By: Tagliani Autosport
August 21 2016
While Leading the Bumper To Bumper 300 NASCAR Pinty's Race, Alex Tagliani is Involve in a Race Incident
Montreal, Quebec - An unfortunate race incident ended a brilliant performance by Alex Tagliani on Saturday in night round 9 of 12 of the NASCAR Pinty's Series held at the one-third mile oval Riverside International Speedway in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Starting sixth, Tagliani took command of the race during a restart on lap 66 to lead 164 of the next 166 laps. As he was approaching two backmarkers on lap 231, he was victim of a crash by the spinning car of Mark Dilley, the result of an encounter between Dilley and Gary Klutt.
Beforehand on lap 108, the driver of the EpiPen Chevrolet had a hard time to move pass Waylon Farrell of Newfoundland, who was five laps down on the leader. It also took Tagliani 10 laps to pass Andrew Ranger who was also several laps down. But things were still running well at that point as he put polesitter Donald Chisholm one lap down on the 229th circuit.
"That's a tough one to take", said a dejected Alex Tagliani following the race. "I was lapping the field. We had the car to beat. At one point in the last third of the race, I got stuck behind two cars fighting for position and they would not let go as I was approaching. Then car 50 (Gary Klutt) banged car 7 (Mark Dilley) which spun off out of control before coming back in the middle of the track hitting me as I was driving by. His car tore off the right front end of mine, destroying the suspension. Dilley was a bystander in this incident. He did not initiate the contact with Klutt. There is nothing he could do to avoid the contact with my Chevrolet EpiPen. These are the types of incidents that should not occur when the race leader approaches lapped cars. The Tagliani Autosport crew did everything they could to repair, but the car was too damaged.
"This will be remember as the missed opportunity of the season for us. We had a chance to close in on the championship leaders. Instead, I am 32 points from first place. I have never seen my teammates so down when the race was over," concluded Tagliani.
The Bumper to Bumper 300-lap night time race was won by rookie Cayden Lapcevich from Grimsby, Ontario who took over the lead on lap 290, His second win of the season enables him to move into first place of the driver standings. Louis-Philippe Dumoulin of Trois-Rivières finished second ahead of Jason Hathaway of St. Thomas, Ontario and local hero Donald Chisholm of Antigonish' Nova Scotia, the last driver to complete 300 laps.
Sixteen drivers made the trip to Nova Scotia and 12 crossed the finish line, with only four of them on the lead lap. The race was under caution four times for 41 laps.
With three races to go, Tagliani is still third in the Driver standings with 341 points. With his win in Nova Scotia, rookie Cayden Lapcevich takes the overall lead with 373 points, 12 ahead of former leader Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Quebec, who finished 14th. Tagliani Autosport principal Colin Livingston still leads the Owner Standings, but only one point separates his team from Sherri Lapcevich (374-373).
The Bumper To Bumper 300 will be televised on TSN on Sunday, August 28 at 12:30 p.m. ET. The NASCAR Pinty's series returns to action the weekend of September 3-4 for the Can-Am 200 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Ontario. Tag should be entered in several series.
Tagliani with Team Penske next weekend at Road America
Next Saturday August 27, Tagliani will be in Road America, Wisconsin to drive the #22 Ford Mustang of Team Penske in round 23 of the NASCAR Xfinity Series. The Road America 150 will air live on TSN 1, 4 and TSN 5 at 3 p.m. Pre-race show starts at 2:30 p.m. ET.
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