CONCORD, North Carolina -- The sight of the crew diligently cutting away wrinkled sheet metal on this Monday morning at Andy Belmont Racing tells the story- the Salem test session had quickly turned sour.
“We had a great car,” said Andy Belmont. “We got in some great runs and were fine tuning the setup and something just broke. It sent Tom (Hessert) into the wall at well over 100mph and Odie, our primary car, is not making the trip back to Salem this week. The guys are working very hard to get Daisy prepped and ready to go. Overcoming adversity is what makes this team championship caliber and my guys know what we have to do to get the job done.“
“Everything went well,” said Hessert. “We made some minor changes to the car and we kept moving forward with it. We went back out to make our last lap of the day and going into turn one I’m not sure whether the throttle stuck, but it sent us into the wall for a pretty hard hit. I have no doubt that the team will bring back another good car for the race this weekend. I’ve run a lot of laps here at Salem and have had some good runs so we should be just fine on Sunday.”
Tom Hessert and the ABR team head to Salem Speedway 5th in points after a career-best 6th place finish in Daytona for the ARCA RE/MAX rookie of the year contender. Hessert’s best run at Salem Speedway was a 5th place finish out of a handful of races in sprints and midgets and that previous experience is going to come in handy for Hessert against the stiff competition entered for the Kentuckiana Ford Dealers ARCA 200. NASCAR Sprint Cup veteran Ken Schrader, Formula 1 star Scott Speed and 9-time ARCA RE/MAX Series champion Frank Kimmel are just a few of the top names Hessert will compete against on Sunday. “The competition is great,” said Hessert. “I learned a lot from these guys in Daytona and am taking that with me to Salem so we should have a good showing in our #1 MAACO Ford Fusion.”
View the latest news and information on Andy Belmont Racing at www.andybelmont.com.
