Statesville, NC — September 4, 2013
Josh Wise will take a new primary partner to Richmond (VA) International Raceway on Saturday night, introducing NASCAR fans to The Pete Store, LLC.
The Pete Store is a Peterbilt dealer group with nine full-service locations from Delaware to Georgia, and is the provider of Front Row Motorsports’ race haulers. The company has been an associate sponsor with Front Row for previous races, but Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 will be The Pete Store’s first primary sponsorship with the team.
The three-quarter-mile raceway takes the 30-year-old Wise back to his early racing days when he competed on Saturday nights under the lights of neighborhood short tracks. Currently in the Sprint Cup Series, Wise has three career starts at Richmond. He finished 28th in his last trip to the track in April.
Comments from The Pete Store team driver Josh Wise heading to Richmond:
“We’ve got The Pete Store on our No. 35 this week at Richmond, which is pretty cool. They’re already a team partner of ours – we use Peterbilt trucks for our race haulers – and they’ve been an associate sponsor a couple times on our cars, but now they’re going to have a whole paint scheme just for them. So we’re happy to show that off under the lights on Saturday night.
“I like short-track racing. It’s awesome. It’s just great racing under the lights and I always look forward to it. It brings back memories of racing like most of us in the garage did in the past, racing Saturday night under the lights. So it’s always something to look forward to.
“It can be tough to prepare for, though, because not a whole lot of other information from other tracks applies to Richmond. There’s a little correlation maybe between Loudon and Richmond and maybe a little bit of Martinsville. A lot of the tracks we go to are kind of their own animal even though they may look similar. They all still have their own neat little quirks.
“You fight the same challenge at all the short tracks typically. You need the front to turn better at the center of the corner, and you’ve got to maintain forward drive while doing that. I think we qualified pretty good at Richmond in the spring, and we had a decent run. But the track definitely tightened up, and I remember that much about it. So we’ll definitely try to adjust for that in practice this time.”