Miller 400

June 23, 1996
Brooklyn, MI

On June 20th, Derrike Cope was interviewed on RPM 2Night by John Kernan.

The team continued their great qualifying with their new chassis by placing second again for the second week in a row. This just shows that in order to be successful, you need to have a good car.

Unfortunately, things did not go as well during the race as hoped. Derrike Cope was staying in the top 5 at the beginning of the race until all cars went to their first green flag caution. Derrike commented at that point that the car seemed hot.

The car came out of the pits and ended up going to fourth place, until on lap 54 the car started overheating causing a caution. Derrike had to pull it to the pits and eventually it went behind the wall.

Derrike was interviewed during the race and said that a piston had gone bad. The team is still very optimistic about the future. They will be going to Indianapolis for the next three days to test.

Since Bobby Hamilton who was on the pole did not have the Busch decal on the car at the time of qualifying, it made him ineligible for the Busch Pole Program. Therefore, Derrike who qualified second, received the Busch Pole Award for being the highest qualifying car participating in the program. Thus the Bobby Allison Motorsport team received the award money as well as a position in the Busch Clash at Daytona in February of 1997. However, there is still discussion over whether or not the Richard Petty car will be eligible for the Busch Clash.