TC was back in familiar surroundings last weekend, driving the Brady Bunch #00 at Concord Motorsport Park in the 4th Annual North-South Shootout. The friendly environment yielded a positive result as Teddy finished a very strong runner-up to Matt Hirschman.
The Brady team struggled in practice but some changes late Friday afternoon brought the car up to speed. Teddy posted a very respectable 12th-fastest lap in time trials. He qualified for the feature with a strong run in the third qualifying heat.
On Saturday night TC lined up in the 12th position and quickly jumped up to seventh. When third place runner Bobby Grigas was black-flagged for a fluid leak on lap six he gained another position. He settled into sixth as Matt Hirschman was dominating the early portion of the race, with defending Shootout champion John Blewett in second. On a lap 24 caution for a crash by Nevin George several cars made their mandatory pit stop, including Hirschman and Donny Lia. Blewett now took over the lead with TC up to fourth, but he was fighting a very loose racecar and soon fell back to seventh. When James Civali hit the fourth turn wall on lap 36 to bring out another caution, Teddy ducked onto pit road for fresh tires and some needed chassis adjustments and fell in at the rear of the field.
He quickly worked his way up to 15th with Chuck Hossfeld now the race leader. The #00 was clearly handling much better and Teddy was charging toward the front of the field. When Hossfeld pitted under caution on lap 50 TC was up to fifth with Hirschman back into the lead. On the restart he blasted by Blewett for fourth and then quickly drove by Ricky Kluth for third with Blewett and Eric Beers in tow.
Race leaders Hirschman and Earl Paules were well out front but a lap 70 caution closed up the field. TC was starting to draw a bead on Paules but could not muster enough speed to make a serious challenge. Meanwhile Beers had moved past Blewett for fourth and was pressuring for third. A late race caution on lap 85 put Teddy in position and he went to work. On the 95th circuit he moved under Paules for second with Beers hot on his heels. Hirschman had built a comfortable lead and crossed under the checkered flag first followed by TC, Beers, Paules and Blewett.
“I want to thank Joe and Linda for giving me the opportunity to drive for them this weekend,” said Teddy. “Scott and the crew gave me an awesome car to drive. We were too loose to start the race but when we pitted we tightened the car up. Looking back now, we probably should have gone a little further but the car was still very fast. I chased down the leaders but in the end we just ran out of time. Second is never where you want to finish, but it was still a very good run. They knew we were there.”
Scheduling for the rest of 2006 and the 2007 season are still being formulated. Stay tuned here for news on Teddy and his future plans in the coming weeks.
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