Lipton TEA 250

May 2, 2008
Richmond, VA

Derrike drove the #52 Chevrolet for Jimmy Means in Richmond.

In the first practice, Derrike was 37th fastest with a time of 22.628 and speed of 119.321.

In Qualifying, Derrike produced a lap which put the car in 38th position to start the race.

Derrike started the race in 38th position, ran the entire race, and ended in 33rd.

Derrike updated us by saying, "As we approached practice Jimmy Means elected to not go on the race track until there was about 45 minutes left in practice to conserve tires since we were a locked in car (guaranteed in the race). But as soon as we got on the race track we had a miss in the engine. It took several tries before we were able to diagnose the problem, thus relegating us to only one hard lap on the racetrack.

"We qualified 38th which was a bit disappointing, but with minimal laps that is all we could get with a conservative approach. We made a grave error before the race started. When it came time to make our final approved changes to the car, they were not made in time. So we had to start the car with too much wedge and the track bar too low, which left our car way too tight for the first run and went quite a few laps that way which hurt us. We did, however, run the entire race which was nice and finished 33rd. The number 52 remained a lock in car for Darlington."