BRISTOL, Tenn. – In arguably the most important race of the year for the underdog Henderson Motorsports team, Parker Kligerman barnstormed to a top-five finish Thursday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Piloting the No. 75 Chevrolet Silverado, Kligerman was among the frontrunners all night long, finishing the first two stages in sixth place and quickly cracking the top five during the final stage once racing resumed with 77 laps to go.
He picked up one additional position when third-running Christopher Bell lost power steering with 38 laps left and then held station all the way to the checkered flag, crossing the line fourth for his and the team’s best result in six starts this season.
Making the effort even more special was the fact that Bristol is only 30 miles southwest of Henderson Motorsports’ home base in Abingdon, Va.
Thursday marked their best finish at the track and their second-straight top-10 finish at the .533-mile concrete oval. It was also Kligerman’s first top-five since winning last fall at Talladega Superspeedway.
“It’s a good run for everyone at Henderson Motorsports and Food Country USA in their backyard here,” said Kligerman. “It’s a home race for them. It’s the Super Bowl for us. We had Lopez Wealth Management, which is a local company, onboard with us for this race. We’re just full of local people that support this team. Chris Carrier, my crew chief, is from here as well.
“A good run is good here and it’s good to get a top-five again for this team. I mean, we do a lot with a little. We’ve got two full-time employees basically and we come out here and race against multi-million dollar organizations and run just as well.”
Kligerman noted that while Thursday’s race was another positive step for their small team, it wasn’t everything he wanted it to be.
“I’m proud of what we accomplished here, but I want more,” he said. “We were just too tight. We could never get the top to work and forever I’ve run only the top. I’m terrible on the bottom. I came here with a focus on being good on the bottom and we were awesome on the bottom, but then I was terrible on the top, so I’ve got to find a happy medium.
“I thought to myself, ‘What would Kyle Larson do here?’ and tried to replicate that, but we just didn’t have what we needed to be able to run up high like that tonight,” Kligerman continued. “Hopefully we can come back here next time and be strong in both grooves.”
With Bristol in the rear-view mirror, Kligerman and the Charlie Henderson-owned team turn their focus to Talladega, where they hope to repeat their thrilling victory from a season ago.
But beyond that race, Kligerman said the team has even bigger goals, with the hope of expanding their program into a full-time Truck Series operation that can chase a series title in the near future.
“Our next race is going to be Talladega and then hopefully we’ll do Homestead to finish it. The only one guaranteed is Talladega right now,” noted Kligerman.
“We’re really pumping up our effort to find some marketing partners and do all we can to maybe make this a full-time gig next year. This team, we want to do it and we know we can run for a championship. I mean, hell, we run up front eight to 10 times a year or whatever we do with two full-time employees. Imagine what we could do with a full budget and going for a full championship.”
