"We had something to show at the beginning of the weekend, and we had to pull it together to bring it home at the end," crew chief Bob Yale said. "The way the points were, we were way out if someone on the outside or one of those guys right inside the cut line won. Our mentality was to make it must-win."
Then came the race for the open spots, and Davidson's run made a difference as well. The #11 has rarely been in the top-25 in points this season, but it became crucial that he made his way there once he got his win at Zen Joltis Quad Oval Mega Speedway. Despite sluggish practice sessions, Davidson rallied for a 4th to ultimately push him to 22nd in points, 12 points better than he needed.
"It's nerve-wracking to keep doing the points game and being that close," nascarfan19 said. "Fortunately, it was a much bigger gap once the #7 got out. Last year, we only got in by a point."
Less drivers fell out in the race than in the NFRN Amateur Cup Series counterpart. Besides Shepherd and Carranza, Adam Mundinger and Arndt were the only other dropouts as a result of Arndt getting into Gerrard Oran but taking the bigger hit. Both the #97 and #05 were locked into the playoffs going into the race.
For the final ten weeks of racing, the NFRNX channel will offer simultaneous in-car cameras for the NFRN Elite Cup Series, NFRN Amateur Cup Series, and NFRN Truck Series playoff drivers in addition to the main feed on the nascarfan19 channel.
"This is such an exciting program to launch because it's something that's never been done before in this kind of medium," league commissioner Collin Denton said. "The in-car cameras for playoff drivers is kind of our test program for the channel and we hope to find new ways to utilize it for Season 3." NFRNX will take over the channel currently known as "nf19games," which will have its videos deleted in the coming days and re-posted to nascarfan19. In addition to live in-car cameras, premieres for each of the playoff drivers will include:
While a first career victory would be sweet for Pontzer, the #92 team is 31st in points, 17 points back from 25th and would need other drivers immediately in front of him to have trouble. A driver with a victory must be in the top-25 after 16 races to make the playoffs, a situation David Davidson is familiar with. The Zen Joltis Quad Oval Mega Speedway winner is 29th in points, 10 points out of 25th, and needs a great run out of this weekend. He finished 15th in this session.
Here's the top-10 from our final practice session of the regular season: 1) Noah Pontzer (R) - 27.081 (109 laps) 2) Gerrard Oran (R) - 27.098 (108) 3) Zachary Fitzwater Sr. (R) - 27.102 (111) 4) Ryan Maiden (R) - 27.110 (111) 5) Rampage - 27.112 (104) 6) Nick Smith - 27.115 (108) 7) TheOtherJR (R) - 27.116 (108) 8) Noah Kars - 27.118 (103) 9) Aidan Shepherd (R) - 27.119 (109) 10) Adam Mundinger (R) - 27.122 (107) |
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