Bond Suss Racing and Cole Anderson teamed up for their first of three events in 2017 last weekend at the 41st Annual Hardee Rattler 250. Despite early issues, Anderson and the BSR team rallied to post a 10th place finish with the Timberwolf Plastics No. 55 Toyota.
“Overall, I was very happy with how everything went. We all seemed to work well together and ran pretty good too,” said Anderson.
“It was a good weekend and we learned a lot,” added Suss. “Cole was great to work with and I think we had a competitive Toyota, just some early issues shuffled us back and they were hard to completely overcome.”
The Minnesota driver qualified the BSR Timberwolf Plastics Toyota in the 10th position and that’s where he rolled off for the 250-lap race. However, radio problems under the pace laps forced Anderson to pit and start the race at the tail of the field.
On lap 14 two cars got together right in front of Anderson and he was collected in the early incident. He came to pit road the attention of his BSR team, who worked quickly to get him back out on track. With right front damage, Anderson knew it would be an uphill battle over the next 235 laps.
Said Anderson, “The plan was to slowly pick them off one by one and get up there before the break, but they wrecked right in front of me. At the time I was pretty devastated because I knew we had a really good car and it was unfortunate we were caught up in it. Bond really kept me calm over the radio all day and walked me through it all.”
“It was definitely a tough way to start the race,” added Suss. “I am proud of how Cole handed the situation and stayed focused. It would have been easy to let things get away from you, but he stayed the course and we put ourselves in a decent spot towards the end.”
After restarting 24th, Anderson got himself back on the lead lap worked his way into the 14th position by the break at lap 200. Having taken three tires earlier in order to put themselves in a position to get their lost lap back, the BSR team put three new Hoosiers on the No. 55 Timberwolf Plastics Toyota for the final 50 laps.
Anderson continued to march to the front and gained four more spot over the final 50 laps to earn a career best 10th place finish at The Rattler 250.
“I’m very proud of everyone at BSR,” said Anderson. “The right front was pretty beat up and to get most of it all fixed and march up to tenth was awesome. It was awesome to work with Bond. I felt like we really have a shot to go win some races, and that is really exciting. I couldn’t be more proud of everyone’s hard work this weekend.”
“I knew we were behind the eight ball a bit on tires on that last stop. Most other guys had four left, so I knew it would be tough for us to get up and contend for a top-five or even the win, so to get into the top-ten was good. If we hadn’t have had early problems, I think we had a good enough car to be towards the front, but I’m proud of Cole and this team of how they bounced back from the early adversary.”
Anderson’s next time behind the wheel for BSR will be April 9th at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway for the Champion Racing Association and Southern Super Series North/South Challenge.
Tanner Thorson will be back in the BSR JBL No. 55 Toyota next weekend at Orange County Speedway for the Pro All Star Series event.