Wade Day Finishes Second at Hickory

PR Log (Press Release) – Aug 04, 2008 – If you ask Wade Day about the 2008 USAR Hooters Pro Cup Series season, he will talk about unfulfilled potential.  In the series’ six events leading up to Hickory, Day has qualified in the top five four times, including a pole at Concord.  Those top five qualifications had resulted in no top five finishes.  The Highlands Motorsports Team was determined to change that trend as they descended upon the Hickory Motor Speedway in Hickory, North Carolina.

“Hickory isn’t one of my best tracks, but I had my best finish of the season there last year,” said Day.  The Elizabethton, TN, driver showed that last year’s run was not a fluke when the Lopez Wealth Management Ford Fusion was second quick in the day’s only practice session.

Day qualified in the top five for the fifth time in seven races as he put his ride on the inside of the second row. “We could have been on the pole, but the window net came unhooked during the run.  It ended up stuck in the steering wheel and every time I turned the wheel it jabbed me.  I don’t even remember the lap,” said Day, “I was just trying to get through it.”

“We tested here Thursday and struggled on used tires,” said Day.  “We decided to just worry about getting the car to turn through the corners and not really worry about top end speed.  This is the approach we took at Myrtle Beach and it worked really well for us at Hickory.”

Day charged into the lead on lap 11 when pole sitter Clay Rogers headed to the pits and led until he made a pit stop at lap 78 for tires.  Day worked his way through the field, finally regaining the lead by lap 156 and keeping it until lap 200, when eventual winner Hunter Robbins took over the point.

“Robbins was on fresher tires and was faster than us, so I let him go by.  We probably would have been better off getting our tires a little later than we did.  We decided early to make this a one stop race and I was conserving fuel every chance I could,” sad Day. “At the end, the guys with fresher tires were faster, but we held on for second.  Billy Bigley was right on my bumper the last couple laps.  He could have hit me and knocked me out of the way, but he didn’t do it.  He really raced me clean and I appreciate that.  It’s a good thing the race didn’t go any longer though as we only had about a quart of gas left in the car after the race.”

When asked about finishing second, Day said, "Of course you want to win, but we finally finished where we should have tonight, with the luck we’ve had, I’ll settle for second.  It gives us a lot of confidence going into Bristol."

Day’s second place finish closes the gap in the Southern Division standings to 36 points behind second place Michael Ritch and 83 points behind leader Mark McFarland as the teams head to Bristol, TN, for the final race of the Southern Division season on Wednesday, August 20th.

Last year, Day qualified second at the Bristol Motor Speedway.  Day held a commanding lead and it looked like he was on his way to his first victory when he ran over debris, puncturing a tire and sending the car hard into the wall, ending his night. “We have a lot of confidence heading to Bristol.  It’s always great to race at our home track, just a couple miles down the road from our shop.”  

To contact Highlands Motorsports, located in Bristol, TN, call (423) 968-5484. For more information about Wade Day, visit his website at www.wadeday.com and to keep up with the USAR Hooters Pro Cup Series visit www.usarprocup.com