Chilly Saturday Night at Charlotte Finds the No. 26 Jeremiah Weed Southern Style Sweet Tea Ford Finishing 31st
October 18, 200910:47 AM
Concord, NC. (October 17, 2009) – Racing at Lowe’s Motor Speedway Saturday night brought a lot of excitement for driver Jamie McMurray and his No. 26 team. Not only did the team have the opportunity to race at their hometown track, located just miles from the team’s headquarters, but they also had a special paint scheme on board for the weekend’s festivities. Jeremiah Weed Southern Sweet Tea Vodka chose to ride along with McMurray and the No. 26 team during NASCAR’s “homecoming weekend.” Brisk temperatures Saturday night challenged McMurray and his team when it came to making the necessary adjustments in order to correct the car’s handling challenges, and forced the Jeremiah Weed Southern Style Sweet Tea team to leave Charlotte with a 31st-place finish.
Rain showers on Thursday delayed practice and qualifying for nearly two hours while track officials worked to dry the track surface in order to allow teams to get time with their cars for practice runs. The Jeremiah Weed Southern Style Sweet Tea Ford focused on qualifying set-ups since there was a limited amount of practice before qualifying began at 9:10 p.m. EST. McMurray was the 21st car to qualify and posted the 20th-fastest time with a fast lap time of 28.546 seconds.
Mother Nature cooperated on Saturday and allowed both practice sessions to occur on time. The No. 26 team worked on their set-up for the race and making sure that the handling allowed for McMurray to run either the high line or the low line for Saturday night’s race.
Saturday brought with it much colder temperatures and when the green flag waved at 7:49 p.m. EST to start the NASCAR Banking 500, temperatures were shown at 51 degrees. McMurray rolled off from the 20th position and was able to hold on to the track position during the opening run despite the fact that his No. 26 Ford was a “bit loose at the start of the run, but then began to tighten up as the run went on.” A few early cautions early on in the race allowed for McMurray to call in over radio communication to crew chief Donnie Wingo and report about what he was experiencing.
Wingo called the Jeremiah Weed Ford to pit road for service on lap 37 for four tires, fuel, and a track bar adjustment. Shortly after the restart however, McMurray radioed in to his team that he was so loose that he was hanging on in order to not spin out. As a result, McMurray dropped down to 30th by lap 60 as the loose-handling conditions continued to plague him over the course of the next few runs.
Wingo and the Jeremiah Weed Southern Style Sweet Team pit crew worked diligently on every stop making changes to air pressure and track bar settings. Unfortunately, the car kept fluctuating from starting out loose to eventually working its way into being too tight throughout the runs.
During a pit stop on lap 247, Wingo opted for a wedge adjustment since all of the other changes hadn’t made the car react the way that they had anticipated. The wedge adjustment helped make the car tighter and push going into the turns, but it turned out that the problem now became reversed. Now the Jeremiah Weed Ford started out tight and got looser throughout the course of the run.
Despite being frustrated with a challenging car that wouldn’t react the way they had predicted, the No. 26 team never threw in the towel, and they continued to look at various changes right up until the end of the 334 lap event. In the end however, McMurray and his team had to settle for a 31st-place finish for their special sponsor, Jeremiah Weed Southern Style Sweet Tea.
“I’m not sure what happened to our car tonight,” said McMurray after the race. “We started out the weekend really excited about this car, but tonight’s race was just a really frustrating experience for us. We spent the majority of the race starting out too loose and then becoming tighter, but then towards the end, started out tight and became looser. We had a great sponsor on board with Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea and I know our team wanted to bring home a great finish for them, but it just wasn’t our night.”
Jimmie Johnson won Saturday night’s NASCAR Banking 500 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and earned a place in the history books by becoming the first driver to have won three of the first five races of the Chase. Johnson led for a total of 92 laps Saturday night under the lights and held off a late-charging Matt Kenseth who finished second. Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon, and Joey Logano rounded out the top-five finishers, while McMurray finished 31st. Johnson’s victory increased his lead in the point standings to 90 points ahead of Mark Martin as he remained in the lead.
Next weekend the Sprint Cup Series travels to Martinsville, Virginia for the Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. Pre-race television coverage begins on Sunday, October 15th at 1:00p.m. E.S.T. on ABC. Radio coverage will be provided by the Motor Racing Network.
NEXT UP:
Tums Fast Relief 500
0.526-mile Martinsville Speedway
Martinsville, VA
Saturday, October 25, 2009
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