Ward, PSR Partnership Pays Off with Bowman Gray Victory
MIDLAND, NC – It only took a full week of preparation in the shop and a hard charge behind the wheel for Brandon Ward to pick up his first Bowman Gray Stadium Modified feature victory of 2019 with PSR Racing’s Phil Stefanelli calling the shots.
Ward started from the outside pole and took the lead early in Saturday’s 25-lap feature. He withstood challenges on a late-race restart to pick up his third win of his Bowman Gray career and first with PSR Racing since bringing in Stefanelli as crew chief just one week prior to the win.
“To do what we’ve done here, having success so quickly, it’s big for the morale of the whole team,” said Ward, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “It’s hard enough to make a big change like we and Phil made before the season even starts, but it’s even tougher to do it a few races into the season. Going out and getting a win in our first full week as a team gets everyone pumped up to go get more trophies the rest of the year.”
The winning No. 104 Modified included suspension parts and components machined and manufactured in-house at Stefanelli’s facility in Midland, North Carolina under the PSR Products brand. PSR Products is a full-service machining and fabrication division of PSR Racing that has produced components for numerous winning Modified teams in recent seasons.
“It was great to be back in victory lane at Bowman Gray,” said Stefanelli, who also picked up his third career Bowman Gray victory as a crew chief Saturday. “Winning at Bowman Gray is so tough to do, especially when you’re hustling to get a car 100-percent ready on limited time like we’ve had so far, but a lot of hard work went into this one. I’m really proud that we were able to put another car with PSR Products parts on it into Bowman Gray victory lane.”
In their first full-race effort together, Ward and Stefanelli were able to fine-tune the No. 104 Modified to their liking and the speed was evident as soon as the car was unloaded for practice Saturday afternoon.
“For Phil to have a full week to get the car the way he wanted it and to get some things changed over was huge,” added Ward. “We just had more time this week to focus on some of the details with the car. We qualified on the outside pole and were really close to getting fast time, then we were able to set a good pace during the race to get the win. It was really good for all of us to be completely prepared and to have speed right off the trailer like we did.”
Next up for the team is the Kevin Powell Motorsports 100 Modified event on June 1 at Bowman Gray.
New and exciting announcements about the future of the PSR brand are forthcoming as more and more Modified racers will soon be able to reap the benefits of the recent success of the teams currently winning with PSR Products.
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Sources: Matt Kentfield/SHIFT Marketing & Design
Photo by Eric Hylton Photography