Chaotic Start and Finish Didn’t Deter Sorenson from Daytona Top 10

“I thought the beginning of the day started a little crazy, but I don’t think I will ever forget crossing the finish line like that,” Sorenson said. “I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen after we got hit there in the beginning, but every time I came off pit road the car was getting better. Brian [Pattie] and all of the guys on this Discount Tire team worked so hard to get ready for this and worked even harder today to keep us going and running competitively. I feel so lucky to have a group of guys like this working with me.”

Sorenson and the No. 41 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) Busch team lined up 13th to start the first race of the 2006 NASCAR Busch Series season. Less than three laps into Saturday’s show, the first yellow flag of the 120-lap competition was displayed.

Sorenson radioed his guys to tell them the car was tight and needed to be freed up, so Crew Chief Brian Pattie called the 20-year old driver to pit road. The only problem was Sorenson’s radio was cutting in and out, causing him to miss the initial request to stop. Luckily, more caution laps followed and gave the team the time it needed to go ahead and pit to make the necessary adjustments to loosen up the car. Unfortunately, when they pitted, the rest of the field that wanted to pit already did. Thus, racing returned to green on lap seven with the No. 41 Dodge in 41st place.

Just a little more than 10 laps later, Sorenson was quickly approaching the top 25. Then, the second setback came on lap 29 when the No. 00 car lost a tire. The spinning car came up and hit Sorenson’s Dodge. The team pitted multiple times under the caution that was brought out by the mishap to repair the left-front of the No. 41 Discount Tire car. Pattie surveyed the crew’s repairs and told his driver the car really didn’t look that bad and not to count himself out, yet. The race was just getting started and there was plenty of time to come back … and come back is exactly what they did.

Racing returned to green on lap 35 with the No. 41 CGRFS Dodge in 35th place. More yellow flags waved and the team took advantage of each opportunity to continue to clean up the front end of the car, picking up spots each time. By lap 54 the team was 21st and only continued to move forward from there.

Saturday at Daytona International Speedway (DIS) in the Hershey’s Kissables 300, Reed Sorenson and the No. 41 Discount Tire team took two early-race setbacks and turned them into a second-half comeback by maintaining a top-10 run and surviving a last-lap colossal collision to grab a ninth-place finish.

Soon Sorenson was knocking on the door of the top 10 and by lap 70 the No. 41 Dodge was 10th. Sorenson’s spotter Lorin Ranier told his driver, “Race smart here. It’s about give and take.”

Just a few laps later the Discount Tire Dodge was fifth, and continued to stay with the top-five runners until the seventh caution of the day on lap 75. To avoid the wreckage ahead of him, Sorenson went low. The quick reflexes paid off. The car came out clean and as racing returned to green the No. 41 car was ninth.

The last 20 laps of the race were littered with wrecks, with the final crash taking place on the final lap. Cars went

everywhere and one clipped the 41, turning it around and slamming it up against the outside wall. Just a few feet from the finish line, the car slid backwards along the wall and then finally came to a halt down near pit road. More than two hours after the race, NASCAR reviewed the tapes and awarded the No. 41 Discount Tire team ninth place.

“I’m very happy with a top-10, single-digit finish here. It’s just like how we started last year. I’ll take it. It’s a long season,” Pattie said.

The ninth-place finish puts Sorenson and the No. 41 Discount Tire team ninth overall in the Busch Series standings. They head out west next week to Fontana, Calif., to race in the Stater Brothers 300 at California Speedway on Saturday, February 25. The race will broadcast live, starting at 6 p.m. ET, on FX (TV), MRN (Radio) and XM Radio Channel 144.