Electrical Problems Continue to Plague the #99: Smith's Night Ends Early at Houston

June 1, 2005 (Austin, Texas)  Casey Smith headed into Saturday night’s 125-lap USRA Super Late Model event at Houston Motorsports Park with some high hopes after having a stellar car at Corpus Christi Speedway a few weeks ago and a set-up that the team felt would be one of the fastest around for sure.

The stopwatch proved the car was great in practice sessions all day on Friday and Saturday morning.  However, when Casey went out to qualify his #99 Chevrolet Monte Carlo the car shut off as he was coming around to take the green flag.  “This is very frustrating.  We have had an electrical problem ever since the Snowball Derby and obviously have not found it yet,”  says Smith.  “We have replaced both MSD boxes, numerous switches, the distributor, the battery, we even came here a day early to test and shake it down.  Then we go out to qualify and this ‘gremlin’ is in the car again.”

Starting deep in the 21-car field, Smith quickly made his way into the top-ten.  The car felt great passing cars on the inside and outside proving that he had the car to beat.   Casey made it up to 6th place with the leaders in site when a caution came out and the car shut off once again forcing him into the pits for the night.

Casey completed 82 laps of the 125-lap event finishing 14th in the final run-down.

“We had an awesome car tonight.  I had pretty much the same set-up that Jeff Fultz had on his Southeast Tour Car that he ran here a couple of weeks ago.  Joe Shear and Jeff Fultz are great friends and provide me with terrific set-ups."

“This problem has caused me a bunch of races.  I don’t know what else I can replace to fix the problem, but we will go back and work on it until we figure it out.”

“I have enjoyed racing some of these Texas guys in the USRA series, and got some important seat time in these cars, which are totally different than the ASA cars that I have gotten used to over the past three years.”

Casey’s next race will be in the NASCAR Southeast Tour at the Nashville Music City Motorplex July 15th driving for Turner Motorsports.  More information on his debut to come.