STOCKS: Ricky Bryant Produces Season's Best Qualifying Effort
23 June 1999
3rd Straight Top Ten for Washington Apple TeamAsk anyone around the world of professional stock car racing and they will tell you progress most often is measured in baby steps. Washington Apple/Toyota Express Lube driver Ricky Bryant can now see the results of his team's hard work paying off each week.
Ricky said "I feel like our first win and first pole are just around the corner for our team. In spite of all the unusual circumstances this season, we have focused on one race at a time, and the results of that hard work have begun to show."
Bryant's comments certainly proved true this past Saturday night at Louisville (KY) Motor Speedway when Bryant powered his #5 Washington Apple/Toyota Express Lube Pontiac to a season-best 3rd starting position in qualifying. Bryant toured the 4/10 mile D-shaped speedway in 15.475 seconds, good for a lap of over 101 miles per hour. Bryant already held the track record for qualifying, which he set last season.
Bryant now has 3 Top Five qualifying efforts this year so far. In 1998 Bryant produced an excellent qualifying performance by averaging a 4.7 starting position for the 20 races in 1998 on his way to a 3rd-place finish in the point standings. 1999 has certainly proven that qualifying is still one of the Washington Apple/Toyota Express Lube team's strong points.
Once the green flag fell for the Winston Fan Appreciation 125, Bryant quickly guided his Washington Apple/Toyota Express Lube Pontiac to 2nd place and chased eventual race winner Robert Huffman for the first 20 laps of the race. Ricky was beginning to catch the leader until his car began to develop a loose condition and he fell to 5th. Ricky commented, "I would have like to try to gain some of those spots back but every time I had some racing room, there was a caution and the field was bunched up. We are eager to win our first race of the season; however, we are also in this to win a championship, so I did not want to end up as one of the causes for a caution. So many of the cars were loose tonight, so it was tough to pass."
Six cautions into the 125-lap race made for a lot less racing than usual and the Washington Apple/Toyota Express Lube team set its sight on a good solid finish to build on the progress they have made at Charlotte and Bristol. With 20 laps to go and a top five finish in sight, a very unusual occurrence sealed the team's fate and a 6th place finish. The window safety net began to come down and Bryant had to literally back off, losing 5th place, to fasten the window net latch. Bryant stated, "I had no choice because if the window net had come down, NASCAR would have black flagged us and made us come in to refasten the net."
By the time the net was refastened, there was only a handful of laps to try to regain 5th place. Bryant did manage to catch the #94 car by the time the checkers fell, but there was not enough time to pass and regain 5th position. So Bryant and his Washington Apple/Toyota Express Lube team settled for 6th place, their best finish of the young 1999 season. This was their 3rd straight Top Ten finish.
Ricky and the team were also pleased that their finish at Louisville lifted them 2 more positions to 6th place in the Dash Series Point Standings. The Washington Apple/Toyota Express Lube team is only 49 points out of second place. 1998 Dash Champion Robert Huffman continues his hot streak, stretching his lead to 253 points. Bryant mentioned, "If Robert continues to race as he has, he will be tough to catch. We are not about to give up; we have our sights set on improving on last year and if that turns out to be 2nd place, along with some wins and Top Five's, we will be satisfied that we had another great season." He continued, "More importantly, we want to continue to do a good job for our sponsors, Washington Apples, Toyota Express Lube, Exxon and PPG and represent them well!"
Bryant and the B/G Motorsports team now have a week off. The next race will be the "Post & Courier/TV 5 Sky Fire 100" at Summerville (SC) Speedway on July 3rd.
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