Bank of America 500

October 14, 2006
Concord, NC

Derrike said, "It is now Charlotte week again. I cannot believe how fast the season is going by. When you get to Charlotte you know there is not much time left in the season. We will be taking the Dodge Charger that we ran so well with at Michigan to Charlotte with Sundance Vacations on the hood. We will qualify on Thursday. I know that we will have to find some speed to make this race. There will be a lot of cars and some of the new teams like Red Bull and others will be running races from here on out to the end of the year. We will definitely have to elevate our game once again to answer the call. I am looking forward to the challenge. I do not think anyone knows what to expect from us at any time, because we are certainly capable to be on pace to make these races."

In the first practice, Derrike was 42nd fastest with a time of 29.750 and speed of 181.513.

In Qualifying, Derrike had his fastest lap of 29.301 with speed of 184.294. At the end of the round, this put the #74 Dodge in 46th position so the team did not make the show.

Afterward, Derrike said, "It was a very competitive night at Lowes Motor Speedway. This time around we came up just a little bit short. We were fairly decent off the truck and were making some adjustments. We went there with the coil bind setup which we do not have a lot of experience with but felt like we needed to in order to have a chance to make the field with all the added teams coming and their caliber of equipment. We were just a bit tight throughout the day. And I guess looking back at it I should have made a few other adjustments and did not. We had a good draw for qualifying going out 43rd and the race track had quite a bit of grip, more than I had anticipated on. On our qualifying laps the car felt good through three and four coming to the green, but when I went into one and two and back to three and four the car was tight and did not want to turn and seemed to drag some speed out of the car. I had to put too much wheel input into the car and that was the difference.

"The crew did a good job and I know that they are disappointed as I am, but we will just have to forge ahead to Martinsville and try and get in there."