Shaw Posts Top-10 At Dover; Concludes Season With Sixth Place Finish In Points

Shaw Posts Top-10 At Dover; Concludes Season With Sixth Place Finish In Points



Dover, DE (September 25, 2010): DJ Shaw recovered from a late-race spin to finish the Sunoco 150 at Dover International Speedway in tenth. Shaw led 13 laps of the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East season finale and was a solid contender in the top-five after an early race pit strategy paid big dividends. The finish was enough to move the 20-year-old driver from ninth to sixth in the points.

"Finishing sixth is a success for us. We wanted a top-five in the points and we would have been pretty close to it if I had not gotten spun out," said Shaw. "But overall, it's a good end to the season."

Shaw acclimated himself with the famed Monster Mile in the two practice sessions on Thursday afternoon and put himself in the list of top-15 fastest drivers despite never having run the track before. In qualifying, Shaw posted a lap of 24.383 seconds (147.644 mph) behind the wheel of his No. 60 Precision JLM Ford and earned a 17th place starting position.

"The car was really tight. We only lost three spots from where we practiced, but a couple of the drivers picked up and we didn't," said Shaw about qualifying. "I thought it was going to be a long day trying to get up through. It was tough learning how to pass there, and I had hoped to follow (Dale) Quarterley, but it was tough to hang with him in traffic."

Shaw ran in the top-15 in the early laps of the race, but gained dramatically after using an early pit strategy that saw him take tires before the lap 50 mark. When the leaders did pit right before the halfway mark, Shaw moved up to third for the restart at lap 77. It was a short-lived green flag period and Shaw moved into second before the yellow was back out.

"We pitted early for left side tires and when the leaders pitted for four tires we only took on two. That helped us a bunch, and we had fresh tires."

On the following restart at lap 85, Shaw jumped in front of Brandon Ward to take the lead, where he would remain until lap 97 when Andrew Ranger got by him. Shaw wasn't about to give up, however, and continued to pressure the leader. He was a mainstay in the top-five until he spun with 25 laps to go.

"I had the lead there for a while, and in clean air we were pretty good. I was able to drive away from everyone behind me. On the next restart, I made a rookie mistake and I let Ranger slow me down too much. I got back to seventh before we were done with that first lap. I was too worried about jumping the restart so I stayed with him instead of setting the pace."

Shaw's spin relegated him back to 17th place, but the young driver wasn't about to let that deter him. He progressed through the field seven places before the race took the checkered flag at an extended distance of 155 laps.

"We got back up to fourth or fifth and I caught the 00 and the 35. They were in a battle and I had no where to go behind them. The 2 caught up with us and we were side-by-side and he used me up pretty good. The 2 car got to the inside of me and way overdrove it into turn one, and chased it all the way up into the top. He got me in the door and I spun," Shaw said about the spin.

The Sunoco 150, which will air on SPEED on Thursday, October 7 at 6 p.m. ET, marked the final race of the 2010 season in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. Shaw concluded his campaign sixth in the championship point standings.