ERIE, COLORADO (August 15, 2010) Jonathon Gomez of Twin Falls, Idaho looked forward to the race at Colorado National Speedway as the pivotal race in his championship pursuit in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series. The race went as planned moving into the top four and running lap times faster than the leader during the first half of the 150-lap race. Unfortunately, he was tagged from behind on lap 72 and the contact sent his Heritage Cattle Co. sponsored Chevrolet spinning. The spin caused his shifter to stick in second gear and he had to pit for repairs losing two laps to the field.
Gomez qualified eighth for the Toyota Bonus Challenge event and he wasted no time moving forward after the drop of the green flag. By lap ten he was in the sixth position and closing on the top five. By lap 20 he had moved into fourth and attached himself to the tail of the top three clicking of laps times two-tenths of a second quicker than the leaders.
The first of six cautions flew on lap 63 bunching up the field for the restart. Gomez restarted on the outside of row two and jumped up to the inside line by turn two. While battling for third, Gomez was hit in the left rear bumper by the #88 of Michael Self sending his Chevrolet spinning.
The rest of the race Gomez simply persevered and finished in the 13th position. "I was pretty upset about being hit," Gomez offered. "I don't race others that way and that deal took us out of contention not only for the win but for the championship."
After the race Gomez signed autographs for the enthusiastic area race fans for nearly two hours. "The fans kind of soften the blow but I am disappointed," Gomez said. "We had a really fast race car and we passed a lot of cars after the spin but going two laps down it didn't really matter as with each restart we had to drop the tail of the field. We look forward to Miller and hopefully we can win one of these races before the season ends."
Gomez drops to the fifth position in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series-West standings after nine races, just 4-points out of fourth place and 228-points behind the series leader. With nine races in the books, Gomez has scored three top five and five top ten performances with his best finish this season of second place at Iowa Speedway back in May. In the SRL Southwest Tour, Gomez is second in the standings just seven points out of the lead on the strength of two dominating wins this season.
Jonathon Gomez is in his fourth year of competitive racing having won local track titles at Magic Valley Speedway in Twin Falls and competed in various Late Model events the past couple of seasons. He has started 17 NASCAR K&N Pro Series races since 2008 scoring nine top ten finishes and is in his first full-time season in the NKNPS. Gomez will contend for championships in both the NASCAR K&N Pro Series as well as the SPEARS SRL Southwest Tour this season.
Jonathon Gomez is supported by Heritage Cattle Company, Century Boatland, J&C Custom Harvesting, United Oil, Modern Machinery, DJ Safety, and Gomez Farms. The race from Colorado will be broadcast on SPEED TV Thursday, August 26 at 4pm MT. TheNASCAR K&N Pro Series returns to action on September 12 at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, UT for the third road course event of the season. The next event on the SRL schedule is September 4 at Toyota Speedway. For more information on Jonathon Gomez, please log onto his website at www.jonathongomez.com.
DJS Sports Marketing photo: Jonathon Gomez signing autographs for fans at Colorado National Speedway Saturday night August 14, 2010.
Thank you for your interest and continued support of Jonathon Gomez, driver of the Heritage Motor Sports/Century Boatland Chevrolet in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series-West, SPEARS SRL Southwest Tour, and the CarbonX Rocky Mountain Challenge Series.
~John Gomez
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