ROUGEMONT, N.C. :: With a win to his credit when the CARS Super Late Model Tour last visited Orange County Speedway, Brandon Setzer would have been a safe bet to battle for the victory in Saturday’s Orange Blossom 300. Instead, Setzer spent most of the weekend searching for speed.
The Kulwicki Driver Development Program member found that speed just in time, rallying to a fourth-place finish despite spending large portions of the 150-lap event outside of the top 20.
“I don’t know how we got here, either,” Setzer admitted after the race. “We hadn’t been good all weekend. We had a very poor qualifying effort.”
Setzer struggled throughout the weekend in practice and qualified 21st. A series of cautions near the middle of the race provided opportunity for Setzer to work on his machine, ultimately dialing in for a final push to the front.
“Didn’t have the car where we needed to at the start of the race,” Setzer said. “We made a few little adjustments, and we ended up being fairly decent there at the end.”
“It would have been nice to see what we had there at the end. We got up to fifth and got jacked up by somebody. Pretty ignorant move there. Fell back to tenth, and got back up to fourth, so pretty decent night for us.”
Setzer doesn’t believe he had the speed to challenge the podium of Christopher Bell, Raphael Lessard, and Dalton Sargeant, outside of a crazy scenario on a late restart.
“They were racing so hard,” Setzer said. “I think we could have been in the mix. They probably had a better car than we did. It would have been very interesting to see. You never know what can happen on a green-white-checkered or something like that.”
Not only was it a come-from-behind effort to achieve a top-five finish at Orange County, but a strong rebound after disappointment in the CARS Super Late Model Tour season opener at Southern National Motorsports Park. Setzer finished 11th in that event, the last car on the lead lap.
“We were terrible [at Southern National],” said Setzer. “We’ve just got to get the raw speed to get back running where we were at the end of last year,” said Setzer. “Not have to come from behind.”
