Top-three Finish Extends Kobyluck’s Point Lead To 192
Matt Kobyluck piloted the #40 Mohegan Sun Casino Chevrolet to a third place finish in Saturday morning’s Heluva Good Fall 125 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The NASCAR Camping World Series East driver matched his June finish at the 1.058-mile track and extended his point lead to 192 over second place driver Austin Dillon with only two races remaining to the 2008 season.
To come out of New Hampshire twice in one season with third place finishes is like winning to us,” said Kobyluck. “We did what we needed to do
points-wise and came out of here with the car in one piece. That’s a good day.”
Kobyluck qualified 13th fastest with a time of 30.564 seconds (124.617 mph) on Thursday afternoon, but had to wait until Saturday morning to roll off the grid when rain postponed the event a day.
The Mohegan Sun Casino Chevrolet was running eighth when the first caution flew at lap 10. Kobyluck advanced three more positions before the second caution when he followed the queue of the leader and came in for fuel.
The team’s swiftness on pit road paid off and Kobyluck returned to the track in 13th right behind Eddie MacDonald. He moved up to ninth before returning to pit road for another splash of fuel.
“When we pitted the first time we thought we were going to get enough cautions to make it the whole way and then we quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen,” explained Kobyluck. “We pitted again to make sure we could go the distance.”
Kobyluck came in again on lap 33 to take on tires and restarted the race at lap 34 at the tail end of the field.
At lap 97, the Mohegan Sun Casino Chevrolet was up in the top-10 and moving forward. By lap 102, he had broke into the top-five. Kobyluck dropped back to sixth by lap 118 but made one last charge before the checkers dropped and finished the race with a solid third.
“Tires didn’t make a difference when we took them on, but if we had taken them when (eventual race-winner) Eddie MacDonald took them on, it would have made a big difference,” said Kobyluck. “At that point, everybody else was wore out and he was on fresh rubber. It made a big difference.”
Kobyluck returns to action at Dover International Speedway on September 19th.
