Goess Ready to Take on ‘The Monster Mile’

On to Dover After 13th Place Finish at NHMS

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With a quick turn around from their last race, the NASCAR Camping World East Series heads to the Dover International Speedway (DE) for this Friday afternoon’s Sunoco 150.  Craig Goess, Jr. and his No. 2 Greenville Toyota/Team ESR Development Toyota competed on Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway bringing home a 13th place finish.  Goess is now ready to take on the challenge that “The Monster Mile” brings as he competes at Dover for the first time.

“I’m really looking forward to competing at Dover,” said Goess.  “I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the car is decent so I can spend the practice sessions getting used to the track instead of having to fine tune the car.  I really want to spend the time getting comfortable with the track since it’s a totally new experience for me.”

New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Dover International Speedway couldn’t be any more different.  Their only similarity is the one-mile length, but after that, there’s not really anything you can transfer from one to the other.  The banking in the turns at NHMS is variable between two and seven degrees.  The banking at DIS is 24 degrees, quite the

drastic difference. The surface is also concrete at Dover, something very new to Goess.  The Eddie Sharp Racing team has decided to take a different car to Dover, despite not having suffered any damage in New Hampshire.

“We’re running the car we ran at Iowa and South Boston earlier this year,” Goess detailed.  “The car we ran at New Hampshire last week just wasn’t taking to the track too much and I struggled with it during the race.  Dover has a lot more banking so this different car should work well.”

Counting Dover, there are only two more races in the 2008 NCWES season.  Of the 11 races, Goess has competed in 10 of them, skipping the Lime Rock event.  He sits 17th in the points standings with one top-five finish, coming at Mansfield (Ohio) Motorsports Park, and two top-10 finishes, with a ninth at the Music City Motorplex in Nashville, Tenn.

The NCWES take to “The Monster Mile” on Thursday afternoon with two practice sessions.  The first one runs from 2:00 p.m. until 3:10 p.m., while the second session gets underway at 3:50 p.m. and ends at 5:00 p.m.  The starting line up will be determined at 12:40 p.m. on Friday afternoon.  Driver introductions will take place at 4:30 p.m. with the green flag waving at 4:45 p.m. for the Sunoco 150.

(Jamie Williams Photo)