Annett considers Charlotte his second home track after Iowa

Michael Annett on Having a New Branding Partner in Charlotte: “We’re excited to have Cheez-It on the Pilot Flying J Ford this weekend for the Charlotte night race. We’ve had some really cool branding partners on the car this season and I‘m honored to add Cheez-It to the list. I enjoy eating Cheez-It snacks and I know we’ll have plenty on the hauler this weekend for me and the crew. It’s going to be a special weekend, with a special paint scheme, and I’d like nothing more than to showcase our new branding partner in Victory Lane.”

Michael Annett on Going to Charlotte Motor Speedway: “Charlotte is my second home track after Iowa. I’ve lived in Charlotte for more than eight years now so, it’s my home away from home. It’s a great place for friends and families to come out and watch. It’s one of the only times the crew guys can really showcase their skills in front of their friends and families. We all travel so much, it’s just nice to be able to go home at night and sleep in our own beds. The Charlotte night race always produces some exciting racing action, so we are really looking forward to going there and putting on a show. I’ve had a weekend off since our third-place finish in Dover two weeks ago, so I’m more than ready to get behind the wheel of my race car again. We keep getting better and better as the season goes on, so I think it’s only a matter of time before we end up in Victory Lane.

Crew Chief Philippe Lopez’s Thoughts on Racing in Charlotte: “It’s the second half of the season and we have definitely been hitting our strides lately. We had a 14th-place finish earlier this season at Charlotte, so we are looking to improve upon that this weekend. The whole No. 43 crew is working really well together and the cars are where we need them to be. We’re coming off a season-best third-place finish at Dover, so we’ve got some momentum going into this weekend. We’ve got five races left in the season and we expect to get top-five finishes in all of them.

“We’ve got a special branding partner on the car this weekend with Cheez-It, so we are excited about that. We appreciate everyone that comes on board to help us at Richard Petty Motorsports, and we are looking forward to putting on a good show this weekend in Charlotte for the Cheez-iIt brand.”

Chassis History: The No. 43 RPM NASCAR Nationwide Series team has prepared chassis No. 648 for the 200-lap race at Charlotte. This Pilot Flying J Ford Mustang was run previously this season at Texas, Michigan, Indianapolis and Atlanta.

Source: Richard Petty Motorsports