TALLADEGA, Alabama -- Burney Lamar came from the rear of the forty-one car field Saturday afternoon, to finish sixth in the ARCA/REMAX "Food World 300" at the Talladega Superspeedway. It was the 25 year old W.Sacramento, CA. native's first ARCA race and his first on the 2.66 mile high-banked oval.
Although he qualified the DeLana Harvick owned, HPS/Groeniger Chevrolet tenth out of a field of 52 entries, Lamar was forced to start from the rear of the field because of an alternator change that was made after the cars were impounded following qualifying.
By lap sixteen of the 113 lap race, the youngster had moved up to twenty-fourth, and on lap forty-nine was in sixth place. On lap seventy-six he was was third, but following a pit stop around lap eighty-one, he got hung out on the outside and dropped back to eleventh. During the last twenty laps he improved back up to sixth where he took the checkers.
"Kevin (Kevin Harvick, his spotter) told me to watch out for it, but I made a rookie mistake and got hung out on that last restart. I don't intend to do that again", said Lamar.
"All in all, we accomplished what we set out to do, except of course, win it. We didn't have too much time to work on the car before the race, but our intent was to finish, which we did, and to keep the fenders on it, which we did. My crew really did a great job all weekend long and my pits stops were awesome. They even gained me positions".
Lamar's next race will be this Saturday in his NASCAR BUSCH Series debut at the Kansas Speedway.
