Tough Day in Fontana; Ragan Finishes 22nd

Tough Day in Fontana; Ragan Finishes 22nd: "

The No. 6 UPS Ford at Auto Club Speedway

David Ragan started Sunday’s race from the sixth position, but the UPS Ford started out pretty tight around the two-mile track. David was only able to run the high lane early in the race because of the handling of his car. On his first trip down pit road, Crew Chief Drew Blickensderfer and the UPS crew made an air pressure adjustment and put on four fresh tires. David was running inside of the top 15 when he made his first pit stop of the race.

After those first changes, David started to move around the track to try and find a lane with speed, but the car was still snug. During the next few pit stops, the UPS team made track bar adjustments and took out a shim in the right front to try and get the car to handle better. David was back out on track running around the top 20 after those changes were made.

As the race progressed and passed the halfway point, the UPS Ford got a bit too loose and David needed more rear grip in the car. The team made additional changes with adding a rubber to the left side of the car, and David was back out on track still racing around 20th position.

With just over 30 laps remaining in the race, the UPS team continued with air and wedge adjustments to get the car to free up for David. David had said over the radio that for the final 25 laps it would be better for him to have a loose race car than to try and wheel a tight car around at the end of the race. The changes didn’t seem to get the car where it needed to be to move up through the field, and the UPS team finished 22nd in Fontana.

“We just made adjustment after adjustment and never could make it right,” said David after the race. “There at the long part of the race when we had some clean traffic, we were trying to tighten the car up because it was too free. Then when we got into traffic during those last few restarts with all the dirty air, our UPS Ford just got too tight. You know, me and Drew and our team engineer have just got to sit down and take a look at the adjustments we made and see where we can make it better. I think we had an opportunity to finish better than we did.”

David and the UPS team head to Martinsville Speedway next weekend sitting 22^nd in the points. Be sure to catch the race on Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern Time on Fox.

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