For the second week in a row, an early race wreck brought an end to Natalie Decker’s Friday night. This time it came after her starting 21st in the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway
After running her fastest lap of the night on lap two, a 32.697-second lap the first incident happened on lap 3 as she got into the wall, crushing the rear of her No. 54 N29 Technologies Toyota Tundra. Over the radio, Decker cited the truck beng free for the reason of the incident. The field stayed green as Decker brought her machine down pit road to get some work done.
The incident cost her 5 laps on the field since the caution didn’t fly. Then after dropping 6 laps down, Decker got found herself in trouble again. She was riding the lower lane coming through turn one, and as the turn bends into turn two, the truck just pulled out from under her.
It slid with the tail pulling right to the outside, and she started the slide, riding it through halfway into turn two with her front end facing the inside wall. As her No. 54 machine slid through turn two, it started to back up and slammed into the outside wall in the turn. Tyler Dippel in the No. 02 machine had to check up with the smoke from Decker’s machine and her truck blocking his future path momentarily before it hit the outside wall.
Natalie slid back down the track and did a 360 ending up lined up just away from hitting the inside wall at the exit of turn two facing forward with the field flow of traffic. This brought out the first caution of the day. She went down pit road, and the crew was able to get her back out on the track, but the damage was done. As the green-white-checkered flag flew for the end of stage one, she was eight laps down back in 31st place.
Natalie Decker was able to go back green with the field on the restart, and she ran another six laps or so before shutting it down for the night after just 32 completed laps and stuck nine laps down. She would be scored 31st after the race went final.
She had to go to the infield care center as standard protocol and was checked and released. A struggle of an evening for Decker comes as she said she was battling the flu in a post on Facebook Friday morning ahead of the race.
Memorial weekend will be the first of two weekends off for Decker as she gets a chance to take a break and regroup after a rough previous two weeks. Then she will look to shake off the dust and get back on the saddle as the Gander Outdoor Truck series head’s southwest to Texas Motor Speedway for the longest race of the season in the SpeedyCash.com 400. It will be Natalie’s first trip to the 1.44-mile long track
