This weekend’s race in Fontana was the second stop for the Sprint Cup Series and the second race in a row where weather played a factor in the race.
David and the UPS team were really excited about racing here in Fontana, because it’s a track that is notorious for being good to Ford drivers, especially Roush Fenway Racing Ford drivers.
The team started strong after posting a 13th-place qualifying effort and spent most of the first half of the race inside of the top 10. David continued to stick right around seventh and eighth place before taking a corner a little too wide and brushing up into the outside wall. The bump to the wall caused incidental right-side damage to the No. 6 Ford, but the UPS team went to work in the pits and put on four fresh tires, filled the car up with fuel and got David back out on the race track.
“I thought we had a top 10 car all night,” said Ragan. “I got into the wall and we just had some bad circumstances. We got a lap down and just couldn’t ever rebound. At times we had a top seven or eight car, but when you get that far behind and you don’t have many cautions to catch back up, it just made for a tough night.”
After returning to the track, David consistently battled to be the first driver one lap down and be eligible for the Lucky Dog award. But, once the caution flag waved for the final time, David unfortunately did not earn the Lucky Dog pass.
“Our UPS Ford team did a good job in the pits and if we just would have had a caution or something fall a littler earlier, we could have gotten the Lucky Dog and I think we still could have finished 10th or 12th, but it was still a decent effort.”
A total of five cautions came out during the race with four of them because of rain. Of the 43 laps of caution, 36 were from the four cautions due to rain.
David’s 17th-place finish puts the UPS team in eighth in the point standings as they head to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for next week’s race. David sits just 123 points behind the leader.
