{"id":14683,"date":"2023-06-08T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=14683"},"modified":"2023-08-27T09:35:26","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T13:35:26","slug":"preparation-pays-off-for-brad-perez-during-a-wild-weekend-in-portland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2023\/06\/08\/preparation-pays-off-for-brad-perez-during-a-wild-weekend-in-portland\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparation pays off for Brad Perez during a wild weekend in Portland"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>The world of stock car racing is wild and wonderful, but for Brad Perez this weekend&#8217;s NASCAR Xfinity round is one for the scrapbook.<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Brad Perez<\/strong> has been working his way through the stock car ladder since his ARCA debut with Josh Williams Motorsport in 2021 and has since raced in both the NASCAR Craftsmen Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series. This year Perez is racing a four-race schedule with Emerling-Gase Motorsport while also helping out on their pit crew.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">P??<br \/>big stripe<\/p>\n<p>i was given the opportunity by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TommyJoeMartins?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@TommyJoeMartins<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TeamAlphaPrime?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@TeamAlphaPrime<\/a> to bring this thing home and i didn&#39;t do my job. i&#39;ll be better. i learned a lot and i&#39;ll be grateful for any time i ever hop in a race car.<\/p>\n<p>im sorry to frank, peyton, chris, clate and everyone <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IkGI4ZdIU6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/IkGI4ZdIU6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; bread perez (@bradxperez) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bradxperez\/status\/1665151283613900800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 4, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Always be ready to race<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Going into the Xfinity round at Portland, Perez was slated to help out on the Emerling-Gase pit crew, changing tires for the #53 car. But as the weekend progressed, it looked like plans might change. But luckily, he was prepared.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI had all my gear, all my stuff. Usually, for any race that I run or any race that I go to that I&#8217;m approved for, I go ahead and bring all my stuff no matter what.\u201d Perez said. \u201cThis weekend, it even helped more because we are at Sonoma next week and the hauler is going with it, so I had to bring all my stuff and had everything all set and ready to go for Sonoma, I mean I had my hero cards and everything.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It would turn out that his preparation would pay off. An unfortunate fight with food poisoning befell #43 Alpha Prime Racing driver <strong>Leland Honeyman Jr.<\/strong>, and, as luck would have it, Perez was there to go on standby.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI&#8217;m setting the tires the morning of the race, as I&#8217;m about to go in the hauler to get my radio and all my stuff, so I can put on my gear,\u201d Perez said. \u201cI get a call from Tommy Joe [Martin], and he&#8217;s just like, \u2018Hey, I need you. Do you have your stuff?\u2019 And I&#8217;m like, \u2018Yeah\u2019. He goes, \u2018Well I need you to fill in the 43 car because I think Leland is going to be out because he&#8217;s sick\u2019. So he is like, \u2018When practice and qualifying come up, I need you to get your suit on and need you on pit road and on standby for us.\u2019 \u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perez was ready to race, but he still had some pit crew duties to take care of over at Emerling-Gase.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;And uh, funny enough, uh, I was in the hauler with the Emerling-Gase crew, and they all were like, \u2018Why is Tommy Joe calling?\u2019. Then after that, I was like, \u2018Hey guys can I like&#8230; get out of working practice real quick\u2019, I didn&#8217;t want to be rude and just be like, \u201cHey, see you guys you&#8217;re on your own.\u201d Perez said. &#8220;\u2018I set my tires and stuff and kind of did everything I could do before I had to stand by Leland&#8217;s pit while he practiced and qualified. He did a really good job overall. Then once quali was over, Tommy was like, \u2018All right, still need you to stand by for the race, just in case.\u2019 I was thinking it wasn&#8217;t really going to happen, little did I know.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>Its go time<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the first stage break came, it was decided that Honeyman Jr. was going to come out and Perez was going to hop in for the remaining laps.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhen I hopped in the car the first time, it was under caution, so I kind of went around, you know, felt it out.\u201d Perez said. \u201cI hadn&#8217;t been in a car since Martinsville, and I&#8217;ve been in Xfinity car since COTA So I just kind of felt it out when the restart happened, I&#8217;m like, \u2018Oh, I&#8217;m going to go like 70%\u2019. But it was a lot easier because there were cars right in front of me, so I could judge off of them. Basically, I was copying everybody else. Then after a while, I started getting a little faster and, and, ended up doing pretty well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perez gained a fair few positions after inheriting the car. He was running 26th at the second stage break and going into the final laps was poised for a top 15. Unfortunately, last-lap contact threw him into the tire barrier, and he finished P28 with damage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perez is scheduled to race in Xfinity at Sonoma next week for Emerling-Gase in the #53. Sonoma would be the fourth race of his four-race schedule with Emerling-Gase but more may be on the horizon this year beyond that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere are two more currently scheduled, I&#8217;m not going to say yet, but yeah, it could be more so just trying to get some partnerships going. I really want to do all the road courses. I want to do all of &#8217;em, even Mid-Ohio trucks, so we are trying to get that going.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h5>Featured Image Credit: Chris Graythen\/Getty Images<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world of stock car racing is wild and wonderful, but for Brad Perez this weekend&#8217;s NASCAR Xfinity round is one for the scrapbook. Brad Perez has been working his way through the stock car ladder since his ARCA debut with Josh Williams Motorsport in 2021 and has since raced in both the NASCAR Craftsmen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4318,"featured_media":14697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1665],"tags":[126],"class_list":["post-14683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar-xfinity-series","tag-nascar-xfinity-series"],"modified_by":"Nathan Reynolds","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4318"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}