Despite a tough qualifying run that put him starting 10th in a field of 22, and 5 laps of back and forth banging with the 05 car, Austin still managed to put the Sports Clips Haircuts Chevrolet on the podium in Southern National’s School’s Out 320.
“We have improved significantly in our qualifying runs since the start of the season,” says Brian Rundstrom, Crew Chief of the 07 car. “We believe the problems we had qualifying this weekend were due to the fact we set the car up to qualify with one batch of tires, and then qualified on another. Unfortunately, those were the only tires available to pick up that morning. Qualifying is the single biggest issue we have to improve on. If we can get Austin closer to the front at start of these races, we should start posting more wins. Anyone who has seen him drive can testify to that.”
“Two more solid finishes for the team and our sponsors,” says President of AM Racing, Tim Self. “Seven straight Top 5 finishes is a good indicator that this team is a solid contender, but our sponsors are more interested in the quality of the show and the podiums. The 07 car always seems to deliver a good show. Due to the timing of the cautions and restarts in the first twin, we kept losing track position and had to make it up again and again. I don’t think we have ever made that many passes in a race! Add the passing action in the first twin race to the hard-racing that went on with the 05 car in the second twin race, and you quickly become the car to watch from the grand stands. We are happy with another great result by a solid upcoming team.”
“Tires and score settling seemed to be the dominant issues tonight,” says Austin Wayne Self. “The race tires we ended up with weren’t our first choice. Fulton [Car Chief for the 07] can tell you more about that. All I know is we were in the low 15.6s with scrubs and were expecting to get into the 15.4s with new tires and that didn’t happen. Then Deac, the 08 car, had a problem with his right rear in thefirst twin and got to put on a fresh one for the second twin. That’s like giving Popeye an extra can of spinach. Finally, we knew when we reeled in Doug, the 05 car, it was going to be a little dicey making a “clean” pass after he went into the wall last week during a little contact. We traded a few shots, got warned from NASCAR officials, and then decided it best to let him go. All in all, those are two fast cars with great crews and veteran drivers. We would have liked a win tonight but happy with our performance overall and looking forward to Motor Mile next week. I don’t think we have any scores to settle and hopefully will get our pick of tires. Thanks again to all our fans and sponsors who keep us coming back race after race, to Soldiers for Faith for their prayers and to God for always looking after us.”
About Austin Wayne Self
Austin Wayne Self, a 16-year-old NASCAR driver from Texas, races for Sellers Racing in Late Model Division of the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. Self has 5 NASCAR wins in less than 2 seasons and 24 career Top 5 finishes. Self has also won 14 career national and world Karting championships, having competed since age 4. Self’s career goal is to race NASCAR Sprint Cup and do one-off IndyCar races at the Indianapolis 500.
Learn more about Austin Wayne Self by visiting:
Website www.awsracing.com
Facebook www.facebook.com/AustinWSelf
Twitter: www.twitter.com/AustinWSelf
About Sport Clips
Sport Clips is headquartered in Georgetown, Texas and was established in 1995 by founder and CEO Gordon Logan. The franchise ranks in Entrepreneur Magazine’s top 20 “fastest growing franchises” and in the top 100 in the “Franchise 500”, in the top 10 in Forbes’ “Top 20 Franchises To Start”, and in the top 50 in Dun & Bradstreet’s AllBusiness.com “2012 AllBusiness AllStars”. Sport Clips is the “Official Haircutter” of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and offers veterans preferential pricing on haircuts and franchises. Our “Help a Hero” program has donated more than one million dollars to help soldiers overseas and in hospitals call home through the VFW’s Operation Uplink. Sport Clips is a proud sponsor of Joe Gibbs Racing’s NASCAR drivers, Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin, and holds partnerships with several NCAA programs, and teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), and National Hockey League (NHL).
To learn about franchise opportunities click here, and for locations throughout the United States, visit SportClips.com. For media resources and additional information on Sport Clips, visit SportClipsMedia.com.
