Pepsi 400 Live Report by Bob Cope

The Pepsi 400 race week started with Racefest in downtown Daytona on July 3rd with some legend drivers and live entertainment. One of my reasons for being there was to talk to either Derrike Cope or his public relations person about The Unofficial Derrike Cope Website. Jeff had prepared a letter introducing us and telling about some of the things we have already done, and what we would like to do to become the Official Website. Derrike was one of nine drivers scheduled to appear for an autograph session. He was one of the first scheduled at 5:00pm and the line waiting for him was quite long at 4:30. It was nice to see some people other than myself with Cope shirts and hats. When Derrike arrived he was very gracious to allow people to take pictures, and he signed anything they wanted. When I finally got to meet him, I told him about what we were doing on the internet and asked if he had someone with him that I could talk to. He pointed me in the direction of his PR person and I proceeded to talk to her about our plans. I gave her our letter to read later. She was very nice and said they would do what they could to help us out. Hopefully we will succeed in getting support from Derrike and his team, and this site will supplement the newsletters for all you Cope fans.

Thursday was the first round qualifying. It followed a practice session where Derrike didn't seem very happy with the car. When the rain ended the first round qualifying early, Derrike was in 7th out of 9 drivers to qualify. It looked dismal for Cope fans and it looked like he would have to be in the second round qualifying.

Thursday evening was the opening gala for the Daytona USA. Most of the drivers attended with their owners and sponsors and were introduced to the fans that were outside. Derrike and Renee were one of the first to be introduced and they looked great. Renee was wearing a beautiful white gown. I later noticed that Michael Waltrip's wife had the same gown but in purple. I'm sure that would have been embarrassing for both of them if they had the same color.

Friday was the remainder of first round qualifying, second round qualifying, and the second practice session. Fortunately, Derrike's time held and he ended up starting in the 17th position. That was good because this gave the team more time to prepare for the second practice. Derrike and Jimmy Fennig (crew chief) worked on the car to try eliminate a push that was bothering Derrike. Right before the practice session ended, they decided to make three different changes at once. This worried me of course.

Saturday was race day and the weather didn't want to cooperate. The race finally started a few hours late. Derrike quickly was moving backward and didn't really complain much about anything except for a slight push. On the first caution, they took four tires where some only took two. This moved him back a little also. Jimmy said if they had to pit on green next time, they would take two tires. During that stop they decided to make a slight adjustment to the car by taking a round of bite out of the right rear. They were considering unhooking a bar that they hooked up at the end of the practice round the day before, but decided not to. This was a good thing, because the car seemed to work well, and Derrike make some good choices on where to go and moved up to 8th.

Ted Musgrave's spotter told Derrike's spotter that he could help him catch Ken Schrader if he wanted, but he would have to run more on the outside because Musgrave couldn't run on the inside. Derrike obliged and they finally caught the #25 car. They were going for the pass when Derrike said the engine just went out on him. He initially thought it was a cylinder, but then it failed completely on the back stretch. Derrike kept positive and said they would get them next time. It would have been interesting to see where they would have ended up since he was consistently running faster laps than the leaders. Derrike then moved over into the #94 McDonald's car to replace Bill Elliott after they had problems and fell back. Then the rain came that ended the race early.

I really got a feeling of how much of a guessing game the set up of the car is. I listened to Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte, and Rusty Wallace most of the time when Derrike was out, and found that their team seemed to have less guessing going on and were more decisive about what they were going to do. Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seemed like two different levels between the teams. I'm sure that with time, Derrike and the team will reach the same level as the others.