Ragan Finishes 23rd in Phoenix Despite Having a Damaged UPS Ford

Phoenix, Ariz (November 15, 2009) – Phoenix International Raceway proved to be a challenge for David Ragan and his UPS Ford. Throughout practice the team just couldn’t get the car handling well for Ragan. Ragan had the unlucky draw of going out first in qualifying at a track that is temperature sensitive, resulting in a 33rd place starting position. Ragan’s crew made multiple adjustments throughout the race and got the UPS Ford turned around by the end, but damage from a multi-car accident on a restart cost valuable track position which couldn’t be made up in the end. Ragan crossed the finish line 23rd, two laps down to race winner Jimmie Johnson.

Right from the start of practice on Friday the team knew they had their hands full with the UPS Ford. Every change they made in practice just didn’t seem to improve the handling for Ragan. Next up came qualifying and unfortunately Ragan had to go out first, a major disadvantage as the setting sun in the desert makes for a faster track. The unlucky draw combined with the handling woes from practice resulted in a 33rd-place starting position. A brief rain shower on Saturday forced NASCAR to combine practice sessions, leaving the team with a little over an hour to get themselves race ready.

The 312-lap race opened up with a record 114 green flag laps. Ragan struggled over those opening laps with a car that had no forward bite up off the corners. Ragan came in for service under green on lap 69 for four tires, fuel and a left-side wedge adjustment. The adjustment wasn’t enough and on lap 104 he found himself being passed by the leaders. From there on out the goal was to be the “lucky dog” and get back lost track position, unfortunately things didn’t go as planned.

The first caution of the day came on lap 115 for debris on the track. Ragan described his UPS Ford as “really loose” so crew chief Jimmy Fennig called him down pit road for four tires, fuel and an air pressure adjustment. As the field took the green flag a few cars checked up creating a disaster for those in the back. Ragan had no where to go and got up under the No. 12 in front of him. With a heavily damaged front end Ragan had to come back down pit road four times for damage repair.

With a bandaged up UPS Ford Ragan resumed green flag racing with the field on lap 128. Currently only one lap down and in the 32nd position Ragan continued to battle a loose handling race car. The problem would plague Ragan up until the end and cost him time on the track to the leaders. Air and track bar adjustments help improve the handling on the UPS Ford, but it was to late in the race. Ragan ultimately finished the race 23rd, two laps down to race winner and points leader Jimmie Johnson.

“Restarts here at Phoenix are always kind of a mess,” said Ragan. “With the inside wall there, you just don’t have any place to go when something like other drivers checking up happens. In the middle of the pack on that restart, everybody started checking up and we got into the back of the No. 12, and it was a chain reaction. We were fortunate that we didn’t damage our car bad enough that we couldn’t finish, but we did have to make a couple of trips down pit road after that happened. After we lost our track position, there just weren’t enough cautions for us to get the Lucky Dog. I felt like our UPS Ford was better at the end than the beginning, but we just started too far off. We just didn’t have enough speed and as a whole, and it looks like all of the Fords really struggled today. This has been one of our tougher tracks and I’m just glad to have Phoenix behind us.”

NEXT UP:
Ford 400
1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway
Homestead, Fla.
Sunday, November 22, 2009

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Every road trip my wife and I

Submitted by davegs on Fri, 02/19/2010 - 12:36pm.

Every road trip my wife and I take we always go to fox car rental and get a ford to rent they are great cars.