straight 15th place run would put him and his MHR team on the pole Friday night.
Knowing how Thursday night turned out, Weatherman will take top-10 finishes over inverts any day.
“I wanted to finish 15th and start on the pole on Friday night, but we’ll take this. It is absolutely a win for us. I want to work on our car though. I think we can make some more adjustments and make it better for the race.
“We had 12th to 15th place speed all night. Made a few adjustments and got eighth. We’re going for the win tomorrow night – why not? We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
