News

THE RACE

Nationwide Children’s Hospital 200
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (2.258-mile road course, Lexington, OH)
Saturday, August 16, 2014

THE RESULTS

The No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang
Driven by Alex Tagliani
Starting Position: 2
Finish Position: 5
Owners' Points Position: 1

THE RACE REVIEW

· Making his second start of the season, Alex Tagliani qualified the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford in the second position for Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

· As the race started, Tagliani settled into position and logged laps inside the top-four prior to the first caution of the race on lap four.

· During the middle portion of the 90-lap event, Tagliani worked his way solidly into the top-three.  However, on lap 24, the team made a scheduled green flag stop and was too fast exiting pit road. Tagliani served a pass-thru penalty just before the second caution flew on lap 27. Tagliani would restart the race in the seventh spot.

· On lap 40, Tagliani radioed to the Discount Tire crew that his Mustang was a little too loose and needed to be tightened up. The caution flew once again on lap 51, allowing the team to pit and make a track bar adjustment to fix the ill-handling Mustang.

· Once the race restarted, Tagliani found himself in the 11th position after the first 10 cars did not pit. By lap 56, Tagliani worked his way up to the sixth position.

· On lap 60, the team reached its fuel window to make it to the end of the race. Crew chief Jeremy Bullins called the No. 22 Ford down pit road for the last time for fuel only. Tagliani would rejoin the field in the 11th position. Tagliani worked his way up to the third position before the fifth and final caution came on lap 70.  On the restart, Tagliani dropped to fifth and remained in that position as the checkers flew.  Despite the early race speeding pit penalty, Tagliani has now finished in the top-five in both of his 2014 NASCAR Nationwide Series events.

· By virtue of the finish, the No. 22 Team Penske Mustang moved into the lead of the NNS Owners’ point standings by 21 points over the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing team.
    

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING

ALEX TAGLIANI, NO. 22 DISCOUNT TIRE FORD MUSTANG

YOU WERE ABLE TO CAPTURE THE OWNERS’ POINTS LEAD FOR ROGER PENSKE. CAN YOU TAKE US THROUGH YOUR RACE?

“First off, I just want to thank the entire Penske crew and Discount Tire for the opportunity. They come to the track every weekend with a car that is capable of winning the pole, as well as the race. Today I wanted to go out and win so bad and I felt we had a car that could fight for the victory but today turned out to be big picture racing. We had a speeding penalty early on and we were lucky to be able to recover fast and not take a huge hit. We needed a decent finish and we needed to bring the car home in one piece to capitalize on the 54’s misfortunate circumstance to gain ground in the Owners’ Championship. I felt like we started the race pretty good and had a strong car, was just a little loose. The No. 2 and I were neck and neck at one point and he got off in to the grass during a racing incident. I didn’t feel I did anything wrong there and we were just racing but I did apologize over the radio if he felt I raced him too hard. We spoke after the race and told each other our sides and that was it. But overall, we had a great race and gained the Owners’ point lead for Roger and Team Penske and that is something I am happy very about.”