Mountain Dew Southern 500 Live Report by Patti Serge

My husband and I arrived in Darlington Thursday norning to an already hot morning. Just a sample of the heat to come (on and off the track). We didn't do much on Thurs., just set up campsite and then went walking and checking out all the new changes. I must admit, it's a pretty awesome site.

During qualifying on Friday, Derrike seemed to have a pretty good car. He didn't appear to be running as high on the track as most of the other drivers. It looked like he might have been trying to correct a handling problem. His run was good enough for a top 25 and a pit on the front stretch, which as it turned out, was right in front of our seats. What luck!!

During practice on Saturday he wasn't running consistent lap times, and since I didn't have my scanner with me I had no way of Knowing what might be the problem. Later when clouds moved in for a few minutes, his times picked up almost one half second. I kept my fingers crossed for a cloudy day on Sunday.

Sunday morning dawned muggy and foggy, already shaping up to be a hot day in Darlington!! We got every thing together for race day, and headed over to the track. As always, my scanner had Derrike programmed on priority channel. I'm ready to go racin'. The SKITTLES® team was looking sharp on pit road. I must admit I will miss those rainbow colors. When Derrike was introduced to the crowd, unfortunately, there was not much crowd response. There were a few of us who clapped and yelled.

When Derrike took the green flag is when I discovered that I did not have the correct frequency for Derrike's team. What a bummer. He had a good run going at the early stages of the race. Unfortunately he developed problems, but not your every race day problems. His seat was burning him. The heat shield did not function properly and the seat belts were keeping him from sitting up off the heat. He made several pit stops in a row while his crew worked hard at trying to cool him off. After several attempts they finally made progress. After all this he went back out on the track and was having a decent run when he had his little mishap because of the car in front of him checking up.

I can assure all of you that his 14th place finish was not a true showing of how well he was running. All in all it was a wonderful weekend of racing in Darlington. With Jeff Gordon winning the million and the last lap rubbing between the two Jeff's made for a wild weekend.

I look forward to going to Charlotte and Rockingham where maybe Derrike will have some good news to announce for next year.

PS....If any one out there goes to a race track where the Winston No Bull tents have a stage set up for a band, check it out. It could be Blue Miller and the Kick In The Asphalt Band and they are fantastic. Well worth the time. Excellent racing tunes.