 | By Amanda Brahler TOLEDO OH (5-6-03) Headed to Kentucky Speedway for this Saturday’s Channel 5-205, rookies Bill Eversole and Christi Passmore now find themselves tied with 142 points for the ARCA Rookie of the Year title. |  | Eversole, a Chelsea, Michigan native says he is content with his current run in the ARCA RE/MAX Series although he has suffered occasional setbacks along the way. "It's going great," he says of his season to date. "Everything is according to plan, going smooth right now. It's been fun. We're happy with it for our first year in it." After a ninth place finish in Toledo in the Think Pink Energy Drink Chevrolet, Eversole can still look at the run and be proud. "If we would have gotten a late caution, I think we had a real good shot at a top three in Toledo; that was a bad deal."
Heading into the season, Eversole marked the Rookie of the Year as a top goal for himself and his team. Now that he is tied with Passmore for the honor, the driver of the #08, Eversole, says, "I didn't really expect that at all to be honest with you. She's right there and in ARCA really, if you finish, you are going to finish up good. I had a bad deal in Nashville and Salem, you're going to get caught."
The bad deal at Salem for Eversole came when he was involved in an accident, handing him a 27th place finish. Last weekend at Toledo he rebounded and scored a ninth place effort.
Passmore on the other hand had just the opposite. Her solid run came at Salem where she finished ninth and this passed weekend she ended up 17th in the #91 Gap Roofing-Royal Trading Ford, giving Eversole the heads up.
As far as her thoughts on the neck and neck battle that is brewing, Passmore isn't focusing on the title as much as her counterpart. "I really don't acknowledge the whole rookie thing. Just finishing races is paramount; if, at the end of the year, it plays out that we win the Rookie title, that would be great, but it doesn’t change the way we do things, or our goals, which is to finish races and learn, learn, learn."
Passmore, a Pryor OK native sure is racing as best as she can. After making the jump from sprint cars she is embarking on her first season in full-bodied stocks and is beyond content with the way things are going so far. | "We're finishing races and that's what our main goal is. As long as you finish you're likely to get a top-10 finish. We're going to try to start getting some top fives." |  | Now that the short tracks are behind the two competitors before hitting Berlin near the end of the month, the next event on the RE/MAX schedule is on the 1.5-mile track in Kentucky. | Eversole for one is excited about the jump from the past two short-track events to the superspeedways. "I'm looking forward to getting back to Kentucky & Lowe's. It's going to be nice to get back to the big tracks," he says. |  | With momentum on her side, Passmore agrees. "We had a pretty strong run on the short tracks, hopefully we can carry that over to the speedways."
And not just superspeedways, but the thought of riding out the remainder of the season excites her. "I am looking forward to it, we're getting more comfortable in the cars and Bob Schacht has been helping us out quite a bit; he's really good with the setups and our guys are starting to learn more about the setups and how the cars work. So I am really looking forward to the rest of the year."
Speaking of Bob Schacht, the guy is an ARCA legend and now that he is working with the young Passmore, it's grabbing attention. "He's just doing a driver consulting and technical support at the racetrack. We're trying to figure out how we're going to do that for the rest of the year," Passmore says of the role veteran Schacht is playing in her race team.
Regardless as to which driver may have a bigger advantage, only time will tell who has what it takes to claim the rookie title come year's end. Heading into Kentucky and Charlotte however, Eversole may have the heads up being he has a tremendous amount of speedway experience. His day job is that of a driving instructor at the Michigan International Speedway, a track which measures two-miles in length. |
