UPS RACING

The UPS pit crew hard at work in Kansas

David Ragan’s third Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway pretty much ended before it began. After completing just six laps of the Price Chopper 400, the No. 98 of Paul Menard spun directly in front of David, leaving him no place to go to avoid damage to his No. 6 UPS Freight Ford Fusion.

The car suffered severe damage to the left side after the contact, causing David to make multiple trips down pit road so the UPS pit crew could work on making repairs. As a result of the damage and falling 11 laps behind the leaders, David took the checkered flag in 35th position.

“When the No. 98 [Menard] spun out, I just couldn’t get stopped,” said David after the race. “We didn’t have too much damage when we hit him, but when everybody else came around and ran into me, that was it. For being that many laps down knocking the fenders off and trying to get it straightened back up, the car didn’t run that bad for how tore up it was. Once you get that many laps down in a 400-mile race, you just can’t do anything.”

Because the car had so much damage, the UPS Freight Ford never ran the same. The car was free throughout the corners for the remainder of the race, and the team did the best they could to get the car back to where it could compete on track. At one point, David felt a vibration in the car, but after a few routine pit stops, the issues he was having seemed to go away. After completing a scheduled pit stop on lap 204, David was too fast exiting pit road and was issued a pass-through penalty.

“Our UPS Freight team was quick on pit road today, which was good so that we went down the least amount of laps as possible with the damage that we had,” continued David. “It was a good effort to finish, but we were in a hole before the real race even started.”

David and the UPS team will make the cross-country trek to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. next weekend for the 30^th race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Coverage for the race on Sunday begins at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time on ABC.

The No. 6 UPS Freight Ford Fusion at Kansas Speedway

David right after making his qualifying run in Kansas

It was a windy start to the race weekend here in Kansas, and after one practice session and one qualifying lap, David Ragan and the UPS Freight team will start Sunday’s Price Chopper 400 from the 25^th position.

“It sure is windy out there,” said David after his run. “You can tell that you’re getting pushed around, but the good thing is that it’s the same for everyone, it’s not like that for just one of us. You just have to give yourself a little extra breathing room here and there to just make sure that you don’t run across the apron or get pushed in too hard. But, our UPS Ford is pretty fast and we had a real good practice session today.”

During the first part of the only practice of the day, the UPS team sat right around 26th position. But, after making some adjustments to the car, the team shot to the top of the leader board for almost the remainder of the session. A few other cars were able to get by David in the final minutes of the session, but he finished in sixth and that performance should be a good gauge as to how the car will perform on Sunday.

“About half of our laps during practice were qualifying runs, but we did some race runs to get a jump on tomorrow,” said David. “These races are tough to pass at, so hopefully we can build on it tomorrow.”

David and the UPS Freight team will have two practice sessions on Saturday to put the final touches on their car for Sunday’s race. The last time David competed in Kansas, he qualified 12^th and finished in eighth place.

Be sure to catch coverage of the race on ABC starting at 1 p.m. ET.

David getting interviewed by ESPN following qualifying

The No. 6 UPS Freight Ford Fusion

For the second and final time this season, UPS Freight will be featured on David Ragan’s No. 6 Ford Fusion .

As David makes his third Cup Series start at Kansas Speedway this weekend, his car’s design will incorporate the gray of UPS Freight, along with traditional UPS brown and gold crushed glass coloring. These colors reflect UPS Freight vehicles that are out on the roads each and every day.

“The last time our team ran the UPS Freight car, we heard a lot of compliments from fans about how much they liked how the car looked,” said David. “It’s always neat to have a different design on the car, and this one definitely stands out on track. UPS employees are second to none, so it’s great to have a special design that brings some extra attention to a specific part of UPS. We’ll do our best to put the UPS Freight Ford Fusion in Victory Lane this weekend in Kansas.”

While based in Richmond, Va., UPS Freight has a large presence in Kansas, and is the perfect place to highlight this business unit of UPS. UPS Freight offers a wide range of ground freight shipping options for customers who need to ship anything from a single oversized package to a heavy pallet or full truckload of freight across North America, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The UPS Freight Ford Fusion competing earlier this season in Richmond

Nancy is the Account Manager for the No. 6 UPS Racing team at Roush Fenway Racing.

It’s time to hear from me again! There’s nothing too much out of the ordinary going on here in North Carolina. Talladega was a pretty good weekend for us, I knew he’d run well and he did. David’s kicking himself a little now, because if he had stuck with the bottom line at the end he probably would have finished higher than 12^th, but 12^th isn’t too bad at a place where crazy wrecks can occur. At least he got his first Nationwide win out of the way, now we just need a Cup one.

David with Pedro

Richmond came down to tire wear versus track position, and in the end tire wear won out and David wasn’t able to maintain track position. We’ll rebound back this weekend in Darlington. I talked to Jimmy (his crew chief) the other day and we’re bringing the same set up we finished fifth with last year. Hopefully we pull off a repeat….or better.

Off track things have been busy the last few weeks. David participated in a charity golf tournament the Monday after Talladega and then the next day had to do an R&D test in Rockingham.

We flew into Richmond on the Nationwide plane (they had tech at the track and went in before the Cup plane) to go to UPS Freight. We had the silver UPS Freight car under the lights at Richmond and went to visit the employees and sign some autographs on Thursday afternoon. Thursday evening David participated in an autograph session at the track on behalf of his sponsor Kraft Foods. It was a busy day!

This past week has been a little quieter for me since David took a few days out of town, but he’s back now and this morning we head down to Darlington to visit the QVC distribution center. Things are about to get crazy around here with the races being in Charlotte. There’s just a lot going on and a lot of people come into town for the race. Hopefully David races his way into the All-Star race, but if not keep voting and try to help him out!

David's pet goats

Goat update: They are still scared of me and don’t want their photo taken. Luckily it’s not just me; they like to run from everyone. David chased them out of the trees so I could get some photos to share with you guys.

Hey race fans,

Thanks for stopping in to check out my blog.

We had a really fun time this past weekend in Richmond with running the special silver UPS Freight car. As most of you know, Richmond is home to UPS Freight, so we had a lot of things with our racing program focused on UPS Freight. Not only did we have a special paint scheme on our No. 6, we also had a neat looking helmet and pit wall banner that were all Freight themed for the weekend.

On Thursday before the race, I went up to UPS Freight and had a really good time meeting the employees there. We had a great turn out for the event and the employees had a lot of great questions about racing.

Some of the things they brought up about UPS really are similar to things about racing. Things like technology, being prepared for change at all times and being flexible also applies to what we do out on the race track. We’ve got a lot of technology that we use in our team, we’ve always got to be aware of what is going on around us on the track and we’ve got to be able to react quickly to situations during the race.

When we got to the track on Friday, we got a lot of compliments from people that liked the look of our race car, and I heard that during the race broadcast even Darrell Waltrip, who is one of the announcers, said that he liked the look of our car. For a driver and for our team, it’s exciting to mix things up a little bit and have a different look for a weekend. It was just something extra special for everyone at UPS and with our team.

We had a really great time in Richmond and now our UPS team is back in the shop working to get ready for Darlington this weekend. It’s another Saturday night race and another short track so we’re hoping to get a solid finish there and work our way back up in the points.

-David

Each week, the UPS ‘Maximum Center’ program recognizes a UPS operating facility or Freight Service Center for success in safety and service. Chosen facilities are recognized with its Standard Location Identification Code (SLIC) or Freight Service Center three-letter code on the wing of David Ragan’s No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion. 

The Charlotte Service Center was the ‘Maximum Center’ for the Russ Friedman 400 Sprint Cup Race at Richmond International Raceway.  

David with Steve Stotts from the CLT center

Competing against five other regions consisting of more than 150 service centers across the nation, the Charlotte Service Center has set the example with impressive balanced score card results that empowered the Southeast Region to be ranked No. 1 for January, February and March.

The management team in Charlotte focused their efforts on improving results and recognizing employees who make a difference on a daily basis. The center led the way with a first place finish in January and February in the large service center group of the balanced scorecard.

With outstanding initiatives for improving results, the employees at the Charlotte Service Center are influencing other centers to improve results by setting the example for others to follow. 

“Our service center has great leadership and we work hard to meet our goals.” said Steve Stotts, who attended the race. “Everyone at our center appreciates this honor.” 

Charlotte Service Center Maximum Center Photos 

The finish that David Ragan came away from Richmond International Raceway with is definitely not the one that the 23-year old was hoping for at the end of the 400-lap race on Saturday night.

No. 6 UPS Freight Ford Fusion on tack at RIR

David took the green flag in 22^nd and began to chase down drivers one at a time and move his way up through the field fairly easy. Once the first caution of the night came out, David took the standard four tires and fuel and went back out on the track.

After he restarted and made a few laps around the .75-mile track, he radioed into the team that his car felt ‘bouncy’ and his front splitter was touching the track just a little bit. The team brought him back into the pits during the next caution period for four tires and fuel.

Track position is really important at any race track, but especially here at short tracks when passing isn’t always the easiest task. On Saturday night, restarts weren’t the strong suit for the team, but David managed to get a run on the field in the later part of the race. By the time there were 40 laps to go, David was racing inside of the top 10.

As the laps continued to tick away and cautions began to be more frequent, drivers behind David came into the pits for fresh tires, but David and a majority of the leaders stayed out on the track. That proved to be a big advantage to those drivers that pitted and pushed them up in front of David’s No. 6 UPS Freight Ford Fusion.

“For a while there at the end I thought we were gonna sneak a top-10 out of it,” said David. “I’m real proud of our UPS team. We made good adjustments on the car, but track position was just so important. If we had a good pit stop and we were on the right cycle as far as pitting, we were a top-10 car, but if we had a goof on pit road or if I made a mistake on a restart and we lost a few spots, we just couldn’t seem to go anywhere.

UPS team in action

“It was typical short track racing,” continued David. “It’s all about track position and that’s ultimately what won the race for everyone and that’s what cost us a top-10 finish. I feel like we had a car with good enough speed. Maybe if it was a 500-lap race we could have got back to the front, but when those guys all pitted for tires behind us and we were right there on the tail end of guys with no tires, we just didn’t have the speed to stay with those guys with fresh tires.”

David and the UPS team will travel to Darlington next weekend for the Southern 500.

Richmond International Raceway is one of David’s favorite places to race and he hit the track in style today with the new No. 6 UPS Freight Ford Fusion. Richmond is home to UPS Freight and David and the team received a lot of compliments on their new look for the weekend.

Qualifying was today, and while David really likes this track, he struggled a bit in practice and qualifying trying to get the right set up and will take the green flag for tomorrow’s race in 22^nd position.

“I feel like we’re just average at best,” said David after qualifying. “We’ve tried really hard to put a lot of effort into all the race tracks this year, but we just seem to struggle a little bit at the short tracks. I feel our UPS Freight Ford is pretty close. If we could get just a little bit more, I think we’d be a top-10 car, but we’re just right outside of that and we know that we need to make a couple of improvements.”

David enters this weekend 26^th in the points after gaining four spots after last weekend’s race in Talladega. But tomorrow’s race under the lights, which is also another favorite amongst David and the other drivers, is 400 laps and will give the UPS team plenty of team to get the right set up for a solid finish.

“Jimmy and the team will make a couple small changes and 400 laps is a long race here at Richmond and, hopefully, we can be a top-10 car by the end of the night,” continued David. “We’re not quite there yet, but hopefully we can get there.”

This will be David’s fifth start in Richmond. Last year in this race, David came away with a 17^th-place finish at the .75-mile oval track.

 

 

David at UPS Freight

Hey race fans,

Well we had a good run last weekend in Talladega and we’re really excited to race in Richmond this weekend. Richmond is one of my favorite tracks. We got one of my first top 10s here in my rookie season and I’ve had some good finishes in the Nationwide car there too.

Richmond is a fun race for not just the drivers but also the fans to be able to kind of sit right on top of the action and really get to see a great race. And Saturday night races are a lot of fun for all of us and something we get a kick out of to race under the lights.

We’re running the UPS Freight colors on our car this weekend, and when we found out over a month ago that we were going to have a special paint scheme on the car, that certainly got everyone excited in our shop. To have UPS Freight silver colors on our Ford for the weekend is truly special. It’s awesome to represent all the employees across the U.S. that make UPS and UPS Freight what it is. We’re certainly excited to sport those colors this weekend. It means a lot to us.

We haven’t exactly had the season to date that we’ve wanted, but we’ve had a couple of engine failures and some bad luck so we’ve dug ourselves a hole. We made up a few points last weekend with a good run and stayed in the top 10 most of the race but didn’t get the finish we wanted.

Coming to Richmond, we’re really positive and there’s absolutely no reason that we can’t qualify in the top 10 and get the win with the UPS Freight car this weekend.

We’ll see you at the track.

-David