Resilient Lance Team Earns Top-15 at Milwaukee

WEST ALLIS, Wis. (July 2, 2000) - The No. 25 Team Rensi Motorsports Lance Snacks Chevrolet team may not be characterized as flashy, but there's no denying one thing - it is resilient.

After falling back to the back of the back one-fifth of the way through Sunday's NASCAR Busch Series, Grand National Division Sears DieHard 250 at The Milwaukee Mile, the team and driver Andy Santerre rallied to earn a respectable 14th place finish in a race that was red-flagged twice due to rain.

Santerre made up six spots over the final 80 laps to give the Lance Snacks team its first top-15 since June 10 when it finished 10th at South Boston (Va.) Speedway.

"The way things went out there, we're pretty fortunate to get a top-15 out of this, but then that just shows how much guts and determination this team has," Santerre said. "I thought we might be destined for another tough finish, but we hung in there and we were able to get this Lance Snacks Chevy back to respectability. Hopefully this will be a sign of some good things to come for us."

Lance Snacks crew chief Greg Ely couldn't say enough about Santerre's effort Sunday.

"Andy really ran his tail off out there today and did a tremendous job," said Ely, in only his second race as the team's crew chief.

"You've got to give him a lot of credit because we had a tough time early on. He just kept plugging away and was able to bring us home with a top-15.

"We had some problems in the pits, but we're getting those worked out and I think this is a good omen for this team. We've got a good schedule ahead of us and I know we're going to continue to get better."

Santerre qualified the No. 25 Chevrolet in the 22nd position on Saturday with a lap of 119.241 mph around the mile oval. He picked up four positions on the very first lap and it appeared as though the Lance Snacks Chevy was headed toward the front.

Santerre stayed steady and was running 18th on lap 45 when a caution flag came out for rain. He pitted for four tires, fuel and a slight chassis adjustment, but the team encountered problems and Santerre dropped all the way back to 40th when NASCAR red-flagged the race due to the precipitation.

When the race re-started 40 minutes later, Santerre once again began making up ground and had his car in the 25th position by lap 75. He hovered around the top-25 for the next 68 laps before breaking into the top-20 again on lap 138.

Meanwhile, race leader Jeff Green was blowing the entire field away. He inevitably put Santerre a lap down on lap 168.

Santerre gained two more positions before NASCAR red-flagged the race again for rain on lap 202. Santerre reported over the radio that the car was tight coming off the corners and loose coming in.

"I had to fight it quite a bit there during the middle of the race," Santerre said. "We just couldn't get the car to where we wanted it to be, but we were able to hang in there and not lose too much. We picked up quite a bit after the rain delay and we were able to get a pretty decent finish out of it, so we can't be too unhappy about that."

After another short rain delay, Santerre picked off four more spots to earn a top-15 finish.

The Busch Series will take a much needed break from its schedule this weekend before traveling to Nazareth (Pa.) Speedway for the July 16 Econo Lodge 200.