After the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) Dodge hit the wall at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday afternoon, it seemed like the NASCAR Busch Series race was over before it even got started for Reed Sorenson and the No. 41 Discount Tire team. The guys didn’t give up though. Instead, they rolled up their sleeves to work on a severely damaged race car and miraculously made it back on track to gain seven positions before calling it a day in 36th place.
Both the team and driver stand 10th in the NASCAR Busch Series
standings with just two more races remaining in the 2006 season.
The Discount Tire driver and team kicked the weekend off on
Friday, starting with two back-to-back morning practice sessions.
The team made multiple changes to fiddle with the car’s handling
a bit, trying to shake a tight-handling condition. By lunch,
Sorenson told his guys the car was really good on the bottom
of the track, but the tight condition was still present in the
middle of turns three and four.
Come qualifying time late Friday evening, the Discount Tire team
and Sorenson were the seventh group to make their trial laps and
initially turned out to have a pretty good run. The team was
fourth fastest but as more cars went the temperature continued to go down along with the No. 41 that was lit up on the infield scoring tower. By the conclusion of qualifying the No. 41 CGRFS Busch team landed in the 23rd-starting spot.
The O’Reilly Challenge got started just after 1 p.m. CT on Saturday, and just as the field was coming around to complete the fifth lap of the 200-lap competition the No. 41 Dodge smacked the wall. Sorenson immediately pulled the car into the garage to let his guys survey the damage.
The Discount Tire crew went to work, replacing the entire front-end housing and taping up the left rear of the car. Just a little more than 40 laps later, Sorenson was back on track in 43rd place. The team had lost a lot of ground and had no chance to truly make it up, but did what needed to be done to salvage the day and as many points as possible. By the end of the race, the No. 41 car was scored with a 36th-place finish. Sorenson’s teammate Juan Pablo Montoya finished 28th.
Sorenson and the Discount Tire team both stand 10th in the NASCAR Busch Series championship standings as they head to Phoenix International Raceway for the next-to-last race of the year. It is scheduled to start at 3:40 p.m. ET on Saturday, November 11, with live broadcasts on NBC (TV) and MRN (Radio).
