Interstate Batteries 500 Live Report by Jeff and Bob Cope

Jeff drove up to Dallas/Ft. Worth from Houston on Friday. On the way to visit the show car and driver Kevin Meador, he stopped at the Vista Ridge Mall and visited the NASCAR Thunder store. As expected, it was full of people, but he was able to look around the store. Unfortunately, there were only a few Derrike Cope and SKITTLES® Racing items. Next stop was the show car. Because of rain all day, the show car had to stay in the trailer most of the day. Occasionally the rain would stop and the car could be pulled out for pictures. Listening to the radio showed that qualifying was still delayed because of the rain and it was uncertain what time, if at all, it could occur.

Jeff then headed to the airport to pick up Bob who was flying in. We headed to the track hoping to at least get our pit passes for the weekend. As we got got there, a number of cars were coming away from the track which didn't give us a good feeling. It turned out the credentials building was already closed and they had just closed the track for the day because of the weather. In the horizon a huge black cloud was heading towards the track. So as a result, qualifying was cancelled and they hoped to get qualifying in on Saturday morning.

Since the track had a lot of rain Thursday and Friday, the dirt parking lots were full of mud. Thus, they decided to do satellite parking with shuttling in of people. There would be a limited amount of parking at the track and when that filled up everybody had to go to the satellite parking. So we ended up getting to the track at 6:30am just so we would be assured of a parking space. It seemed we weren't the only ones that thought the same thing because there was already a large number of people at the track.

After a long walk, we made it to the credentials building to get our passes. There we met Mark Clark, fellow SKITTLES® Racing fan since his brother is the jackman for the team. We then headed to the SKITTLES® souvenir trailer so we could get that out of the way. There are a lot of items there and a lot more expected in soon.

We dropped the items off at the car and then headed to the pits and garage, where we found the SKITTLES® team along with Derrike. He was the one that informed us that qualifying was cancelled and how the lineup would be determined. He was disappointed as the speedway is a single groove track and coming from the back of the field would make things more difficult. At the transporter we also met Derrike's wife Renee and employees of M&M/Mars. It was fun walking around the garage area and seeing all the drivers.

During the morning practice, the engine had problems and the team had to replace it. The team worked very hard and was able to replace the engine with time for Derrike to get back out on the track.

Since all the equipment we brought was getting heavy, we decided to bring them back to the car and rest a little. The Busch Grand National race started and we found a grandstand seat to root Mark Martin to victory.

Happy Hour practice started and the team made a number of changes during the practice to get the right setup for the car. We then fought the normal race traffic in heading out of the track.

Since there were supposed to be 200,000 people at the race on Sunday, we decided to get to the track earlier yet. With the clock change forward and us arriving at the track at 4:30am, we were certainly tired, but we did indeed get a perfect parking spot along with the many others that were there ahead of us. Fortunately, we were able to catch some more sleep in the car.

The morning was spent listening to country music stars performing and walking around the pits and garage. A lot of the drivers were not around early because they were doing appearances in their respective hospitality tents. When driver introductions were ready to start, we were right by the stage with our camcorders. We were able to see closely Bruton Smith, who owns the track along with many others, in addition to Ross Perot and Dallas Cowboys Tom Landry, Troy Aikman, and Daryl Johnston (Moose). We took some great footage of the drivers appearing on the stage for introductions.

On lap 18 of the race, Derrike was involved in a 3 car incident and he had to bring the car to the garage. On the way to the garage, Derrike was saying that the clutch pedal was stuck but eventually he was able to free it. The team got the car back on the track after rebuilding the rear deck, but Derrike said that he just couldn't keep the car going straight. They brought the car back to the garage, but on lap 115, they called it quits.

Since our team was done early, we decided to call it quits too and beat the mad rush of traffic that was sure to happen.