Dale Jarrett and the #88 UPS Team avoided the few accidents that took place in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway and left Daytona Beach with a 22nd-place finish. While a 22nd-place finish was somewhat disappointing, the team overcame a mysterious vibration problem, trouble on pit road, and a driver with a fractured left hand to leave Daytona fairly unscathed.
Jarrett, who found out on Thursday that he had fractured his left hand in Sonoma, Calif., last weekend, started the race in seventh place after getting a shot of cortisone and having his hand wrapped by medical professionals in Daytona. Jarrett dropped back early in the event as a result of a vibration in the car when the RPMs went about 7,000. In addition to the vibration, the #88 UPS Ford Fusion was extremely loose during the first laps of the Pepsi 400.
When the first caution of the night waved on lap seven, the team took the opportunity to make adjustments on the car. After restarting 41st, Jarrett powered his way through the field and was in 24th place by lap 38. It was during a sequence of green flag pit stops that Jarrett led a lap before making his stop on lap 51.
Problems on the pit stop, however, dropped the UPS Ford back to 28th. The UPS Ford teetered on the tight side throughout the rest of the event and more problems on pit road kept the team buried in the 20th to 25th place position.
"Yeah, we really kind of struggled on pit road," Jarrett said. "The car was pretty good there during the first 50 laps but then I don't know whether we had a difficult set of tires or what but we really wore the right front and the car was pretty tight there toward the end."
Teammate Elliott Sadler started the race in 13th and climbed to a sixth-place finish despite a slight incident on pit road with the #1 car of driver Martin Truex, Jr. Sadler remains 19th in the point standings after the top-ten finish. Jarrett, meanwhile, moved up two positions to 21st.
Reigning Nextel Cup Series champion Tony Stewart made it back-to-back wins in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. Stewart led the most laps in route to his first win of the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series season.
Despite a tough night that resulted in a 32nd-place finish, Jimmie Johnson still is the leader of the Nextel Cup Series point standings by a slim margin of eight points over Matt Kenseth.
The Nextel Cup Series turns its attention to the Midwest with the upcoming race weekend at Chicagoland Speedway. The USG Sheetrock 400 is scheduled to begin at 2:35 CDT. NBC begins its broadcast of the 2006 NASCAR season at 2 p.m. CDT with its pre-race show.
