Raines, DLP HDTV Team, Endure Long Day at
Atlanta
Date: March
18, 2007
Event: Kobalt
Tools 500 (Round 4 of 36)
Series: NASCAR
NEXTEL Cup Series
Location: Atlanta
Motor Speedway (1.54-mile oval)
Start/Finish: 33rd
/38th (Running, completed 318 of 325 laps)
Winner: Jimmie
Johnson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Tony Raines and the No. 96 DLP HDTV team struggled in the
Kobalt Tools 500 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor
Speedway and finished a disappointing 38th.
From the drop of the green flag, the No. 96 DLP HDTV Chevrolet
was ill-handling and the team threw everything but the kitchen
sink at the car to try and fix it. Nothing, however, seemed
to click.
“It was a long, tough day,” Raines said. “We
just couldn’t get the handling right on the car. That’s
one of the more frustrating days I’ve had. I know Brandon
(Thomas, crew chief) is frustrated too. We need to go back
and figure out what we did wrong, because we just didn’t
perform well at all today.”
The 500-mile race lasted only 3 hours, 16 minutes and 23 second
thanks to only 27 of the 325 laps being conducted under caution.
That, coupled with an ill-handling car, caused Raines to go
down two laps by the halfway point of the race. Adding insult
to injury, Raines was penalized for speeding on pit road on
Lap 196, and he had to serve a drive-through penalty under
green-flag conditions, which caused him to lose even more laps.
At the end of the event, Raines was seven laps down and 38th
on the scoreboard.
“Just a frustrating day,” Raines said. “It
seemed like we tried every adjustment in the book and everything
we tried just didn’t help.”
Jimmie Johnson won the Kobalt Tools 500 to score his 25th
career Nextel Cup Series victory and his second at Atlanta. Tony
Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Burton and Juan Pablo Montoya rounded
out the top-five. Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards, Martin Truex
Jr., Reed Sorenson and Mark Martin comprised the remainder
of the top-10.
Raines dropped six spots to 31st in the Nextel Cup point standings.
He has 313 points and is 316 points behind leader Martin and
12 points behind 30th-place Ricky Rudd. Raines is 39 points
ahead of 35th-place Jeff Green.
The next event on the Nextel Cup schedule is the March 25
Food City 500 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. The
race begins at 2 p.m. EDT with live, high definition coverage
provided by FOX.
The Food City 500 will be the first race for NASCAR’s
Car of Tomorrow, a new style of car that has been in development
for the past few years. Instead of a Chevrolet Monte Carlo
SS, Raines will drive the No. 96 DLP HDTV Chevrolet Impala
SS, which will feature a rear wing and a front splitter, in
addition to several other changes designed for driver safety.
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