Stefanik Closes Out Budweiser 150 With Runner-Up Finish

Seekonk, MA (August 2, 2003): Mike Stefanik earned his fifth top-five of the 2003 season by posting a runner-up finish in the Budweiser 150 Saturday night at Seekonk Speedway. It was Stefanik’s second consecutive runner-up finish in as many weeks.

“I’m certainly pleased to get out of here with a second,” Stefanik said after the race. “The guys are pleased too and that’s important to me. Everyone on this crew works very hard so it’s really exciting to have the results that reflect that. We’re getting better every week, and we’re doing what we need to do.”

Stefanik started the Burnham Boilers Chevrolet from the sixth position after posting a qualifying lap of 90.895 mph (13.202 seconds) in time trials. Stefanik wheeled to a fourth place position at the drop of the green, but dropped back to fifth before a caution appeared at lap seven for a spin on the backstretch.

When racing resumed at lap 14, Stefanik commenced a bid for the fourth spot on Ryan Moore. Stefanik went underneath the rookie driver at lap 19, and after a brief side-by-side battle, Stefanik moved ahead and settled into the position.

Status-quo was the theme over the next several laps as caution after caution slowed any progress by the Burnham Boilers race team. Following a lap 46 restart, Stefanik was able to find the hole he needed and moved by the 09 car of Bryon Chew for third.

Five carlengths separated Stefanik from the top two cars, but caution again at lap 70 would tighten up the field. Contact was made between Stefanik and second-place driver Andy Santerre on the restart at lap 75.

“It was kind of a crazy restart,” Stefanik explained. “They let the lapped cars out right in front of the field. Andy (Santerre) wasn’t sure if we were going to green and then he kind of took off. He got way high and I three-wide’d it, and I probably shouldn’t have. We got into Andy. I felt bad and I went over and apologized to him. The panhard bar fell out due to the rubbing that we did.”

Santerre was relegated to the pits to attend to a right rear tire rubbing from the incident. Stefanik inherited the second position for the restart at lap 94. Eventual race-winner Kelly Moore jumped out front – just as he had all night long – leaving little opportunity for Stefanik to challenge.

“We didn’t have anything for Kelly,” Stefanik said. “Maybe on the restarts we could run with him for a couple of laps, but in the end we just didn’t have enough to close the deal.”