Estenson Racing Charges Forward at Daytona

“Overall, I’d say the day didn’t go too bad. It definitely could have been worse. The Singles guys were kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time and got tangled up twice. They were in the back of the grid for the restarts, and at a little track like this, it’s hard to pass. Coming from the fourth row makes it really tough, so to get both guys in the top five was about all we could ask for. With a little better luck, I think Mikey could have won. So that’s a little disappointing, but we get another chance at it tomorrow. 

“JD improved all day. For the Main Event, he made a big step forward and charged the entire race. It’s good to get his best finish of the year, and there were some other promising things with how the race went that have us excited for tomorrow. Hopefully, we can pick up where we left off tonight and make another step tomorrow.”

“The day started off decent. It’s the first time I’ve been to this track in a few years and the first time I’ve ever been here on a 450. I got a pretty good start in the Semi but coming out of Turn 2 one person kind of lit it up and was sideways, and then one guy stopped, and then I had to slam on the brakes. I ended up stalling my bike, and it just spun around on me. I got run over and kind of messed up my foot a little bit. But, I was able to get back up and collect myself and got fifth in the Semi just to put it in the Main Event.

 “In the Main, I started outside of Row 3. I got a good start after the red flag, and I think I came out of the first corner in fourth. I literally ran the whole race in fourth. Honestly, it’s a really good result for how the day went, but it’s kind of a bummer because I think we could have been in the hunt for the win if we were on the front row. But it’s all good. We salvaged a good position, and the championship is over, so I wasn’t stressing about trying to make passes or something. I was just out there having fun. We’ll give it another go tomorrow.”

“We started off the day struggling a little bit with set-up, but then the track came to me in the Semi. I came from the outside of the third row and figured I’d go to the top of the middle of the track up in the cushion and made that work. I passed everyone and won the Semi; that was awesome. 

“In the Main, I didn’t get the greatest jump off the line and kind of shut off early to settle in on the bottom, and another guy got into me and kind of pushed me wide. Then someone crashed, and I had nowhere to go. So I had to come from the back of the pack. All in all, the team did a great job with the bike, and I’m glad to get back into the top five. We’ve got something to build off of tomorrow, and we’ve got another shot at it. Hopefully, we can get up on the podium.”

“It was a good race. We definitely struggled a little bit when we started the day out. We were just kind of off with the set-up and chasing it a little bit. We’ve done a lot of laps on a short track with this bike, but the dirt was just completely different, so what we had just wasn’t working. As the night went on, we got better and better. With the Main Event, we got a little lucky with the track because they dug it up a little bit, but as the race went on, it got a groove on it. When it was dug up, we could move forward a little bit, and then as the groove got real dark, it was working really good for us. I think coming from Row 4 to eighth was good. Hopefully, tomorrow we won’t be chasing the bike all night and we can qualify better and try to get up there even higher.”