Broken Rear-End Ends Olsen’s Run Prematurely At Nashville

By admins July 24, 2007

Nashville, TN — Mike Olsen’s day ended after 23 laps in the NASCAR Busch East Series’ race at Nashville’s Music City Motorplex Sunday night when the rear-end in his No. 61 Little Trees Chevrolet broke and sent him into the turn one wall.

“Something broke in the rearend. It’s basically a CSI crime scene at the moment. We have a lot of evidence, but we have to take it back to the lab and analyze it. I don’t know exactly what happened,” he said.Olsen’s crew was unable to fix all the damage incurred by the incident, and parked the car for the day.

“The rearend locked up and ripped up a bunch of things: the driveshaft and the oil tank among other things,” he explained.

Olsen qualified 12th fastest with a lap of 108.457 mph (19.783 seconds) and immediately gained momentum from the drop of the green. He was up to sixth at lap 20.

“The car was running great,” he said. “I guess that’s why this is so frustrating. There was no warning, nothing. It just broke. I hate it for this team because they work so hard to give me a good car, and we definitely had one tonight before this happened.”

Olsen fell to third in the points – 187 points out of the lead.

“Logano gained a lot of points on us tonight and Matt Kobyluck moved ahead of us, but I’m not ready to concede the title yet. We have five races left, but it will be an uphill road. We’re up for the challenge,” he said.

With the race behind them, Olsen and the “Little Trees” crew are looking forward to the upcoming Busch East Series event at Adirondack International Speedway. The track is located just miles from his sponsor’s back yard.

“Car-Freshner Corporation has their headquarters in Watertown, New York so we’re able to get a lot of the employees out to watch the race. It’s really a strong motivator to try and win it. We’re going to move on from tonight’s race and focus and trying to achieve that goal.”

Sources: Penny Aicardi/Mike Olsen PR

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