David Ragan, No. 34 Taco Bell Ford Starting Position: 29 Finishing Position: 42 David Ragan and the No. 34 Taco Bell team came to New Hampshire Motor Speedway with optimism. The team had tested at the one-mile oval in recent weeks, and the prep paid off throughout the weekend with Ragan feeling fairly confident about his car. Rolling off 29th for the 300-lap race, the driver faced a much warmer track than he’d practiced and qualified on, with temperatures on Sunday significantly higher. The Taco Bell Ford had much more trouble finding grip than it had on Friday or Saturday. But, after the team’s second pit stop on Lap 108, adjustments started to help and Ragan asked crew chief Jay Guy to continue making changes in the same direction. About 70 laps later, the handling of the car wouldn’t matter much anymore. The cars of Martin Truex Jr. and Justin Allgaier got together right in front of Ragan, touching off a chain reaction that sent the No. 34 Ford nose-first into the wall. Ragan was then hit from behind by a spinning Denny Hamlin. Ragan was transported to the infield care center, where he was evaluated and released. He returned to his team in the garage to find the car was damaged beyond repair and he could not re-join the race. He was credited with a 42nd-place finish. Comments from Taco Bell team driver David Ragan after the Loudon race: “It was unfortunate. We made our car a little bit better, and it looked like the 51 and 78 were both mad and they were running over each other. They kind of shot up the race track and I ran over Martin with my left-front and that just kind of shot me up. So, it’s unfortunate but that’s the way things go sometimes.”
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 03:13:16 +0000
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