Soon after arriving at West's shop John and David West began correcting a problem with a valve in the engine. By mid-night Friday the team had the car in the trailer and were headed back to South Boston, arriving about 2:30 Saturday morning.

On Saturday afternoon when the team unloaded the car and tested the engine there were no motor issues. Unfortunately, the test that had been planned and cancelled the previous day left Matt and Sam little time to practice and adjust the car. The first practice session was used to try and get the car somewhere in the ball park with several spring and wedge adjustments, while the second and final session was used to fine tune the car for qualifying.

In qualifying, the car felt a little snug in the corner but was much better than Sam expected. He was a bit tentative on his laps and afterwards felt he should have posted a better time based on the cars handling. Matt had done a great job dialing in the car with the limited time they had. Sam turned a lap of 15.90, the fastest qualifying effort of the year and would start 14th in the 20 car field.

When the race began, Sam immediately jumped to the inside of the #70 car in the middle of turns one and two and advanced to 13th. He ran side by side for several laps battling the #74 for 11th position. On lap 13 Sam's left front tire started to vibrate and quickly turned into an unmanageable situation causing the front left to bounce and rebound heavily in the corners. Soon the issue became so severe that Sam was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop on lap 15. As the team prepared for Sam to enter the pits, disappointed with a flat tire or mechanical problem, a twisted bit of good luck occurred. Several cars that Sam was racing closely with, two laps earlier, piled into each other entering turn one causing a chain reaction wreck that heavily damaged three cars and sent three more home for the night.

If Sam's front left had not forced him to pit he would have been in the middle of the wreck ending his night and tearing up his car. Instead he was sitting on pit road where Matt discovered that a bolt holding the front lower A frame in place had worked itself loose and fallen out. It was possible to replace the bolt but it would take several minutes and the car would not be close to the set up it had earlier in the race. It was a bitter pill for the team but better than the alternative of being on the hook with a torn up car. Sam eventually rejoined the field 20 laps down but had 100 more laps of racing ahead. If Sam could complete the remaining laps, any car that completed less than 130 laps, he would officially overtake and gain points. Although the car was not handling and several changes were made throughout the race, Sam was able to avoid trouble and finish the race in 12th place.

Comments from Sam Hunt:
"What a long weekend. The engine problem Friday was the start of a challenging race for everyone on the team. I want to thank John and David West for their efforts Friday night working on the engine and Matt and Johnny as well, for hanging in there till we got back to the hotel early Saturday morning. We obviously didn't have time to work on the car like we wanted but Matt and the team made some huge improvements during the limit practice time. The car really surprised me during qualifying with how well it responded to the changes. I defiantly left some on the table and look forward to improving my qualifying results with Matt."

"At first we thought a tire had gone down early in the race but, discovered it was much worse with the bolt coming out. I guess you could say we did get some luck avoiding the big pile up while sitting on pit road. It could have been allot worse. I know Matt's not satisfied with tonight and neither is the team but the 12th place finish and a car in one piece will allow us to jump on testing next week prior to Saturday nights twin 75's. I want to thank Frank and all the guys at FDJ Motorsports and especially thank the people and businesses that sponsor this team. We've got allot more racing this year and I'm really excited for the whole team with the chance to work with Matt Dalton."