UAW-GM Quality 500 Live Report by Jeff Gutshall

My racing buddy Dave and I arrived in the Charlotte area and stopped in to visit a friend who remains an MB2 employee that we met when Derrike drove for MB2 last year. We had a good time, enjoyed some great Bar-B-Q, but we had to endure many comments about Irvan not wrecking as much as Derrike.

While we were concerned about the weather forecast for Sunday's race, we enjoyed great weather for the Busch race on Saturday. Fuel strategy provided the win in a relatively incident-free race.

Saturday night we watched a 200 lap All-Pro race at the 1/2 mile asphalt Concord Motorsports Park. We were pleasantly surprised to see Ed Ferree and son Alex, from our local Pittsburgh area dirt tracks, competing in the subsequent late model event.

Sunday did not present promising skies, with showers being frequent. We arrived early, and waited out the weather, which cleared in plenty of time for the race. (Humpy's famous pre-race show did not get a chance to run).

We were seated in the new tower seats in turn 2. The seats were high enough to provide a good view of the entire track. While we had a terrific perspective on turns 1, most of 2, the back stretch, and turn 3, we did not get a view of the pits. However, when the field moved onto the track, the #30 looked great at the pole position.

PRN reported that the #30 was apparently set-up for the long run as they had a couple of runs in practice that had the fastest time when there were over 40 laps on the car.

Derrike ran well initially, keeping a smooth low line through the turns. The 1st of 11 cautions came early, and the #30 started again in the lead. Derrike then reported that he was tight and had to drop back to conserve the right front tire. Dave had the scanner and said that Derrike sounded real calm on the radio; the communications between the spotter and Derrike were frequent and supportive.

The #30 car ran in 4th, consistently outpacing the 5th place car, until another yellow flag occurred during green flag pit stops. While the #30 was apparently headed down pit road when the flag flew, a straight trip through the pits did not hurt the team as much as those already getting serviced. Many good cars ended up a lap down, but the #30 remained on the lead lap.

A mid-race vibration in the right front that worsened when Derrike touched the brake was remedied with a 4-tire change.

A sewage pump malfunction and subsequent red flag provided an opportunity for colorful interviews concerning the "water" on the track with various drivers.

The #30 team fought changing track conditions all day, staying on the lead lap. Derrike, with the team's help showed good driving judgement avoiding some mishaps that occurred directly in front of the Gumout Pontiac. Maybe the luck is changing. After all, the MB2 team was one of those that were dragged back to the infield on this day. I found that quite satisfying.