July 7, 2013- Sherwood Park, Alberta’s Noel Dowler and the #5 EMCO/Rheem Dodge team arrived at round number four of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series at Circuit ICAR near Mirabel, Quebec looking for a solid result at the difficult road course. The team faced several difficult challenges and instead came away disappointed.
In the Saturday afternoon practice sessions Dowler was excited as he felt the car was absolutely capable of an excellent result.
“The car is fast” were the first words from his mouth after the session. “We wanted to work on making the car consistent for the race” he added.
During qualifying the #5 EMCO/Rheem Dodge experienced a highly unusual occurrence. While on a quick lap a small amount of fuel escaped from the quick fill mechanism and ignited around the back of the car. The fire was quickly extinguished by the onboard safety system that worked perfectly and Dowler didn’t appear to let the issue bother him but his qualifying lap was only 15th quick.
The #5 EMCO/Rheem Dodge team was still confident of achieving a solid result despite the setback.
“When the race began we just established a comfortable pace and knew that the car would be good in the later laps” explained Dowler.
As the laps of the race wound down the strategy appeared to be sound. Dowler made sharp passes in the turn one hairpin in the late stages.
“That was definitely my best area of the track and the one we targeted to make passes” he stated.
One other challenge lay ahead, however.
As Dowler continued to push the #5 EMCO/Rheem Dodge forward he got a bit loose in one of the corners and had just enough contact with another competitor to send him off track damaging the race car and ending their day. They would be classified 18th at the finish.
“It’s a tough break to not finish for the second straight race. But we’re excited to be heading out west for the next two races. I know we’ve got a lot of fans and support and it will definitely give us a boost”.
After four events Noel Dowler sits eighth in the overall championship standings.
The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series consists of 12 events from coast to coast in Canada. The next event takes place at Motoplex Speedway near Vernon, BC on Saturday July 13th. For more information about Noel Dowler and the #5 EMCO Dodge/Rheem team log onto www.apollomotorsports.ca and follow him on twitter, @noeldowler.
This release prepared by: TL Sports & Entertainment, todd@tlsportsent.com (239) 961-2618
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