Rain Ends Long Day for Raines, DLP HDTV Team

Date:                      June 10, 2007
Event:                     Pocono 500 (Round 14 of 36)
Series:                   NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series
Location:               Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa. (2.5-triangle)
Start/Finish:        17th / 36th (Running, completed 106 of 106 laps)
Winner:                Jeff Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)

Tony Raines struggled with an ill-handling car throughout much of the Pocono 500 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race and finished a disappointing 36th.

Raines, driver of the No. 96 DLP HDTV Chevrolet for Hall of Fame Racing, started 17th, but could never get the car to handle to his liking on the 2.5-mile triangular Pocono Raceway in Long Pong, Pa.

“We just couldn’t get it where it needed to be,” Raines said. “It wasn’t for a lack of effort. Brandon (Thomas, crew chief) and the DLP guys tried everything. We just couldn’t get it do drive right.”

If having a poor-handling car wasn’t bad enough, Raines and the DLP crew suffered through a nearly three-hour rain delay, as well as a shortened race, which means they had even less time to work on the car to get it better.

The race, which was originally supposed to start at 2 p.m. (EDT), did not start until just after 5 p.m. due to morning rains. It then became a race against time as more rain was on the way and the race needed to get to the 101-lap mark before it could be called.

The rain held off until Lap 106, when heavy showers fell on Turns 1 and 2. After just a little less than an hour of waiting, the race was called at around 7:30 p.m. (EDT), 94 laps shy of the scheduled distance.

Raines fell to 24th in driver points with 1,273 points. Raines is 976 points behind leader Jeff Gordon and 36 points back of 23rd -place Casey Mears.

Jeff Gordon won the Pocono 500 to score his 79th career Nextel Cup victory, his fourth of the season and fourth at Pocono.  Ryan Newman, Martin Truex Jr., Casey Mears and Tony Stewart rounded out the top-five. Denny Hamlin, Mark Martin, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenesth and Clint Bowyer comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were four caution periods for 10 laps, with only Dave Blaney (accident) failing to finish the 106-lap race.

The next event on the Nextel Cup schedule is the June 17 Citizens Bank 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.  The race begins at 2 p.m. EDT with live, high-definition coverage provided by TNT.