Sour Finish Overshadows Strong Showing For Patrick Sheltra At Iowa

Topics:  Patrick Sheltra, Prairie Meadows 200

Chris Knight
Sheltra Motorsports
July 10, 2010

NEWTON, Iowa (July 10, 2010) - - Patrick Sheltra entered Saturday night’s Prairie Meadows 200 at Iowa Speedway as the ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards points leader but a motor failure 46 laps into the 200-lap contest resulted in a disappointing 29th finish for the Indiantown, Florida native.

Sheltra was making his fourth start at the .875-mile paved oval and after notching the sixth and fastest (first) time respectively in the day’s duo practice sessions, the Sheltra Motorsports team had all the intuition that Saturday night’s event could be the night that the Jon Wolfe-led organization celebrated in victory lane.

In Menards Pole by Ansell qualifying, Sheltra maneuvered his No. 60 Recycling Services / Ferguson Pipe Toyota Camry to the eighth fastest time after the rising star admitted that he overdrove his machine gunning for his first career ARCA pole.

When the green flag dropped for the ninth race of the season, “Mr. Showtime”, as he’s known in the ARCA garage wasted no time slicing and dicing his way through the front pack as by the completion of the fifth lap, Sheltra had worked his way into the sixth position.

Studying the No. 16 Chevrolet of Joey Coulter for fifth, Sheltra finally passed his fellow racing colleague by lap 15 and had set his sights on the top-four racers. As Sheltra continued to inch closer to the lead pack, the ARCA pro informed Wolfe that his brakes were shot and the pedal was going to the floor, which virtually simultaneously caused the No. 60 to begin a backslide in the running order.

Wolfe acknowledged his driver’s problem but also gave his pilot a few pointers to try and challenge the braking woes. On lap 38, a caution flew for a two-car incident which allowed Sheltra to make a trip down pit road for four tires and fuel and an overview of the braking system.

Under the yellow flag, Sheltra advised his Mooresville, North Carolina based team that the brake pedal had returned to its normal function from previously in the day. The team was pleased with their driver’s final assessment of the situation and had hoped that would be the only issue the four year ARCA team would face during the night.

Restarting in the 12th position, Sheltra fiercely negotiated his green and orange machine back into the top-10 and was clearly on the move back towards the top-five when he radioed the team on lap 46 that the motor was “done”.

Slowly, the frustrated driver made his way back to the attention of his crew on pit lane where upon further review, the engine seizure was diagnosed as terminal.

For the first time this year, Sheltra would finish a race outside the top-10.

“Man, we had a good car, I hate for that to have happen,” offered Sheltra. “It just wasn’t our night. I guess, it’s all apart of racing – my emotions are just all over the place right now because we’ve worked so hard to make this team a factor week in and week out. We did that again tonight, just didn’t receive the result we were looking for. I want to thank everyone on the team, our marketing partners and everyone else who makes this deal possible. We’ll bounce back. We’ll take this race as our mulligan and get back on track next week at Mansfield.”

Sheltra’s finish on Saturday night halted an impressive eight consecutive top-10 finishes in a row which started off in the season-opener at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in February where he finished fifth and before Iowa, Sheltra finished a solid third at Michigan International Speedway, the eighth race of the 2010 season.

The mishap ultimately slipped Sheltra to second in the ARCA point standings now 70 markers behind Justin Marks, who was leading the championship chase before the No. 60 team assumed the top position three races ago at Toledo (Ohio) Speedway.

Next up for the ARCA Racing Series is a stop to Mansfield (Ohio) Motorsports Park for the running of the second annual Tim Richmond Memorial ARCA 200 next Saturday night, July 17th. Last year, Sheltra finished 21st in the No. 60 Sheltra Motorsports Dodge Charger.

Cost-effective marketing partnerships are still available for the remainder of the 2010 ARCA Racing Series season. For additional information, please contact brandon@patricksheltra.com or marketing@patricksheltra.com.

Exiting Iowa, Sheltra has 76 ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards starts to his credit with one career victory at Salem (Ind.) Speedway (April 2009). During his ARCA tenure, Sheltra has accumulated 15 top-fives and posted 30 top-10 finishes. A third place qualifying effort at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway (April 2009) and Michigan International Speedway (June 2010) is Sheltra’s best time trials effort to date. He has controlled the ARCA field six times for 148 laps.

For the latest on Patrick Sheltra, Sheltra Motorsports and marketing partnership opportunities please visit PatrickSheltra.com.

Join the official Patrick Sheltra fan page on Facebook by clicking here.

About Sheltra Motorsports:

Sheltra Motorsports (sheltramotorsports.com) is a three-tier professional Motorsports organization consisting of dirt and asphalt competition. Patrick Sheltra, a 24-year old native of Indiantown, Florida competes in the UMP and WoO (Dirt) Series; while also running a full schedule in the ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards (No. 60) and a limited schedule in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. The team is headquartered in Indiantown, Florida with additional operations in Richmond, Indiana and Mooresville, North Carolina.

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TEAM COMMUNICATIONS CONTACT:
NAME: Chris Knight, Sheltra Motorsports
PHONE: 239.834.9797 or 239.214.1083
EMAIL: chris@patricksheltra.com