Goody's 500

August 24, 1996
Bristol, TN

The team debuted a new race car for the Bristol race. First round qualifying did not go as well as planned with Derrike Cope falling out of the top 25. The team ended up having to take a provisional in order to get in the race at 37th position.

Even though Derrike started in 37th, it only took 10 laps before he was up to 29th. At the 20 lap mark, Jimmy Spencer spun which caused the cars behind him to slow down. Johnny Benson ended up stopping sideways on the track and unfortunately Derrike was right behind him, so he ended up stopping too. Fortunately he was able to stop the car before crashing into Benson, but still ended up losing a lap because of it.

On the restart, Derrike was able to get ahead of Jeff Gordon and was hoping for a caution to get his lap back. It never happened, but Derrike went about 20 laps before Gordon was able to get around him.

This is where Derrike was during the rest of the race:

• 36th position - lap 30
• 32nd - lap 65
• 28th - lap 80
• around lap 137, the rear end went out on the car causing Derrike to bring the car behind the wall. The team was able to fix it and get the car back on the track.
• 37th - lap 195 (38 laps down)
• 32nd - lap 294
• 30th - lap 380

Derrike finished the race in 29th position.