Before Friday’s NASCAR Busch Series qualifying session for Saturday’s Twister 300 at Chicagoland Speedway was interrupted by thunderstorms, it was first delayed by two runaway oranges. That’s right, oranges. As the wind increased around the track with the approach of the storms, two large inflatable oranges the logo of Tropicana, the sponsor of Sunday’s Nextel Cup race tore loose from their moorings behind Turn 4 and set sail. One broke up and fell over some fans that had set up camp near the fence, the other bounced onto the track in the middle of a qualifying run by #7-Todd Szegedy. Luckily, Szegedy had been warned by his crew chief of a problem and had slowed down. He avoided contact with the giant orange and pulled to pit road, just as the rain began. Once the rain passed and the remains of the inflatables removed from the track, qualifying resumed with Szegedy getting another attempt. Near the end of the session, #25-Bobby Hamilton Jr. rooted rookie #5-Kyle Busch from the pole, with a track record lap at 183.611mph. #87-Joe Nemechek, #17-Matt Kenseth and #21-Kevin Harvick round out the top five. Series points leader #8-Martin Truex Jr. will line up 16th. Szegedy performed well at his second attempt around the track orange free. He was 12th fastest, and will make his first series start.(Thatsracin.com)
ThatsRacin.com
BGNRacing.com
NASCAR.com.(7-9-2004)
