Subway 500

October 23, 2005
Martinsville, VA

Derrike will be driving this weekend at Martinsville. He told us, "I am excited about this weekend...I will be driving for McGlynn Motorsports as a teammate with Carl Long. I am not sure of the number, but possibly 08. I spoke with both Ray and Ryan McGlynn today and had great conversations with the both of them, and we are all optimistic and excited to get things underway. I will look to get fitted in the car on Thursday and head off to Martinsville. I will keep you updated as things progress throughout the week. Wish us luck!"

It did turn out to be the #08 Chevy. In the first practice, Derrike was 44th fastest with a time of 19.929 and speed of 95.017.

In qualifying, Derrike produced his fastest lap of 19.799 with a speed of 95.641. At the end of the round this was fast enough to put the Dodge into the show starting in 38th position. Unfortunately Carl Long was not fast enough to make the race.

After qualifying, Derrike updated us, "I wanted to give you an update from Martinsville. We had a pretty good day. The guys all worked really hard. We all made some good choices on the car, thus a productive day! The car drove really well and on the second lap I overdrove the car a bit and got it sideways. I knew the fist lap was pretty decent compared to my simulated qualifying lap so I thought I might be okay. But 38 on the starting grid is good. So it is off to practice tomorrow. I will provide another update tomorrow evening."

It was mentioned that GoldenPalace will be the sponsor for Derrike's car. NASCAR disapproved of the sponsor. Derrike will let us know who the sponsor is for sure when it gets decided and approved by NASCAR. Later, Derrike mentioned that the sponsors are Royal Administration, CJA Custom Remodling, Infinity Businss Group, EPH Custom Machinery, and Kelleekars.com.

In the second practice, Derrike was 42nd fastest with a time of 20.171 and speed of 93.877. In Happy Hour, Derrike was 43rd fastest with a time of 20.247 and speed of 93.525.

Derrike commented on Saturday and said, "Practice went okay. We ran a 25 lap run early and it was a bit too tight, but not bad. We ran used tires the rest of the times so our speeds were not real high. We are making some changes for tomorrow and just hope we went the right way."

Derrike started the race in 38th position and finished in 33rd position.

After the race, Derrike commented, "Martinsville turned out to be a really good effort for the team. We had made significant changes to the car for the race from practice. We started out a little loose, but the car was turning good and we were able to maintain a pretty good pace. We ended up have a few early issues in which we lost laps including a left rear flat, too fast penalty for leaving pit road, etc. But, throughout the race we were a pretty competitive race car, between 2 and 4 tenths of a second off the leaders. Overall, a good, fun, and enjoyable weekend."