Dura-Lube 500

October 27, 1996
Phoenix, AZ

Qualifying was canceled on Friday due to a dust storm that swept the track. Qualifying took place Saturday with two laps to determine the starting grid. Derrike Cope put in a speed of 129.023 which started him in 27th position.

Unfortunately the race in Phoenix did not turn out as expected for Derrike and his fans. This is where Derrike was during the race:

• 29th position - lap 21 of 312
• 30th - lap 52
• 33rd - lap 66
• Around lap 88 green flag pit stops occurred. Derrike came out of the pits in 22nd position.

On lap 114 with Derrike running in 25th and getting ready to go down a lap to leader Mark Martin, Martin got into the side of Derrike causing the car to spin into the wall. The two were entering a turn with Derrike on the outside when the incident happened. This is the second race in a row where the car ended up into the wall. Later during the race, Mark Martin sent word to the Bobby Allison team that he was sorry that he and Derrike had made contact.

Derrike finished the race in 43rd.

About the accident, Derrike said, "It was just one of those things. Mark was sorry about it; he just made a mistake. He got in the corner a little too hard on the bottom and got loose and got up into me. He wrecked us pretty bad, tore up the last car of that design. So we'll have to go back to one of the old cars for Atlanta."

Derrike continued, "We weren't as good as we hoped to be. Just missed the setup a little bit. We were hoping that we could get a real caution where we could really spend some time and make an adjustment or two. We were just a little bit too tight."

Derrike was asked about the first pit stop where he came out ahead at least 11 positions. "We took on two tires. We knew we could run two tires and run probably faster with the two tires because we were so tight. We put two tires on to try and free the car up."

The team was optimistic about the Phoenix race, but the car they wrecked in Rockingham would have been the best car to bring to Phoenix. In referring to the car they did bring to Phoenix, Derrike said, "We did some changes to the body and it helped it but we got too tight. We just made a couple of the wrong adjustments on the car. We're just doing the best we can do with what's there. We have one more race and Atlanta's a good place for me too, so hopefully we can go there and have a good effort."

Bruce Bates was live at Phoenix. Check out his report.