Derrike Cope and the Advil Ford team head to the
fast 1.33-mile Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway this week for Saturday’s Pepsi
300 NASCAR Busch Series race. Cope, a 45-year-old winning veteran of NASCAR
racing, is among a small group of drivers with plans of competing in the NASCAR
Busch Series and full NASCAR Nextel Cup Series this season.
The thoughts of #49 Advil Ford driver Derrike Cope heading into Nashville:
"Weekends off are nice, I guess, but racing is everything to me. Spending a
weekend racing somewhere is what I am all about. Everything I do as far as
working with sponsors or working hard on the business end of things and
everything else is because I want to race. Those are the kinds of things you do
to make it possible to get into the race car each week, buckle in and get out
there and compete. Having that chance to run this weekend at Nashville is great.
It’s a tremendous facility and they’ve done a great job in building a good race
track, and they’ve done a great job in promoting it. The people of Nashville
have proven their love of racing, and that makes the races there even more fun.
"The Cup series doesn’t run Nashville so these Busch Series races, as well as
the Trucks and ARCA, are the only time stock cars run a superspeedway in the
area. From Advil’s standpoint, this is a tremendous opportunity to do some great
things in front of the great fans from the Nashville area.
"As far as this Advil Ford team, it’s another chance to compete. It’s another
chance to take our car, get it as good as we can get it, run hard for the pole
one day and run hard to win a race the next. To do that at a really nice
facility like Nashville makes for a great weekend for all of us. Having some
success with that makes it even better. The guys on this race team, from (owner)
Jay Robinson to the driver to every guy on the crew, we’re in this sport to
compete. We do this because we love racing and because we love to win. Every guy
on this team works as hard as he can to make this team successful. Sure, we work
hard to please Advil and to get them the exposure they deserve, and we want Jay
to be happy with our effort but it takes a tremendous amount of self-motivation
to do well in NASCAR racing. You aren’t successful because you love it. You are
successful because you do whatever it takes, make whatever sacrifices are
necessary, and make every effort you have to make. Every single guy on this race
team is here for one reason and one reason alone – to be part of the best race
team he possibly can. We’ve worked to get a good car ready for Nashville, and we
think it could be a pretty good week for us there. It might be an off week for
the Cup cars but it’s all-out all-time-time for this Advil bunch.
"We’re looking for a good weekend. We’re excited, and we’re going to work hard
to make it a lot of fun."
In the first practice, Derrike was 48th fastest
with a time of 30.691 and speed of 156.359.
In qualifying, Derrike took the track as the 12th
car and on the first lap had a time of 31.256 and speed of 153.53. On the second
lap, it was 30.740 and speed of 156.109. This put the car in 12th place at the
time. At the end of the round, the team had to take a provisional and started
the race in 39th position.
In Happy Hour, Derrike was 40th fastest with a
time of 31.876 and speed of 150.546.
Derrike started the race in 39th position
and finished in 35th position.
| Start |
Finish |
Status |
Money
Won |
Laps |
Laps
Led |
Race
Points |
Standing |
| 39 |
35 |
Brakes |
$15,915 |
100/225 |
|
58 |
27 |
Derrike gave us a rundown on the Busch
Race at Nashville. "It seemed that we had problems at Nashville from the
start. We had motor issues and changed motors before the race. That helped.
However, we started the race without power steering. We worked to fix that
on our first caution. We also had brake problems followed by battery and
electrical problems that put us out of the race. We are looking forward to
putting all of that bad luck behind us for the Busch Race at Talladega."
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