POCONO, Pa. – Short track ace Shane Lee continues to show confidence in his transition from the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards to the NASCAR Xfinity Series driving for Richard Childress Racing.
With that confidence comes results and during Saturday’s Pocono Green 250 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, the Newton, N.C. native earned a career-best finish driving the No. 3 Childress Vineyards Chevrolet Camaro.
Lee finished 12th on Saturday, marking his third consecutive top-15 finish driving a part-time effort for RCR. In his debut at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, Lee contended for a top-10 finish before a tire failure relegated him to a 14th place finish.
Two weeks later at Talladega Superspeedway, Lee shook off triggering a multi-car accident at the 2.66-mile superspeedway to draft inside the top-10 before settling for 15th.
In his return to the 2.5-mile triangle at Pocono, Lee once again surfaced inside the top-10 but handling woes during a late-race green-flag stretch dropped the 24-year-old from sixth to 12th over the final 40 circuits.
“We fired off with this Childress Vineyards Camaro extremely tight, especially during the first two stages,” said Lee. “I could either maintain or make significant gains in Turns 1 and 2 but struggled to keep any of that momentum going into and coming off of Turn 3 for the majority of the race.
“Because of the way the cautions fell and our plan to save fuel, we were able to work our way into the top 10 midway through the final stage. We just couldn’t hit on the right adjustment to cure the struggles with that last turn. I’m proud of this 12th-place result and this team should be just as proud.
“I look forward to hopping back behind the wheel in Iowa in a couple of weeks.”
NASCAR brought a restrictor plate aerodynamic package to Pocono this weekend – the first of three races the series will endure a performance platform meant to keep the cars bunched together while also reducing the speed of the race cars.
Lee said he lacked the horsepower and grip in his No. 3 Chevrolet to compensate for his handling woes, especially in Turn 3, noted as the track’s most influential corner to gain speed
coming down the nearly 3,740 feet frontstretch.
“As the race went longer, the tighter we got out of Turn 3, which was our crutch all day,” Lee told Kickin’ the Tires. “Through Turn 1 and the tunnel turn, we could maintain with them, if not better than a lot of the cars that finished in front of us. Turn 3, we could just never get it figured out, we needed more turn and rotation down there.”
With a week off before returning at Iowa Speedway on June 17, Lee believes his RCR team could have easily had three top-10 if not for circumstances and bad luck.
“Bristol and Talladega, if we don’t blow a tire and run out of gas, we shouldn’t have finished no worse than fifth,” Lee sounded. “Today, we finished where we should’ve finished. Still
needs a little more speed.”
“Overall, this Chevrolet and all the guys at RCR brought a pretty good car,” he said. “We come home 12th, we definitely want to be better than that, but it was a good day.”
Looking ahead, Lee hopes for bigger and better things in his second short track race of the season.
Last year at the 0.875-mile Iowa Speedway, Lee scored the pole in the ARCA event, led 58 laps before experiencing problems on pit road that resulted in an 11th place finish.
“Iowa is a cool place and I expect good things for our RCR team in a couple weeks, he said. “I had a car capable of winning the ARCA race there last year and I know that RCR is going to do
all they can to put me in a similar situation. Looking forward to going back to that place. It should be a good race for the fans on Father’s Day.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
