Promising Weekend For Ragan Gone With The Wind At Texas

FORT WORTH, TX – Unadilla’s David Ragan felt confident returning to Texas Motor Speedway where he sat on the pole for last season’s Cup series event.

After a strong sixth-place finish in the Nationwide race driving for the No. 27 Go Canada Motorsports Fish team, Ragan liked his chances for a good run in his Cup car.

Ragan and the No. 34 team brought a fast Scorpion Truck Bed Liners Ford to Texas, qualifying for 21st position on Saturday night’s starting grid. But like the rest of the drivers, he soon found out his biggest competition was going to be the fierce winds that had been sweeping through the area all day.

The strong gusts, along with the changing track conditions as the night wore on, made the handling of the No. 34 Fusion a bit unpredictable. About 80 laps into the 334-lap event, Ragan told crew chief Jay Guy the car seemed to “do something different on every lap.”

The wind proved to provide the biggest issues on the evening, with the race only being interrupted by two caution periods for debris.  At Lap 200, with Ragan in 29th position, the windy conditions took a toll on the team.  The driver reported his window net had broken loose after flapping in the strong gusts all night, bending and finally breaking the clasp that attached it to the car.  He was forced to go to the garage for a quick welding repair and returned to the track 18 laps down in 35th.

The Scorpion Truck Bed Liners team maintained that position on the leaderboard for the rest of the night, finishing 35th and earning a bonus point for leading a lap under caution.