UAW-GM Quality 500

October 6, 1996
Concord, NC

"We're taking a brand new car", said Derrike Cope. "It's the third one. We wrecked that one at Dover bad and trashed it. We started building another car right after the second one was done. They finished the chassis not too long ago and the guys worked day and night, got the car in the body shop, got it out of the body shop, and got it together. They worked a lot of all-nighters just to get that car ready for Charlotte. Hopefully we'll have a good effort at Charlotte and have the other car for Rockingham, the car we ran this past weekend, and then take the new car to Phoenix and Atlanta."

Derrike took the track and came out 17th fastest of 23 cars. When it was all done though, he was sitting in 35th position and the team needed to requalify in order to make the show on Sunday. On the second day of qualifying, the team decided to stand on their time. Only one driver that requalified was able to get a better time so Derrike started the race in 36th position.

This is where Derrike was during the race:

• 20th position - lap 7
• 24th - lap 25
• 29th - lap 29
• 23rd - lap 78
• 20th - lap 106
• On lap 114, Derrike got lapped
• Around lap 140, there were green flag pit stops. It was reported that Derrike's pit stop was 21 seconds.
• 19th - lap 153
• 16th - lap 230
• A caution occurred and yellow flag pit stops took place. On the restart at lap 241, Derrike was 18th.
• 17th - lap 267
• 18th - lap 314

Derrike finished the race in 18th.

About the race, Derrike said, "We were loose in the corners. And then we tried to tighten it up and then we'd get it too tight. So it was just a combination of the balance being off. We battled the car all day. At some points we ran pretty good but we couldn't keep a consistency in the car."

James Hickey and Rusty Ellis were live at Charlotte. Check out their report.