Music City 200 - Race Review
Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway
By: John Szulczewski
Moorseville, NC, May 10, 2022 – Now past the midpoint of the ARCA Menard’s East Series season, the chase is on for a record breaking points finish for Moyer and her Fast Track Racing Team.
Chasing History
With her 11th Place Finish in the Music City 200, Stephanie got one point closer in her battle for the fourth spot in overall points, now trailing Christian Rose by a single point. (133 to 132)
“It’s very doable to beat him out, I think. As long as we fix up the reliability stuff, we have been faster than him week in and week out” said Moyer.
If she does this, not only would it be the highest rank a Woman has ever achieved in the East Series, but the highest ranked a Fast Track Driver would be in years across the ARCA Menard’s Series Platform.
Music City 200 Review
With a short week behind them, the #01 Evergreenraceway.com Team made the changes they needed heading into the yearly trip to Music City.
With one previous start at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, and a top ten to boot, Stephanie approached the race with quite a bit of confidence.
“I’m approaching this like Five Flags, knowing what the track does and what to expect allows me to go out and be aggressive”
Due to some rain that crept into Saturday Morning, the day’s schedule was adjusted, now cancelling qualifying and using practice as a joint practice/qualifying session to shakedown and set a fast time.
The hour and a half session gave Steph and her team the opportunity to make the proper adjustments for a racey car, which placed her as high as 8th in practice speeds prior to the larger budget teams doing qualifying runs.
Making one last, quick 3 lap run In her session, she narrowed the gap to the leaders to less than half a second. Content with the feel of the car, focus turned to race prep.
She began the race from the inside of row 6, in 11th place, and began the march forward.
Making quick work of 10th place and climbing to 9th Place She was making great strides forward, even for a time challenging longtime ARCA Menard’s Series Competitor Michael Lira for 8th.
As the first Run of the race went on, the car built tight, ultimately costing Moyer some time and drifting back from her 8th Place Challenge.
With the first race break coming at lap 75, and with 35 lap old tires on the ground in the pit box, the #01 team decided to forgo a tire change and make an adjustment to compensate for the tight condition.
This proved to be a good idea as she maintained 9th until lap 82, when the car began to overheat. Taking one trip down pit road to try and cool the car down, being out of traffic, she could only muster 11 more laps before it got worse.
At lap 93, her race was over, but positives could still be taken away from the race.
What’s Next?
Next Race Up Will be the first of 3 combination races with the Main ARCA Menard’s Series – The Calypso Lemonade 150 at Iowa Speedway on June 11th, 2022 (9PM ET)
Before that, the full race from Nashville will be airing on USA Network, May 13th, 2022 (1PM ET)
Sponsors: Busch #accelerateher, Evergreen Raceway Park, #Poweredbyfans, Highland Social Club, Fast Track High Performance Driving School, American Legion Post #473