Early Day For Patrick Sheltra At The Milwaukee Mile

Topics:  Patrick Sheltra, Governor’s Cup 200

Chris Knight
Sheltra Motorsports
August 28, 2007

WEST ALLIS, Wisconsin (August 28, 2007) - - On the heels of a career best third place finish the week before at the Illinois State Fairgrounds (Springfield), Florida’s Patrick Sheltra leaned into The Milwaukee Mile looking to continue the surge and produce another satisfying finish.

Sheltra Motorsports has been a headliner for the second half of the season. The consistency the rookie team has shown has propelled Sheltra from 15th to sixth in points during the course of the last eight races. The team was hoping to leave another mark in the Governor’s Cup 200.

In the first practice session of the day, Sheltra utilized the hour and fifteen minute session to gain track knowledge and experience around the famed oval, preparing himself for the rest of the weekend.

At the conclusion of the practice, Sheltra had posted the 17th fastest time with a time of 31.522 seconds at 114.206 MPH. “We’re loose. I know a lot of the guys are facing a tight problem, but we’re the opposite. I’m not worried. The guys are working hard on the Sheltra Motorsports team to give us a good setup for qualifying later this afternoon. This should be a good race tomorrow, but I think track position will be key, so we need to see if we can put our Chevrolet in the top-10 later today. For the race tomorrow, we’re itching to beat our third place run from last weekend, so hopefully with a little luck, we’ll accomplish that.”

Heading into ARCA SIM Factory pole qualifying, Sheltra knew that a strong starting spot would equal success at The Magic Mile. Drawing the 24th position, Sheltra would watch his fellow competitors, hoping to learn something that would help his qualifying run.

During his time trials run, Sheltra mounted a lap of 30.646 seconds at 117.470 MPH putting the No. 60 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS 11th on the starting grid. Sheltra, nicknamed “Mr. Showtime” picked up nearly eight-tenths of a second from his practice run earlier in the day.

“I’ll take that,” said Sheltra, a rookie on the tour. “It was a good lap. The car is pretty good, I think we’ll have to tweak it on it a little bit during the race, but overall, I think we’ll be in good shape.”

Teams entered The Milwaukee Mile on Sunday under perfect racing conditions. A tight schedule was set for the teams on race day with the green flag set to waive shortly after 12:00pm.

At the start of the Governor’s Cup 200, it didn’t take long for Sheltra to make his move into the top-10. By the conclusion of lap one, Sheltra had locked the 10th position.

Planning to inch his way forward, Sheltra was working on Dexter Bean for ninth, finally making that pass on lap five with his eyes setting for more.

Unfortunately, while gunning for eighth, Sheltra’s motor expired on lap nine sending the Sheltra Motorsports team to the garage and done for the day.

“This is our first motor failure of the year and I know we’re going to have some mechanical hiccups along the way, but we didn’t need this type of run today,” said Sheltra who finished 36th.

“The car was handling pretty good and I was just getting into my rhythm. There was no warning, she just blew up. Nothing we can do about it except find the cause of the problem and move forward towards Gateway this weekend. We’ve got a good team and great sponsors; we’ll just try and make it up to them at Gateway on Friday night.”

CP Concrete Products, US Construction, SawHorse Outfitters, Brady Ranch and FloraGanics all sponsored Sheltra’s No. 60 machine this past weekend at The Milwaukee Mile.

“I’m really sorry to our sponsors. We’ve had some really good runs lately, and unfortunately, we just couldn’t put it all together this weekend. We’ll bounce back and put them in the spotlight at Gateway.”

Despite the disappointing finish, Sheltra still locks the sixth position in the ARCA RE/MAX Series championship standings behind fellow rookie Phillip McGilton.

Next up for the ARCA RE/MAX Series is a stop at Gateway International Raceway, a track that oversees the famed Gateway Arch. The Gateway ARCA 150 is a one-day show with practice and qualifying setting the field for the 18th event of the 2007 season. The green flag is scheduled to waive at 8:00pm Local Time with live coverage on SPEED.

For more on Patrick Sheltra, please visit PatrickSheltra.com

MEDIA CONTACT:
NAME: Chris Knight, Sheltra Motorsports
PHONE: 239.834.9797
EMAIL: Knight849@aol.com