Lakeville, CT (August 17, 2008): A solid race-long performance was derailed for Ricky Carmichael and his No. 4 Monster Energy Drink Dodge at Lime Rock Park Saturday afternoon after a late-race spin took him out of contention for a top-10 finish in the Mohegan Sun 200, the NASCAR Camping World Series East’s last road course event of the season. With only five laps remaining, Carmichael recovered to post an impressive 12th place finish and maintain his sixth place position in the championship point standings.

“It was just a bummer day. I had at least eighth, but that’s water under the bridge,” said Carmichael. “It’s such a narrow track and some of these guys get a little crazy. It is what it is, and I’ll take a 12th after that spin out there.”

Carmichael, who started sixth after rain canceled qualifying Friday afternoon, ran in the top-10 all day and was poised to finish there. The spin came at lap 71 when Carmichael was involved in a heated three-way battle with DEI teammates Trevor Bayne and Jesus Hernandez. The trio were running nose-to-tail when they approached the downhill. Carmichael spun at the bottom of the hill, and got hit by the 31, who had nowhere to go.

“I was running behind (Trevor) Bayne and (Jesus) Hernandez and they kind of checked up a little bit,” explained Carmichael. “We were going around some lappers and when they checked up, I checked up and got ran into from behind.”

Carmichael lined up 16th for the restart at lap 77 with only five laps remaining in the race. It only made Carmichael more determined, who rallied in the closing laps to finish 12th. Carmichael is only 85 points out of fifth place in the point standings.

“It’s cool when you’re by yourself out there, but it’s tough when you’re in a pack because the track is so narrow. It’s really hard to pass,” said Carmichael. “Point-wise we lost a little bit of ground to Marc Davis, but we’re still in there to finish this year out in the top-five. We’ll just go and rebuild for Ohio, and see what we can do.”

An enhanced replay of the Mohegan Sun 200 at Lime Rock Park will be televised on SPEED on Wednesday, September 3rd at 1 PM ET.