Pocono 500

June 11, 2006
Long Pond, PA

Derrike said this about Pocono. "I love to race there, so hopefully we can continue the qualifying streak and make the race. This is the team's backyard so we really want a great effort there."

In the first practice, Derrike was 41st fastest with a time of 55.631 and speed of 161.780.

In Qualifying, Derrike produced a fastest lap of 55.217 with speed of 162.993. Unfortunately this was not fast enough to make the race so the #74 Sundance Vacations Dodge will miss the show.

Derrike told us, "I am sorry to report that we missed qualifying for the race yesterday. I have to say that I am really not very happy with myself. I did not make the right decisions when it came to the changes that were needed to get the necessary speed out of the car. The car was capable. I also made a slight mistake on my qualifying lap in the tunnel turn. I misjudged the entry to the corner and hit the rumble strip with the left rear tire, thus I had to battle the car on the exit of the corner and grazed the outside retaining wall scrubbing some speed off the car. We missed the race by approximately 2 and a half tenths of a second. So I cost the team the chance to be in the race. I am sorry for Ray and the team and our sponsors, Sundance Vacations and all the supporters we had there. Of all the races I really wanted to make was this one, which is right in their back yard. But, I made an error that cost us. Hopefully we will do better next week in Michigan and the next time we return to Pocono."