Dura Lube/Kmart 300 Live Report by Mark McGill

Derrike was entered to drive the #91Little Joe's Chevrolet. I was glad to see him after I was at Richmond the week before where the team did not enter the race. Four days of racing fun at the New Hampshire Speedway was cut to two by Hurricane Floyd. Thursday should have been practice and qualifying for the Busch North and Modifieds with Winston Cup practice and first round qualifying on Friday. None of which happened. It rained hard both days.

Saturday morning was clear and cool with all the rain having passed on out overnight. Very pleasant for the fans but hurried for all three event participants. Busch North, Modifieds, and Cup cars all had to practice before the Cup cars ran their one lap qualifying runs. All this before the Busch and Modified pre race activities started. The Busch and Modified racing started at 1:15 PM.

During the Cup practice session I had my scanner tuned to Derrike's frequency. They seemed to be having trouble getting up to speed and there was talk of trying different gear sets. At the close of practice the last I heard was they were going to use a 71 gear set and scuff tires for their qualifying run.

Derrike had the misfortune of being first to make his one qualifying lap. A cold track and tires were not kind to him or the first few qualifiers. I had a lot of fun with my new stop watch during all events and my unofficial time for his qualifying run was at 30.21 seconds. The pole was won by Rusty Wallace at 29.339 and the last one to qualify on speed was Kenny Irwin at 30.082. Seven Provisionals were awarded. The team did not make the race. Time to gear up for Dover !

Sunday was a spectacular day. Sunny and warm all day long with low humidity. Perfect to be outdoors to watch a race. And what a race it was! Some mistakes by seasoned drivers and a lot of great racing from the younger drivers. Congratulations to the Bell South team and driver Joe Nemechek for his first Winston Cup Win !