Hanes 500

September 22, 1996
Martinsville, VA

Derrike Cope was fifth out on the track to qualify and at the end of the first day day ended up in 29th position. The team decided to requalify on Saturday to make the 36 car field. Unfortunately, the time was not fast enough, and Derrike and the team missed the race.

Commenting on qualifying, Derrike said, "We don't really know what happened. We just never really found the handle on things. The car was just real inconsistent When we first got there we had problems getting through tech inspection. The camber was off on the rear end. We had way too much camber so we had to take the torch and start trying to straighten the rear end and take camber out of the car. Obviously you lose grip when you do that. We had new brakes on the car that we had not tried before and we encountered some problems with that. So first round qualifying just didn't go over the way we really had hoped.

"Second round we worked on the car that morning and changed the brakes back to what we would typically run. We had one fast lap but the car was inconsistent. We had to go out and requalify on stickers or label tires without being able to scuff them. The car just skated; it just didn't grip. We were a good .09 or so off of making the show so it was rather disappointing to say the least."

Provisionals are given based on car owner points so since there were others that didn't qualify well like Sterling Marlin and Jimmy Spencer, they were able to take provisionals which left Derrike and team without one.