Dalton Sargeant at 9:15 pm ET Photo – Courtesy of Sargeant Motorsports
Dalton Sargeant is our next guest on Fan4Racing Fan2Fan NASCAR & Race Talk on Monday, December 8, 2014 at 9:15 pm ET. Call 714-202-9918 during the LIVE broadcast with any questions or comments.
Dalton Sargeant and the No. 5 Victor Ford Wauters Motorsports team battled throughout the 323 laps of their very first Snowball Derby. After qualifying in 25th, Sargeant methodically made his way through a field of the best short track drivers in the country, finishing in the second position. The Snowball Derby was Sargeant’s seventh super late-model start, and only second start at Five Flags Speedway.
The green flag waved and the No. 5 maintained its position for the opening laps with Sargeant adjusting to a race pace with a good amount of traffic after starting 25th in the 37-car field. The first 100 laps went smooth for the stock-car rookie as he advanced ten positions under green-flag conditions before his first pit stop.
Sargeant battled with some of the biggest names in short track racing, but stalled his progress in the middle part of the event, maintaining his tenth position until lap 193. Through a good pit stop and two aggressive restarts, Sargeant was able to take over the second position on lap 222 and stayed in contention to win the 47th running of the Snowball Derby the rest of the way.
After a 75-lap green flag run Sargeant looked as though he would finish in the fourth position until a caution came out with five laps remaining. Legendary crew chief and owner Richie Wauters made the call for four tires under the caution period and Sargeant restarted in the sixth position with five laps remaining. The No. 5 was able to survive multiple incidents and sometimes miraculously avoided incidents, routinely picking up positions each restart.
Following two more restarts that included three and sometimes even four wide racing, the field raced toward a green white checkered finish, as Sargeant restarted in the second position. After spinning his tires a little on the last restart, the No. 8 of Nemechek was able to pull out to a lead that Sargeant couldn’t quite make up in the last three laps. The No. 5 was able to close on the leader but Sargeant ultimately finished in the second position.
“It’s a really good run for everyone on this Wauters Motorsports team, to be in contention for the win there at the end is a testament to how we all came together as a team this weekend,” said Dalton Sargeant. “We didn’t always have the best practice sessions, and searched around for the best setup, but Richie Wauters and team never gave up and worked extremely hard all weekend to find the balance that showed up in those closing laps. This was a brand new car that we tested a few weeks before the Derby and we knew we were going to have something that we could contend with as soon as we unloaded it. The race got really crazy at times, but having a good car made those 3 and sometimes even 4 wide situations easier, we had really good pitstops all day and as soon as the sun went down the car just took off. Great momentum going into 2015 and now we’ll switch gears and go to work on those plans now.”
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