After starting 19th and leading for two laps in the Great American race, David Ragan and the UPS team battled throughout the day and night to top their last year’s finish of sixth place, but fell down to 16th position when the checkered flag flew.

The first 100 laps of the race were relatively quiet for David and the team. They ran between 16th and 20th and David only reported to the team that the car was a little tight and could be freed up a bit.

While running in the inside lane on lap 106, David got a big push from behind which vaulted him towards the front of the field and up into 11th position. Once David made it up to that spot, he continued to gain ground and multiple spots over the next 10 laps. He moved up to ninth, then fifth and then worked with his teammate, Greg Biffle, to get up into the lead on lap 113. David held the lead for two laps and earned five extra bonus points in the process.

The UPS team was gaining momentum at the front of the field, but when the caution period came out on lap 116, David noticed a chunk of the track missing between turns one and two after exiting pit road. NASCAR brought drivers back down pit road and threw the red flag on lap 122 so they could take a closer look at the issue. Track officials spent the next hour and 40 minutes trying to repair the hole in the track while drivers exited their vehicles and took a break.

Drivers were called back to their cars and the race was back to green on lap 125. David made his way up into fourth position and remained right around that spot until another red flag stopped the race on lap 161. The patch job done on the hole in the track wasn’t working and NASCAR officials had to make additional repairs to the track.

The track was back to green on lap 165 and Crew Chief, Donnie Wingo, made the call to only take two tires and fuel in order to gain track position. During that stop, the UPS pit crew gained David 11 spots and put him back up into fifth position for the restart.

David continued to hold on to his spot inside of the top five and made his way up to third position before getting shuffled into the middle lane of the pack. David had to wait for some help in the middle lane from Kyle Busch in order to get back up towards the front.

Another yellow came out on the track, but David and the leaders did not come into the pits. Because of that decision, David restarted in ninth position when the track went back to green. There were two laps remaining in the race, but a caution came out for a multi-car wreck, which set up NASCAR’s first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish.

The race was only back to green for one lap when another multi-car accident brought out the caution flag. This yellow set up the second attempt at a green-white-checkered finish. David was down to 13th when the race restarted. He was doing his best to maintain that spot, but three drivers were able to get around him on the final lap.

“I feel like we had a much better car than a 16th-place car, but with speedway racing, sometimes things are out of your control,” said David after the race. “Donnie Wingo made the right call to take two tires there at the end, and I think that we had a car that could have won had things gone our way there at the end. It was a good effort by our UPS team. Our guys were really quick in the pits and were able to gain us spots on most of our stops. We just didn’t get the finish that we wanted.”

David and the UPS team enter next weekend’s Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway 15th in points. Sunday’s race begins at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Fox.

David racing through the field on Sunday

It almost looked as if the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series was going to leave Talladega Superspeedway without the dreaded ‘big one’ happening, but the key word there is, almost.

David Ragan and the UPS team were able to stay out of most of the on-track incidents that happened on Sunday, and come away from the 2.5-mile Alabama track with a 17^th-place finish.

David didn’t have much to say on the radio during the race as far as how the car was handling, so pit stops for the UPS team were pretty much routine. Most stops were just for four tires and fuel, and the team only made minor adjustments to tighten the No. 6 up just a bit throughout the race.

The majority of the race saw the 43-car field racing single file, as NASCAR announced an hour before the race that bump drafting in the turns would not be tolerated. Teams also received smaller restrictor plates for the weekend to help slow down the cars and prevent them from going airborne after contact the way they did at Talladega earlier this season.

Once the laps began to wind down, David battled inside of the top 10, and made his way up to third position until there were eight laps left in the race. At that point, drivers began to change what lane they were driving in, so the draft switched and a good portion of the field flew by the lane David was racing in, pushing him down into the 20s.

With six laps to go, the race was red-flagged when Ryan Newman’s car flipped end-over-end in turn three. His car flipped onto its roof, but Newman was able to walk away from the accident without injury.

Once the race went back under yellow, the field was set for a green-white-checkered finish. But, because drivers were beginning to run out of fuel, NASCAR called off the green flag twice, forcing David into the pits to top his UPS Ford off with fuel. He made a very quick stop in the pits and was back inside of the top 20 when the race went back to green.

As the field was coming out of turn four on the final lap, multiple cars were sent spinning across the track. David was one of the cars caught up in that mess, and was sent spinning in the grass. He was able to avoid making contact with any other cars and crossed the finish line in 16^th position.

“Our UPS Ford was pretty fast, but we were just at the mercy of everyone around us,” said David after the race. “It was just kind of a terrible race today in general. There was a lot of single-file racing, and I know it’s exciting there at the end, but what happens is NASCAR slows these cars down. They’re too easy to drive and everyone just gets kind of crazy.  It’s a shame to tear up a lot of good race cars like that, but that’s restrictor plate racing. I’m glad we only have to do it three or four times a year.”

David and his teammate, Matt Kenseth, competed this weekend with the new Ford Racing FR9 engine for the first this season. Neither driver reported any issues and all seemed to go as planned with the engine’s debut.

“The new engine performed great, and we didn’t have any issues,” continued David. “We ran cool all day and had good power with great fuel mileage. It’ll be interesting to see when those guys get back to North Carolina. They’ll look at the valve train and the inside, but from where I was sitting it was pretty good.”

David and the UPS team head back to Texas Motor Speedway next weekend for the Dickies 500 on Sunday. Be sure to check back here later in the week for a special announcement about next weekend’s race.

Routine stop for the UPS crew