Written by Adrian Beecher
TALLADEGA, AL – Afters cruising up to 10th place after just 12 laps into the General Tire 200, Natalie Decker in the No. 54 N29 Technologies Toyota ran into a fuel intake issue midway through the race, knocking her out of contention for the win Friday at Talladega Superspeedway.
Here’s how Decker’s day unfolded from the drop of the green flag to the checkered flag.
Decker took the green flag in the 20th position to start the day and wasted no time getting to work.
She quickly improved her position on lap one, jumping up to the 15th position. She continued that forward progression early on, taking the 10th position on lap 12, clocking in 2.741-seconds behind the lead.
At this point, the field was broken into two large packs, with Decker leading the 2nd pack. The gap, however, between the lead pack and the 2nd pack continued to increase, with Decker falling 5.504 seconds behind the leader by lap 18, while still running 10th.
Shortly after, on lap 24 a hiccup in Deckers strong run came into play. She had dropped back to 16th and continued to fall. On lap 30, Decker had to bring her machine into the pits to find out what the issue was with her car.
After checking the rear of the car and under the hood, they seemed to have fixed the issue with the car. However, the problem came at a cost to Decker, in the form of five laps down in the last position. The problem with her car was an issue with the fuel injection.
“The car was amazing, I can’t thank my guys enough! They gave me an amazing car and it was nothing they did wrong, nothing I did wrong” said Decker.”We just had a little bad luck with some fuel stuff and had to come down pit road and lost a lot of laps.”
On lap 41, the No. 46 of Thad Moffitt and the No. 15 of Christian Eckes got into an incident coming into pit road, which sent Eckes spinning into the outside wall just ahead of pit road. This brought out the first caution of the day.
This would bring the field back in close for Decker and gave her two-positions back, but still left her down five laps down as the field went back to green with only 26 laps to go with Decker in 24th place.
Then just a lap into the green flag run, the yellow came back out as Tommy Vigh Jr. in the No. 10 Extreme Kleaner Toyota got loose and slid through the infield and into the inside pit road entrance wall, tearing up his machine.
The field went back to green with 20 laps to go with her teammate Todd Gilliland in the lead. Decker was in 24th place and moved up to 23rd after passing Vigh in laps completed.
Her teammate was able to finish the race clean for the win, while Decker finished 23rd. She finished four laps down, which when you put it into perspective that she lost those laps due to her fuel intake issue, it’s easy to project that Decker would have been running in the top ten if not making it a one-two DGR Crosley finish.
Despite the unfulfilling finish, Decker is embracing every second and every lap as she continues to make her climb in the NASCAR ranks.
I’ve learned so much every lap here in the draft, learning what to do and what not to do and how to get good runs and how to work with people. My spotter Kevin Hamlin who was with me today, he’s teaching me so much. I’m learning a lot but it just sucks that we couldn’t get a good finish.”
Now Decker has her sights set on Dover next week, where she will compete in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series JEGS 200 at Dover International Speedway Friday, May 3rd.
“We’re not going to give up, we’re going to Dover in the trucks. So I am excited for that, that truck is crazy!” says Decker, “I don’t know what to expect, but I’m really excited to go there.”
