On Thursday, August 14 NASCAR’s Whelen Modified Tour made their third of five visits to Thompson International Speedway (Thompson, CT) for the running of the New England Dodge Dealers 150 presented by Budweiser.

Following heavy rains, NASCAR cancelled qualifying; determining the feature line-up according to points. As you may know, the No.90 team has not been running a full season in 2008 and thus a points line-up offered a 30^th place starting spot.

Starting from the outside of the 15^th row, Renee gained several positions on the initial start. And, when the first caution flew, at just lap 4, she had already advanced to the 15^th spot.

Despite the gained track position, the team decided to pit to make chassis adjustments. “We started off a little too free,” recounted Renee. “It was really early, we knew the car wasn’t going to get any better, so we took advantage of the cautions to try and make the car more competitive.”

Over the next several caution periods, the team pitted – making stagger and wedge adjustments and adding a spring rubber. “The guys made some great calls in the pits, had some fast stops and definitely improved the handling.” The gains were obvious through the mid-stages of the event, as the team battled for position just outside the top-10, running as high as eighth.

On a lap 86 restart, Renee was running the outside lane when a car to her inside bobbled, over-corrected and slammed into her left-front. The damage quickly put an end to the team’s night – rendering them with a disappointing 28^th place finish.

“I’m frustrated because we were running a smart race – doing a lot of giving when we didn’t have a fast car and carefully taking when we did. It was just a racing deal, certainly not intentional, but not much fun regardless.”

Opting to skip next weekend’s race in Ohio – Renee will next compete on Sunday, September 7 when the Tour returns to Thompson.