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Mountain Dew Southern 500August 31, 1997
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| Finishing in the top-20 in 10 of his
17 starts at Darlington, Derrike Cope has finished better during the Southern 500 classic
on the egg-shaped track - fifth in 1993 and fourth in 1991. At the track "too tough
to tame," Derrike has three top-10 finishes and two top-10 qualifying efforts. That's
given the team extra incentive for this weekend's Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington
Raceway. "The new configuration may take a little while getting use to," said Derrike. "With the start/finish line being swapped, there will be some extra excitement on restarts with turns one and two now being single grooved." "Last time at Darlington we finished 20th," commented Derrike. "The SKITTLES® team has grown so much since then and has gained a lot of experience in the past several months. We have the potential to run in the top-10 every week. "I felt bad for the team that something like that happened at Bristol," said Derrike. "The SKITTLES® team had worked so well together -- qualifying great and having superb pit stops. That would have been one of the best finishes yet." In first round qualifying, Derrike took the track as the 19th car out of 46 cars and placed at the 10th spot with a time of 29.228 and speed of 168.250. At the end of the round, he was left in 24th position where he will start the race. This is where Derrike was during the race among the 43 cars:
Derrike ended the race in 14th position, two laps down. Derrike remained 29th in the point standings, one point out of 28th.
Patti Serge was at the race and provided a live report. |
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