Protection One 400

September 30, 2001
Kansas City, KS

Derrike will be driving the CLR Ford Taurus. This is a Winston Cup team that is owned by Ted Campbell and sponsored by CLR cleaning products (www.teamclr.com). They tested previously at the Kansas racetrack and Derrike said the test went very well. "I am very excited about the opportunity," said Derrike. "They will have Robert Yates engines. The Crew Chief is Joey Cudmore and the entire crew are great guys. We had a good chance to get to know each other and seemed to get along great. Our speeds we felt were good at Kansas, but worked mostly on race set-up."

In Thursday's first practice, Derrike was 40th fastest of 46 drivers with a time of 31.849 and speed of 169.55. In the second practice, they picked up the time to be 38th fastest with a time of 31.346 and speed of 172.271. These practices were with the race motor.

In Friday's practice with the qualifying motor, Derrike was 46th fastest with a time of 31.45 and speed of 171.701.

The team finished qualifying with a time of 31.092 and speed of 173.678. This put Derrike in 12th position at the time. At the end of qualifying, the team was left in 30th position.

In Saturday's first practice, Derrike was 41st fastest with a time of 31.77 and speed of 169.972. In Happy Hour, he was 40th fastest with a time of 31.786 and speed of 169.886.

It was nice seeing Derrike at the track on NASCAR This Morning and actually having the chance to talk about his car, team, and opportunity.

Derrike started the race in 30th position and finished the caution filled race in 24th position, 4 laps down.

We spoke with Derrike after the race. Derrike, in his usual upbeat manner, shared the following information. "We are all pleased with our showing yesterday in the Protection One 400. Considering that this was the first Winston Cup race for the CLR team, we are proud of what we accomplished. Our goals were first to qualify and secondly to complete the race. We accomplished these and the team is proud of what we achieved." 

Derrike commented on his twenty-fourth place finish, "We had a spark plug wire come off early in the race and as a result lost two laps pitting to rectify it in addition to the lap that we lost prior to pitting because we were running on seven cylinders. We finished four laps down, three of which were the result of the plug wire. We got a lot of information and experience that will be invaluable to our team as we prepare for Charlotte this weekend."

An excellent report on the race is on the Team CLR website.