Spencer Boyd Continues to Improve During Weekend in New Hampshire
Loudon, NH (July 16, 2017) - In an uneventful race, twenty-two year old Spencer Boyd muscled the No. 07 Grunt Style Chevrolet Camaro to a 27th place finish improving on his previous finish of 33rd at Pocono. Overton’s 200 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was the second race in the No. 07 for Boyd this season with Bobby Dotter’s SS Green Light Racing.
“Our effort was much like previous races in that we just kept improving from the moment we unloaded,” reflected Boyd. “During practice I could run up in the third lane with the VHT down, but when it came to the race it wasn’t much of a factor as the modified guys covered it up. With the added rubber on the track, it changed the way the car was handling, so we had to make some big changes during the first few stops.”
Boyd would qualify and start 32nd for the 200 lap event. As he took the green flag, Spencer noticed right away that the splitter was bouncing off the ground on entry and the front end would chatter on exit. When his teammate, David Starr, went for a spin as the rain came down, the team would call for an air pressure adjustment with the four new tires in the resulting caution. Kyle Larson would go on to win the first segment after the rain delay and Boyd would battle back up to 32nd.
In subsequent end of stage pit stops, Crew Chief Jason Miller called for packers to lift up the front end and to remove tape from the grill to cool the 240 degree engine. Brad Keselowski finished 1st to end the second stage as Boyd was running his best lap times of the weekend.
Spencer would pit under green during the third and final stage for fresh right side tires. This change made the car the best it had been all day as spotter Steve Barkdoll noted to the team that the driver was getting the most out of the car as possible. Unbeknownst to Barkdoll was that the right rear shock mount had broken about half way through the race and Boyd was working hard to pass cars despite the handicap.
Kyle Busch would go on to take the checkered flag, while Boyd would fight to stay ahead of him on the final laps and finish 27th.
"I just wanted to stay ahead of Kyle there at the end," added Boyd. "I was rolling the center really well, passing a few cars, and was happy to hear my laps times were a lot closer to the leaders than I thought. I’m thankful for a great team that kept freeing up the car all day long so that I could walk away with a clean race car and a great learning experience. I hope we were able to expose some more NASCAR fans to my sponsor, Grunt Style, too!"
The 27th-place finish in Boyd’s second start of NASCAR Xfinity Series competition this season would be his personal best. His previous best was 29th in his Xfinity debut at Iowa Speedway in 2016.
