we missed the setup just a little bit. It seemed like we had more of a qualifying setup. The rear stagger just closed up and that just made the car really loose. We had the two barrel motor in our car tonight and it was really strong on the straight-aways. We were burning the tires off trying to get into the cars up off the corners. We couldn’t get back into the as quick as the crate (engine) cars could.
“The finish makes me feel good, but I wish I could have run better. If we hadn’t had the issue with the stagger
we might have had a top-five car.”
Having grown up on the bullrings of Georgia, Pope got a good feel of a high-speed, high-downforce racetrack when he made it to Lakeland. The speed, combined with a solid effort throughout the weekend, made Pope one of the track’s newest fans.
“This place is fast. You drag-race down the straight-aways and go off into the corner and stop and take off again. I would love to pick this track up and move it into Georgia. It’s a lot of fun.”
Pope and the Builder’s Concrete Supply #44 now have a short turnaround before their next race, May 10th at Bronson Motor Speedway in Florida.
But Michael Pope was more than willing to take on the task of battling the Florida Super Late Model regulars in the ASA Southeast Asphalt Tour event at USA International Speedway in Lakeland, FL on May 3rd. Pope, having never been to the track before the race weekend, showed no signs of being intimidated by the speed of the .75-mile Lakeland track, nor the tough Florida contingent in the field. Pope qualified on the outside pole, redrew the fourth starting spot and scored an impressive ninth-place finish to keep his ASA SAT title hopes in tact.
“We did really good tonight,” said Pope.
“We had an awesome qualifying run and we got to start
fourth with the redraw. The car started off really loose, I think
Any time a driver goes to a new racetrack and has to battle drivers that have hundreds, if not thousands of laps around that track already, he is facing a tough task. When regulars at a track flex their muscle, it’s often hard for newcomers to run up front.
