UPS RACING

David Ragan battled a loose Ford Fusion for the entire 400 miles the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series ran at Dover International Speedway on Sunday.

After taking the green flag from the 26^th position, David and the UPS team struggled getting the car to work through the corners and to get it to grip better on the track. The team made multiple adjustments throughout the race to try and help find some grip, but never was able to fine-tune the car enough to be able to move up through the 43-car field.

“We didn’t start off great and we made some adjustments throughout the race that helped and some that took us the wrong way,” said David. “At times, our UPS Ford was where it could be a top-15 car. It wasn’t ever perfect; I think the only car that was perfect was the No. 48. We just have to get better to where we can make changes better so we can stay more consistent throughout a long run. We just didn’t make good adjustments. At times, we were good, but at other times we weren’t. And now we’ve just got to build off of the times that we are good and try to move forward.”

This was David’s sixth Sprint Cup Series race at Dover and his best finish at the track came in 2007 when he finished 14^th.

Next week David and the UPS team head to Pocono Raceway for the 14^th race of the 2009 season with the running of the Pocono 500.

UPS Racing wants to know: How many of you have been to a race at Pocono Raceway?

David Ragan and the No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion team had just one practice at ‘The Monster Mile’ to get their car ready for afternoon Cup Series qualifying.

Following that one and only practice session, David was 23^rd on the scoring sheet. He was hoping for a better showing in qualifying because while the numbers didn’t show it, David said his UPS Fusion was fast right off the truck.

He was the 19^th driver to attempt qualifying for the Autism Speaks 400, but after the remainder of the field made their qualifying attempts, he fell to 26^th.

“I think we’ve got a good race car for the race, we just didn’t get the lap in qualifying that I thought we would get,” said Ragan. “I missed some marks by a little bit and a qualifying lap here at Dover goes by pretty quick, but when we unloaded I felt like our UPS Ford was as fast as it’s been in the recent weeks right off the truck, so we really haven’t had to adjust a lot on it.

“We just didn’t get a great qualifying lap, but I’m still pretty happy with our car for the race on Sunday. I’m looking forward to getting some practice on Saturday.”

This weekend David is running in both the Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series and will make his sixth Cup race at Dover on Sunday. In this event last year, he started 23^rd and finished 15^th.

UPS Racing wants to know: “What’s your favorite racing memory from Dover?”

Hey UPS Racing Fans,

Well, it was nice to be home in Charlotte for two weeks, but now it’s back to a normal schedule for us…well, kind of, as normal as our schedule ever gets. Rain at the track is never a fun thing and made for a long weekend in Charlotte for what’s already the longest race we run all year. Our UPS Ford was decent and I think we could have gotten a much better finish if the rain hadn’t come. There isn’t much we can do about that and we’ll just hope for a better run this weekend. We desperately need points and that will be the goal; getting solid finishes and points racing. 

I’ve been out at Pikes Peak in Colorado Monday and Tuesday this week testing and flew straight to Dover. I’m excited for Dover this weekend, we’re back to a normal race weekend and it’ll be a busy one since I’m running both the Nationwide and Cup races. Roush Fenway has always been strong at Dover in the past and I hope to be up front at the end and competing for a win. Hopefully this is the week things will turn around for us.

Let me know if any of you have special memories about the races in Dover.

-David

Jason Riggs in UPS pit

Jason Riggs is the Gas Man for David Ragan and the No. 6 UPS team. Jason took some time to talk with UPS Racing about his job with Roush Fenway Racing.

How did you get into the sport? A friend introduced me to a guy he knew that had a late model stock car that raced at Hickory Motor Speedway back in 1998. He asked me to help with the car even though I didn’t know a thing about what I was doing, and things just grew from there.

What’s your favorite part about being on a NASCAR team? Pit stops and being part of a crew dedicated to being the best on pit road every time we are asked to do our job.  

What’s the coolest thing that you’ve gotten to do since being a member of the No. 6 team? It’s a toss-up between David taking us on a hunting trip at the end of last season down in Georgia and meeting Miss USA Kristen Dalton at this year’s Charlotte race.

What’s your normal “run of show” during the week? My job during the week is doing occupational therapy in Boone, N.C. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I practice and workout at the race shop on Wednesday. I help my best friend, Chris Phipps, with his late model stock car on Friday nights.  Saturday is for washing clothes, cutting the grass and getting my stuff ready to race on Sunday.

What are your normal responsibilities once arriving to the track each weekend? Help set-up the pit box, clean/prep wheels, clean and organize what I need to fuel the car during pit stops. I also help to clean the garage and be available for anything else that may need to be done. I also help tear everything down and put it away after the race.

What are you responsible for during the actual race? Make sure the car is full of fuel, that adjustments are made, and occasionally pull tires if needed and make sure the fuel weights are correct so the engineer can accurately figure our fuel mileage.

Jason during a UPS pit stop

Anything significant about the upcoming weekend? Every weekend is significant. Every weekend we want to be the best on pit road, the best on the track and at the end of the day be in victory lane with a trophy on the hood of the UPS Ford.

If you weren’t working in racing, what do you think you would be doing? Occupational therapy during the week and on the weekends golfing and fishing.

Where did you grow up? Born and raised in the great state of West Virginia. I went to high school in Washington D.C. and college in North Carolina.

What’s your favorite thing to do on an off-weekend? Spend time with my boy, Joshua Peyton Riggs, golfing and fishing.

Something interesting about yourself? I can sing! The guys on the team ask what I did with the money for lessons, but I can sing!

Favorite movie: Gladiator or Tombstone

Favorite TV Show: Northern Exposure

Favorite cartoon as a kid: Tom and Jerry

Favorite  pizza toppings? Everything but anchovies

Favorite place to eat? Cattleman’s in Fort Worth Texas

Music: (band, song, genre, whatever they want to share) Dave Matthews Band, Country Roads by John Denver

This past weekend at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Evelyn Roberto, who works in the Revenue Recovery Department for West Carolina was part of the UPS Track Services team. Evelyn took some time out of her busy schedule on race day to talk with UPS Racing about what she does both at and away from the track.  

Evelyn Roberto at Trackside Services

I have worked for 10 years with UPS and have a long list of different jobs that I’ve held with the company. I’ve worked in security, preloading and unloading just to name a few. And now, I work in the Revenue Recovery Department.

What I do during the week is to work with revenue auditors. Whenever someone bills themselves for a package, they have to put how much the package weighs and how many packages they have. Our department makes sure that those bills are accurate.

This was my first time out working the UPS Trackside program, and it was a really great thing to see UPS be a part of. It was a great experience at the track. It was very, very wet during the weekend, but it was a good event. I think that we have a great service that we offer to the sport and I think that it’s wonderful that we’re out here and involved in it and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Pride of the company is really my favorite thing about working for UPS. It’s a great company. We give back to the community and we have great people. We’re proud of what we do and I love my job.

When I’m not working, I have a horse farm with 14 horses that I enjoy. Also, when I get the opportunity, both my kids are or were in the Navy, so I try and spend as much time with them as I can.

David and Richie waiting for the rain to pass at LMS

For the second day in a row, inclement weather around Lowe’s Motor Speedway caused issues on the racetrack for David Ragan, the UPS Racing team and the entire NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
 
After complete downpours on Sunday postponed the Coca-Cola 600 until Monday, NASCAR was hoping to run the entire 400-lap event today. But, a steady string of rainstorms made multiple appearances to the track and the weather ended up forcing the race to be called after just 227 laps of 400 were complete.
 
“We sat around the Lowe’s Motor Speedway last night in a couple hours of traffic and got back up and it seems like that’s what did all afternoon,” said Ragan. “Our UPS Ford was decent at times. I think we were just chasing the track more than anything. It seems like once we got it close to being dialed in another rain shower came and we kind of had to start over again. I would have liked to at least get another 50 or 100 laps in. I think we had a better car than where we finished and I know all the fans out there wanted to see some more racing.”
 
David started the race in 34th, and quickly began to move up in the field and staying pretty steady around 18th-24th for most of the event.
  
Rain reports from the spotters on top of the grand stands began to come in right before 3 p.m., which ended up being good timing as a competition yellow flew at that time for NASCAR to take part in a national moment of silence for Memorial Day. After the cars re-fired, David was declared the recipient of the ‘Lucky Dog’ award, which got him back onto the lead lap.
 
Once David and the No. 6 UPS Ford got back out on track, they had trouble with overall grip on the car. Normally, rubber builds up on the race track and can help drivers a little bit with grip, but when the rain kept returning to the track, it kept washing away all of the rubber that had been built up.
 
The final caution flag of the race came out on lap 272 and lasted until lap 277 before the field was called to pit road and the red flag came out. After waiting close to two hours while the rain came down, David and the UPS team were bummed about sitting in 24th-place for the finish, which keeps them 32nd in the points.
 
David and the UPS team will have a short week in the shop before heading to Dover, Delaware for the running of the Autism Speaks 400 this weekend. 

The UPS team in action at Lowe's Motor Speedway

This morning we spent some time at my race shop. It was a small group of people and then my dad and me working on filming an interview for TNT.  

David and Ken Ragan filming with TNT

Days like today when you have no on-track activities and being that all of the drivers are in town, a lot of the network people like TNT are getting geared up for some of their summer activities along with the races that they are covering. We were filming a Father’s Day piece with my dad. We got a chance to show off our old Corvette that was my dad’s that he now has back again and then the 1938 UPS Package Car that we have. It was nice to be able to tell two pretty unique stories in the way that I was able to find my dad’s old Corvette and then him and my family finding me the old UPS Package Car.

This afternoon I’ve got an appearance for Nationwide. Since I’m running a partial schedule in that series, me and Erik Darnell are going to spend some time with some students this afternoon at a high school in Charlotte talking about the Nationwide safety program.

Later this afternoon I’ve got some time for myself. I’ve got some family up here from Georgia so I’m sure we’ll just hang out tonight and then gear up for a busy Saturday.

-David

1938 UPS Package Car

David’s day started out early Thursday morning with the annual Roush Fenway Racing fan day at the team’s headquarters here in Concord, North Carolina. David, his teammates, and even Jack Roush spent the morning signing autographs and taking pictures with fans before heading out to the track.

David is running both the Nationwide and Cup Series this weekend, so after a busy morning with the fans, he spent the majority of Thursday afternoon in a racecar. He had solid practice sessions in both cars during the afternoon and then had to wait to go out as the 33^rd driver for qualifying.

“Well, we weren’t as good as we should have been; we really practiced this afternoon for our qualifying run,” said Ragan of his 34-place qualifying effort. “This track has multiple grooves so we’ve got room to move around for this long race. Last year we were good here and in my rookie season we were good, so I don’t expect anything less this year. Our UPS team is working really hard to get some points back after some bad luck and it looks like we’ll have 600 miles on Sunday to get the job done.”

There is no on-track action at Lowe’s Motor Speedway tomorrow, but David has a full day starting with a Fox interview with him and his dad Ken at 9 a.m. at his race shop. They’re shooting a Father’s Day feature that will run during the Sonoma event weekend in June.

I’m sure everyone would think with the races being in Charlotte for two weeks it would be a nice break for those of us who travel every weekend, but that just doesn’t seem to be the case.  It’s actually a very busy two weeks around here. We might technically be at home, but it seems like we are still never at our own homes.  There’s a lot of track activity, sponsor appearances, media things…etc.

Nancy at Roush Fenway Racing

Jack is in town so David has a lot of meetings to attend down at the shop. Jack lives in Michigan where Roush Industries is based and on normal weeks flies in on Tuesdays for the “Jack Meetings,” but with the race being here he’s been around a lot more. 

David filmed some green screen stuff for ESPN last Wednesday and then we went out to dinner with some UPS people who were in town for some meetings. It was fun and then we all went to the O.A.R. concert. It was a free concert outside in downtown Charlotte. The weather was great, a ton of people showed up and they put on a great show. 

Unfortunately we didn’t race our way in to the All-Star race and we came in third in the fan vote so we’ll just have to win a race and guarantee a spot for next year.  Easier said then done, but you never know! David’s due for a Cup win now that he got the Nationwide win out of the way.

Monday we drove down to Atlanta for a UPS appearance. It was pretty cool, David mingled, took some photos and signed some autographs and raced the simulator against some of the guests. He’s got a few more appearances this week and then back to the track for this weekend. The Coca-Cola 600 is a long race and we really need to get a good finish. David’s got some good finishes at Charlotte so I think we can gain points back.  

Goat update:  The mom goat (known as Mama) had a baby boy!  Pictures to come…