Weather Foils No. 70 Teams
High Hopes at NHMS

LOUDON, N.H. – Johnny Sauter drove the No. 70 Atlas Copco Chevrolet Impala to a 37th-place finish in the Lenox 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway Sunday.

Sauter successfully qualified the car on time and posted a Top-20 speed in the final practice session for the race, but unexpected sunshine that broke through just as the race was about to begin threw off his car’s handling setup.

“We practiced in heavy cloud cover on Saturday and had the car pretty well dialed in,” said Sauter. “The forecast for Sunday was calling for more clouds so we thought we were right where we needed to be. Unfortunately the sun came out and heated up the track, pretty much ruining all of our plans.”

Sauter battled a loose handling car throughout the race and despite numerous adjustments in the pits the car never responded.

“The car was just sliding all over the track,” Sauter said. “We tried a bunch of different things to tighten the car up but it never got better. The car was a beast all day.”

Sauter will be behind the wheel of the No. 70 at Daytona International Speedway for Saturday night’s running of the Coke Zero 400.