UAW-GM Quality 500

October 5, 1997
Concord, NC

Early this year, Derrike took the SKITTLES® Pontiac to a 12th place finish during the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. However, that's not Derrike's best finish on the 1.5-mile track. Early in his career, Derrike posted a sixth-place finish during the 1989 All Pro Auto Parts 500 and has since posted three more top-10 finishes.

"During the last race at Charlotte, I felt the SKITTLES® Pontiac was a good contendor for a top-10 finish," said Derrike Cope. "We were just one-third into the season last time at Charlotte and already the SKITTLES® team had shown tremendous improvement. There is no reason why we cannot go out this weekend and post another strong finish."

"I've learned that this track (Charlotte) requires a considerable amount of patience," continued Derrike. "With these long races, if you're patient, stay out of trouble and run hard, you're almost guaranteed a good finish."

Barry Helms and Tom Dowd recently have joined the #36 SKITTLES® Race Team. Helms moves from Kranefuss-Hass Racing and now serves as a fabricator at the race shop. Dowd, former CEO of Tom Dowd Motorsports, joins the team as an electrical engineer.

In first round qualifying, Derrike took the track and ended up with a time of 29.721 and speed of 181.690. At one point he was in sixth position. At the end of the round, Derrike fell slightly to 13th position where he will start the race.

This is where Derrike was during the race among the 43 cars:

• 11th position - lap 25 of 334
• 10th - lap 48
• 16th - lap 83 (1 lap down)
• 15th - lap 118 (after caution, still 1 lap down on the restart)
• 23rd - lap 173
• 31st - lap 309

The team finished the race in 33rd position and completed 291 laps of the 334.

James Hickey was at the race and provided a live report. James' Live Report