Golden Corral 500

March 19, 2006
Hampton, GA

Derrike will be driving the #74 car. He said, "I believe it was a late entry by mistake, so we will get no points. I just spoke to the team and they are about an hour and a half from Atlanta. So we will go see if we can have a productive weekend. I am very excited about the prospects at Atlanta. I really enjoy racing there. We will have to lay down a good qualifying lap on Friday to secure a spot for the race. I am confident that we will be able to do that. I will update you from the track."

In the first practice, Derrike was 50th fastest with a time of 30.911 and speed of 179.354.

In Qualifying, Derrike had a speed of 29.898 with a speed of 185.430. This put the car in 47th position which was not fast enough to make the race.

After the weekend, Derrike said, "I was hoping that our Atlanta effort would produce our first start of the year, but we were just shy of making the event. We ran a 29.89 and it took a 29.59. We were 3 tenths of a second off qualifying. We made a lot of changes before qualifying and just did not have the car tight enough. We got very loose in both corners and there is just no margin for error. I could not attack the race track and that proved to be the difference. In my opinion we are gaining on it. We are not far off and with a little time and some more funding we should be able to get on track.

"We plan on going to Bristol with another car that we purchased from Penske. One of the newest cars that we possess. I am excited about Bristol. I typically get around that track well. It is a place that you can drive exceptionally hard and have that pay dividends.

"The team continues to stay upbeat. We all know how difficult this level of competition is. We just have to continue to fight the battle, keep learning, and make better decisions with the car and we will make something happen. Talk to you later in the week."