Early contact and a drive-through penalty cost rookie Luc Lessage any chance at a good finish in Mirabel. (Photo-Matthew Manor/NASCAR)
Mirabel, Quebec – Rookie driver Luc Lesage from Trois-Rivieres, Quebec was back in action looking for another strong outing in his second ever NASCAR Canadian Tire series race in the #24 Sportchief Dodge this past weekend at Circuit ICAR in the Jiffy Lube 100 presented by La Petite Bretonne.
During the season opener at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park Lesage recorded a top ten result in his first ever series race. Racing in his home province in front of family and friends Lesage looked to continue his progression however an early incident would dampen the team's results.
Action began for the team on Saturday with practice. Through the two sessions Lesage worked with the #24 Sportchief Dodge team to improve the handling of the car. The lap times for Lesage dropped significantly from the first session to the final practice and had the team confident heading into the qualifying session. "We had a shock problem during the first practice and after fixing that we made changes to the car for the second practice," said Lesage afterwards. "The changes didn't work well and the team decided to make more changes before the qualifying session."
While Luc posted almost an identical time in qualifying to his practice lap he would wind up 19th quickest and begin the 100km event from the inside of row ten.
As the green flag waved for the start of the race Lesage and the #24 Sportchief team suffered an unfortunate turn when they were involved in contact with a another competitor on the opening lap costing them track position.
Unfortunately things went from bad to worse as Lesage was given a drive through penalty for jumping the restart of the race. He would also make a pit stop for attention from the crew on lap 6.
With all this now behind him and repairs made on the fly by the crew Lesage dug in and did his best to focus on smooth, consistent laps for the rest of the afternoon. Lesage was able to gain several positions back after earlier difficulty and brought the #24 Sportchief Dodge home with a 22nd place result. "If we had not been in that accident on the first lap I think we would have had a top 5 or top 10 car today. But after getting caught up in the on track incident I had to go to the pits and come from the back of the field."
The Jiffy Lube 100 from Circuit ICAR will air Sun. July 13 at 11 a.m. ET on TSN and Thur. July 17 at 9:30 p.m. on RDS.
The #24 Lesage team will compete in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series next in Lesage's home town at Circuit de Trois-Rivieres on August 10th.
Luc Lesage enjoys support from the following companies: SportChief, EcoTone and Trois-Rivières Toyota.
Race fans can follow Luc Lesage on Twitter @LucLesage24 or on Facebook at Luc Lesage #24.
SportChief and EcoTone are subsidiaries of Cote-Reco inc. It's a family business which has been in the shoe market for over 75 years. COTE-RECO inc. is an organization in distribution and importation of shoe products all across Canada. The imported products come mainly from countries known for manufacturing footwear such as: Italy, Brazil, Mexico, and China.
http://www.SportChief.com/
http://www.zone-EcoTone.com/