By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
Ben Rhodes leaves the Ultimate Tailgating 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway frustrated despite finishing in fifth.
The reason for the frustration: Rhodes believes that the team is better than the performance they showed on the track.
“It was pretty frustrating actually,” he said post-race. “This is probably the most frustrated I’ve been with a top-five. For the team as a whole, I am experienced enough now, crew chief and everybody has enough experience to where we should be doing better. We have higher goals for ourselves than fifth.”
Despite not finishing where he would have wanted—in victory lane—Rhodes thought the day at the 1.54-mile facility was solid because of how many points they gained. With Harrison Burton stalling the outside lane on the final restart of the race, Rhodes was happy that he salvaged a top-five.
“All in all, it was a solid day,” he said. “We were second in the second stage with decent points all-around. We got held up on the last restart. The 18 spun the tires and I had nowhere to go. If I pulled to the outside, then I would have been penalized.
“If I pulled to the inside, I would have been penalized. We were in a lose-lose situation there. We are still able to salvage a fifth-place finish. I feel like if we were able to restart on the bottom, we would have had something to contend with them.”
At one point during the race, the ThorSport Racing teammates
were running in positions one through four. Rhodes found that funny because of
the different setups each truck was running.
“The funny thing is that we were all running different packages,” he continued. “We were all different but different in a way. It showed strength and unity with the team. The driver lineup at ThorSport is pretty stout this year between Grant, Matt and Johnny. As a team, I think we can get better on things back at the shop. That will translate to raw speed off the haulers.”
With the outing shown at Atlanta, Rhodes is beginning to see what his new crew is made out of and where they can improve as a whole.
“We come here and do things totally different,” he said. “The way we do things here, translates into the whole season. This is the race where I can see what my team is made of because we have a new crew chief, new spotter, new pit crew, etc. The average age of our team is like 27. They’re young.
“This was a good way for me to feel them out and see what they are made of. I know what I am made of, but I don’t know what they are yet. This is a good benchmark for our team. We know what we have to work on now.”
With his finish at Atlanta, Rhodes sits third in the points standings going into Las Vegas next week.