UPS RACING

The Danville SLIC on the wing of the No. 6

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 Danville Center (SLIC – 2451) in the Virginia District was selected as the UPS Maximum Center for the Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

Justin with the mini UPS package car at Martinsville Speedway

This past weekend at Martinsville Speedway, Justin Chaney was part of the UPS Trackside Services team. Justin took some time on Sunday to talk with UPS Racing about what he does both at and away from the track.

My name is Justin and I am an on-road supervisor out of the Danville, Virginia Center. I’ve been with UPS for five years and first started working with the company unloading trucks.

I was glad to be able to go out to the track this past weekend and work for the UPS Trackside program. I really like going out to the track because I like seeing the people involved in the sport and making sure they have what they need for the weekend. It’s fun to see everything that goes on at the track that regular race fans don’t get to see.

During my spare time, I enjoy riding mountain bikes, going camping and riding four-wheelers.

- Justin

David during pre-race activities at Martinsville Speedway

David Ragan started Sunday’s TUMS Fast Relief 500 from the 14^th position and was able to stay competitive around that spot for nearly the entire first 300 laps of the race. But after a receiving a late-race penalty in the pits forced David to the back of the field, the team had to battle their way back up through the field. David managed to miss multiple spins towards the end of the race to finish in 22^nd position.

“After we had that penalty, we lost all of our track position,” said David after the race. “I felt like our UPS Ford was a top-10 or top-15 car today. It was really good on the long run, but we just didn’t have enough of those long runs the first part of the race. It was unfortunate to get that penalty and have to go to the back of the field. From there, it was just real hard to pass and get any good track position. All in all, we finished and it was pretty exciting at the end with all of the beatin’ and bangin’ going on between everyone.”

The only real issue David had during the first part of the race was trying to get the car to cut better through the corners. The UPS Ford was also a little bit loose coming off of the corners. To fix those problems, Jimmy Fennig and the crew made some air pressure and track bar adjustments, which seemed to help with the handling of the car.

When a couple of back-to-back cautions during the middle of the race, Jimmy kept David out on the track to gain some track position. That strategy worked as David was able to move up inside of the top 10. But, because most of the leaders had pit for new tires while David stayed out on the track, those drivers eventually made their way back up to the front of the field.

David came into the pits on lap 304 for a routine stop, but the team suffered a penalty after the front tire carrier rolled the right tire back to the pit wall. Tire carriers must be in control of their tires at all times, and the tire was rolled too long of a distance back to the pit wall. Because of the penalty, David was forced to go to the tail end of the lead lap. This put him back in 31^st position after coming into the pits in 20^th position.

David battled hard to move back up through the field. He was able to avoid multiple spins, but did go a lap down on lap 357. For the remainder of the race, he tried to get in position to be the ‘Lucky Dog’ and get his lap back, but the cautions just didn’t end up working in the team’s favor. As a result, David finished one lap behind the leaders after the race came down to a green-white-checkered finish.

The UPS team heads south to Talladega Superspeedway next weekend for the 33^rd race of the season. Coverage for Sunday’s race starts at noon Eastern Time on ABC.

David making a move through the field at Martinsville Speedway

David during practice at Martinsville Speedway

David Ragan and the UPS team had a solid day of practice and qualifying at Martinsville Speedway on Friday afternoon.

After ending the only practice session of the day in 10th position, the UPS team put together a 14th-place qualifying effort for Sunday’s TUMS Fast Relief 500.

“It felt really close to the same lap that we ran for qualifying in practice,” said David after his run. “You’re always splitting hairs here at Martinsville. When it’s all said and done, a tenth probably would have put us 10-12 spots higher, but it was an okay lap. I thought we could have picked up a little bit more, but I think we’ve got a great UPS Ford for Sunday. We’re just gonna need a hair more speed in practice on Saturday to get this thing perfect for the race.”

Rain came into the area right before practice was scheduled to begin, so the day got off to a little bit later start than originally planned. But, once David got out on the track and made some initial baseline laps during practice, the team only had to make slight adjustments to the car to get it to move up on the speed charts.

David and the UPS team will have two more practice sessions on Saturday to fine tune their UPS Ford Fusion for Sunday’s race.

David during his qualifying run

Another cold and rainy weekend in Charlotte is behind us and we’re off to Martinsville this week. It always seems to rain wherever the race is, and this past weekend was no exception. We had rain on Thursday (qualifying day), which made for a long day, but we were able to get everything in. For the race on Saturday night, it was cold standing out on pit road, but we all had on lots of layers and even got some hot chocolate halfway through the race from our hauler driver Bill!

David had a good car until a tire going down hurt our track position, but ultimately, he ended on the lead lap in 20^th. This weekend is Martinsville, which is another race close to home. That is something that we always enjoy. Plus, it’s a short track, and David likes short tracks. Hopefully the weather will be warmer and we’ll get a good finish!

On Tuesday, David filmed an episode for CMT ‘Cribs.’ It’s funny how 5-7 minutes of what you see on the air takes about 10 hours to shoot. David wasn’t on camera that whole time, but he did take them on a tour of his house and his race shop. Once he was done, I stuck around with Alexis while the production crew took a lot of b-roll shots. It made for a pretty long day. I think it will all turn out really good and everyone will have to check it out in January when it airs. We don’t know what day it’s going to air yet, but we’ll keep you up to date when we find out.

Having 10 hours of filming creates some down time, so we had a little fun while waiting at David’s shop……check out some of our photos!

Justin Gibson was part of the UPS Trackside Services team this past weekend at Martinsville Speedway. He is based out of UPS Danville.

This past weekend in Martinsville was my second time working UPS Trackside. It’s something that I get really excited to do on race weekend because it brings together the two things that I like most, working for UPS and racing. And this week on April 2, I will have been with UPS for two years.

I’ve always been a big NASCAR fan, so to just be at the track is pretty cool. But what I enjoy most is that we’re out here as a company doing something meaningful for the sport.  A lot of people count on UPS at the track to get them their packages in time for their events for the weekend. And we do our best to make sure all the packages that come into the track are delivered right on time.

I grew up watching racing with my dad. I actually kind of got him into the sport, I don’t know how, but I did. I just started watching when I was real young and then he started liking it. I think my first race was 1992 with my dad here in Martinsville.

When I’m not working for UPS, I like to ride four wheelers, watch racing and watch pretty much any other kind of sport.

 UPS is the Official Express Delivery Company of NASCAR and provides members of the NASCAR family exclusive access to UPS shipping services during race week. The UPS Trackside Service center is available to handle all shipments to and from the track.

After two straight days of rain and on-track activities cancelled, David and the UPS team were excited to actually get out on the track today. 

With qualifying getting cancelled on Friday, the field was set by 2009 points which put the UPS team 26^th in the lineup prior to the start of the race.

The UPS Fusion looked good at the start of the race, and David began to make his way up through the field. He maintained his spot on the lead lap until a caution came out during lap 139. Just as Robby Gordon had a tire going down, which brought out the caution, David also had a tire going down.

So the caution that came out actually was good for the UPS team, as they were able to come into the pits for four new tires and fuel. The team sent David back out on the track, but he came back in two laps later so the team could make sure that the fenders were straight and weren’t going to cause any further tires issues. When David returned to the track, his No. 6 was one lap down in the field.

During a longer green flag run, David did end up going another lap down, which was where he ended the race in 27^th.

“We had a good car today, I feel like,” said David. “We were able to pass at the beginning and we had a lot better racecar than we’ve had in the last couple of weeks. We were just not in a good position when Robby Gordon had his tire go down, we had a tire going down. It seemed like a lot of people today were having tire issues. We had a puncture in ours and had to bring our UPS Fusion into the pits.

“When you have to make an unscheduled pit stop, you get off sequence,” said David. “It’s just really tough. I felt like once we got the car with four fresh tires, we could run in the top 10. We just need to get ourselves in better position. We had a good car all day, but it was a disappointing finish. We’ve got to get ourselves back up into the top 10 with our UPS race team.”

David and the No. 6 UPS team will travel to Texas Motor Speedway next weekend for the seventh race of the 2009 Sprint Cup Series season.

The No. 6 UPS team knew coming into this weekend that rain was probably going to be an issue. And that held true today in Martinsville as qualifying was cancelled because of Mother Nature.

David and the rest of the Cup drivers were able to get one practice in today, and in that session, David spent most of the time around the 13^th position. His No. 6 finished practice in 23^rd.

“Of course every track we go to, we want to qualify into the race by making a run on Friday,” said David. “But the rain was in the forecast all week, and there’s nothing we can do about that. We had a real good car this afternoon in practice, and I think we would have had a top 10 car for qualifying. We worked a lot in race trim and did a couple of qualifying runs, so I’m disappointed we weren’t able to get our UPS Ford Fusion back out on the track.”

David and the rest of the field will have two practices on Saturday to get ready for Sunday’s Goody’s 500.

Saturday’s schedule:

10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.:            Practice

11:50 a.m. – 12:50 p.m.:            Final Practice

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

Well I’ve got to say I’m happy Bristol is behind us and we can move on to Martinsville. The team tested “Little Rock” the short track next to the original Rockingham Speedway last week, which is similar to Martinsville, and from talking to David and Jimmy it sounds like the test went well. If you were to ask David what type of track is his favorite he would tell you short tracks, and Martinsville is definitely a short track. Hopefully the weather holds off and we are able to race. Seems like Sunday will be okay, but it’s not looking as good for Friday and Saturday. We really want to be able to qualify on Friday and not have to start by points, so keep your fingers crossed for us! Last year it was snowing at this race and we all froze.

Besides the racing aspect, we’ve got some other cool things in the works which you’ll see coming up soon. This weekend David is filming a PSA for NASCAR about “Going Green.” Next weekend we are filming part of the NASCAR Brand commercial. You know the one where each person says a different line? It’s like that. And we’re doing some stuff with UPS next week here at the shop. So there will be a lot of David Ragan UPS items coming up for everyone to check out.

On a fun note, I’m not sure how many people know this, but David has some goats. Well, currently they are on a friend’s property, but he just built a fence at his race shop and he’s going to move them there. I’m excited to go play with goats; they are the kind that faint. They don’t literally faint, but when they get scared something in them locks up and they fall down.I’ll try not to scare them, but they will be cool to play with. I’ll be sure to get some photos to share with everyone!

Hopefully we’ll see you guys at the race this weekend!