DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Thursday nightap Can-Am Duel qualifying race at Daytona International Speedway initially appeared to be more good news than bad news for our No. 78 Furniture Racing Team.
We finished seventh and more importantly came away with an undamaged car. The last thing we wanted to have happen was to crash our primary car and go to a backup for the Daytona 500. But our car, along with several others, did not pass post-race inspection, meaning that we will start the 500 at the rear of the field. Itap not as devastating as it appears since your starting position at a superspeedway is not as critical as other tracks.
Since Thursday’s practice was rained out we basically went into the race not knowing how our No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota was going to handle in the draft. Because of the issues we had last week we went into the race with only making three completed laps, and all of those laps in our primary car were in qualifying trim. We did one mock qualifying lap last Saturday and ran two laps during Pole Day qualifying on Sunday.
I made a few bad decisions in the qualifying race and got shuffled out of the draft and had to work my way back up. At the end I thought we made some good moves and made up some spots. I’m happy with how we did. Definitely have some tweaking to do on the car but I feel like it had good speed and we now have a baseline to work from. We just have to tweak it here and there. Overall I am happy with the Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota and the job the guys did.
Without a doubt the 60-lap, 150-mile race was more aggressive than I expected. I thought it was just as aggressive as the Clash on Sunday. Thatap really saying something when you’re talking about a nonpoints race and everybody going for the win compared to a qualifying race, so Sunday is going to be a wild one for sure when the sun is out. Guys had their hands full tonight. I can’t imagine what Sunday is going to be like. It should be a lot of fun.
Under NASCAR rules, we’re allowed to put in a new engine and I am looking forward to having a new Toyota power plant under the hood. We’ll keeping tweaking our Bass Pro Shops car in practice until we feel that we’ll have the handling and speed necessary to contend for the Daytona 500.
The wild Daytona Speedweeks continues and it should be an interesting next three days.
