Pennsylvania 500 Live Report by Bob Pristash

On Friday I went up to Pocono Raceway to see practice and first round qualifying for the Winston Cup cars. I left home at about 7:00am and arrived at the track by 8:00. I watched a few minutes of ARCA practice and then walked down to the souvenir trailers located near the entrance of the track. I spent a lot of my money at the SKITTLES® trailer. They have some really neat stuff.

At 11:30 the Winston Cup cars went out on the track for their first practice session. Although Derrike was not among the fastest, I was still optimistic about his chances in first round qualifying.

At about 2:00 I headed to Autograph Alley to see which drivers I could meet. It is located in the infield and has grandstands where you can see the cars being pushed out and sometimes drivers stop by to sign some autographs. Mark Martin, Ted Musgrave, Kyle Petty, Jerry Nadeau, Morgan Shepherd, and John Andretti were among the drivers who stopped. When the SKITTLES® car was being pushed out, the crew members threw some bags of SKITTLES® candy into the crowd.

About 10 minutes before qualifying was to start, a small shower passed through the area and delayed the start of qualifying for about 50 minutes. When qualifying finally started, it was Joe Nemechek on the pole with a speed of 168.881 mph. Derrike was 31st with a speed of 165.718 mph. Just after qualifying had ended and the crowd was pouring out of the track, a big storm came through with heavy rain, huge lightning bolts, and a few small tornadoes in the area.

I was unable to get to the track on Saturday since I had to work at my uncle's NASCAR collectible shop in Walnutport, PA, but I did find out that Derrike had improved to a speed of 166.827 mph putting him 29th on the grid.

Sunday was a perfect day for a race. It was sunny and cool. I arrived at the track at about 8:00, and traffic was still horrible. I first went back to the souvenir trailers and bought even more stuff. I then went to my seat and waited for the start of the race.

When the race started, Derrike started 29th, but fell back a couple of spots in the first few laps. The first round of pit stops came around lap 30. Derrike came in on lap 32. He gained a few spots, but lost them before the next pit stop around lap 80. He came out in 28th spot, but before the next round of pit stops, Derrike moved up well into the top 20. On lap 128, Derrike was behind an incident in turn 2. He had to drive sideways through the grass and fortunately got little or no damage in the incident. For the next 50 laps Derrike ran around the top 20 and before the last pit stop, Derrike briefly led before he pitted, and after the stop, he was running in the top 10, but over the last 15 laps he was passed by some cars and finally finished 16th.

It was an uneventful week for the SKITTLES® team, but it is now on to the Brickyard, and hopefully a great run for the #36 SKITTLES® team.