After starting 20th on Saturday the No. 41 Discount Tire Co. Dodge team had to avoid a few obstacles to claw their way back to the top. Through an accident on lap 5 and a run-in while battling for position later on, driver Reed Sorenson gunned his way through incidents that could have been disastrous and brought home a successful sixth place finish in the United Way 300 at the Kansas Speedway.
The nail-biting day began only five laps into the 200-lap event while battling Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates teammate David Stremme. A combination of miscommunication and hard racing was the victor as Stremme ended up in a spin.
“He’s the last person I’d want to wreck,” Sorenson said.
Clearly unintentional, Stremme also defended his teammate in a television interview after the run-in.
The second yellow flag of the day fell just over 20 laps later giving the Discount Tire crew time to repair minor right front fender damage and make a minor adjustment to dial in Sorenson’s Dodge.
Lined up for the restart, interim crew chief Jimmy Elledge reminded his driver, “There’s still a long way to go with 169 laps, we’ll get 'em here.”
At the time, Sorenson’s Dodge was scored in the 18th position.
Once the field resumed racing towards the halfway mark of the event Reed wasn’t out of the woods just yet and had another close call while battling over position. This time, it was with the 78 car of Jerry Robertson. After the two made contact the Discount Tire ride donned a caved in right side door.
“I don’t know what happened there. We hit pretty hard. It shook the whole car,” Reed said.
Although the damage didn’t seem to impend the car’s performance the crew did make sure to repair the dented in sheet metal as best as they could during various stops as the day played out.
Without serious damage to the No. 41 machine Sorenson continued on his uphill climb towards the front and lingered just outside of the top 10 as he kept the Discount Tire colors in 15th just beyond the halfway mark on lap 129.
Within laps the potential of Sorenson’s hotrod began to shine through after cracking the top 10 on lap 175.
By lap 183 the caution flag waved yet again giving the field their final round of pitstops of the day.
“It plows the right front all the way through turns 3 and 4,” Sorenson informed Elledge of the car’s handling.
After a quick trip to pitroad for another slight adjustment and four fresh tires, the restart fell with 14 laps to go with Reed in the 15th spot.
Just after making a stellar pass on last season’s runner-up in the point standings, Kyle Busch, the yellow flag flew one final time.
Sorenson eyed the restart with only three green flag laps remaining and gunned passed former Nextel Cup Series champion Matt Kenseth for position. He settled the Discount Tire Co. Dodge in sixth at the stripe.
“Everybody did a good job today,” Elledge said of his No. 41 crew.
Surviving through two on-track battles and fierce competition throughout, Sorenson was happy with his Kansas showing.
“That’s not a bad finish after the day we had,” he said.
Next week Reed and the Discount Tire boys will stay close to home and hit the 1.5-mile Lowe’s Motor Speedeway just down the street from the team’s race shop in Concord, NC. In the spring Sorenson and crew chief Brian Pattie put their heads together and pulled out a fifth place finish on the new, challenging track surface.
