Sears DieHard 500

October 12, 1997
Talladega, AL

In the SKITTLES® team's first visit to Talladega, they not only posted their season-best qualifying effort at the time when Derrike started 12th during the Winston 500, but they enjoyed one of their best finishes of the season. During the May race at Talladega, Derrike moved the SKITTLES® Pontiac into fifth position before finding himself left out of the lead draft and finishing a respectable 13th.

The SKITTLES® team will use the confidence gained after qualifying 13th this past weekend in Charlotte to catapult themselves into another great starting position. The new team has found themselves qualifying on the first day in 14 attempts this season, the second best occuring on the 2.66-mile superspeedway at Talladega.

"I'm confident we'll be able to put ourselves in a position to get to the front and that is what I plan to do this weekend," said Derrike. "Drafting proved to play a major role in our finish in May. Restrictor-plate racing makes the racing more competitive and stresses the importance of drafting. This time we'll make sure to find the right drafting partner and work our way up to the very front."

In first round qualifying, Derrike and the SKITTLES® Pontiac produced a time of 49.691 and speed of 192.711. This was good enough for the best starting position of the season in 5th. After qualifying, Derrike said, "I got hot. We just missed it a bit. We put a little more tape on it and it just got hot. It got up to 240 in turn three and I knew our day was done at that point. This Pontiac has been a good car for us all year long. It's run up front, and hopefully we'll have a shot to win this thing."

This is where Derrike was during the race among the 42 cars:

• 5th position - lap 1 of 188
• 6th - lap 20
• 19th - lap 43
• On lap 53, Derrike was riding on the outside of a three wide group with John Andretti in the middle. Andretti ended up pushing Derrike into the wall causing damage on the right side. The team made numerous pit stops during the caution to fix damage including lining up the toe-in.
• 31st - lap 59 after the caution (still on the lead lap)
• 24th - lap 105 (after a caution)
• 19th - lap 120
• 10th - lap 135
• 20th - lap 148 (Major wreck on lap 140 with 20 cars involved including the top contenders. From the many camera angles, it appeared Derrike got through the incident without any damage, but something pushed him further back in the field when he should have been nearer the front.)
• 13th - lap 165

Derrike finished the race in 18th position, last car on the lead lap. He maintained 28th in the point standings. Editors note: When Derrike was running back in the late 20's after the wall incident, he was leading a pack of four cars with Dale Earnhardt right behind him. The announcers made a comment about Earnhardt that finding his way back to the front depended on the cars he was driving with, and they corrected themselves in that they weren't saying Derrike wasn't fast. This was only fitting especially since a short time later Derrike was running in 10th.

Bruce Bates, Pam Wood, and Val Bernard were at the race and provided live reports. Bruce Bates' live report, Pam Wood's live report, Val Bernard's live report .