By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
NASCAR driver Ty Dillon, and his Germain Racing team left Sunday’s Consumers Energy 400 from the Irish Hills of Michigan International Speedway with their best finish since a 4th place result at Daytona’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 in July.
It’s been a summer of mediocre results for the 27-year old since then except for a solid 16th place run at New Hampshire, it all turned around following the 23rd race on the season’s schedule and it was all done fairly quietly.
Dillon ran Top-20 speeds in all three practice sessions that the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series had and qualified his No. 13 K&L Ready Mix Chevrolet to a 21st starting spot on the grid with a speed of 186.601 mph.
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Dillon ran a clean race and managed to avoid any of the six cautions that plagued the 200-lap event. He’d finish the first two stages in 21st and 15th, respectively.
On lap 139, while under caution the team knew they had nothing to lose.
Crew Chief Matt Borland chose to bring Dillon down pit road to top off the No. 13 with fuel and to make a track bar adjustment as well.
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The restart on lap 142 saw Dillon in the 23rd position, but he was quickly able to get his Chevrolet back into the Top-20 running order.
With less than 40 laps remaining, he was consistently running in the Top-20 as well was running some lap times faster than those in front of him.
Ultimately Dillon was able to continually work his way towards the front of the running order as the laps continued to wind down.
As a handful of competitors began backing off and saving as much fuel as possible that wouldn’t be a concern Dillon and team.
Borland reassured his driver that he was good to go on fuel.
On lap 200 Dillon crossed the finish line in 11th for his best finish in almost a month.
Dillon’s 11th place finish was his sixth Top-15 finish on the season to also go along with one Top-5, two Top-10s and eight Top-20 finishes heading into Saturday evening’s event at Bristol Motor Speedway.
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