Reed Sorenson and the Target team’s troubles began before they even took the initial green flag at Bristol Motor Speedway. While pacing the field under caution prior to the start of the Food City 500, and inaugural Car of Tomorrow race, a few cars surged and then checked up in front of the No. 41 Target Avenger, and before Sorenson could react he made contact with the No. 18 car. It looked as though the car only suffered minor cosmetic damage, but the team would later find out the radiator was shot. To add insult to injury, Sorenson was turned by the No. 29 car on lap 17, which sent him to pit road and ultimately behind the wall when the team discovered the radiator was leaking. The Target crew replaced the radiator and attempted to send Sorenson back into competition, but the motor had been too severely damaged at this point and their day was done.
Sorenson and the Target team fell to 29th in the overall NEXTEL Cup Series driver standings. The team is only 39 points out of 25th and just 92 out of the top 20.
There were 15 caution flags for a total of 90 laps in the 500-lap event. The time of race was 3hrs, 16 min, 38 secs., the average speed was 81,969 mph and the margin of victory was 0.064 secs.
Sorenson and the No. 41 Target team head to Martinsville Speedway next for the Goody’s Cool Orange 500. The race will be broadcast Sunday, April 1, on FOX, MRN radio and Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 128 (LIVE, 1:30 pm ET).
Reed's Quotes:
“There is not a whole lot to say about this one. We need
to be moving up in the points, not falling back. It’s unfortunate because we got the Target Avenger working pretty good in practice yesterday and I felt like we could have a good, solid race today if we could stay out of trouble. I really didn’t think we hit the (No.) 18 car that hard, and they guys said the front end looked okay. I guess the radiator was damaged pretty bad because the car got really hot before we got spun by the (No. 29). It’s just an unfortunate deal all together, but we’ll just have to rebound with a strong run at Martinsville next week.”
