It was a long day in Fontana, Calif., for Dale Jarrett and the #44 UPS Racing Team. Jarrett capped off the long weekend with a 32nd-place finish in the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway after dealing with multiple issues throughout the three-day event.
Problems for the UPS Team started on Friday when a transmission failure forced Jarrett to use the past champion's provisional for the second week in a row. Starting 43rd on Sunday, things didn't improve much for the #44 UPS Team, as the handling on the UPS Toyota remained extremely loose. The team suffered its first bad break when it attempted to make a green-flag pit stop on lap 53 and the yellow flag came out due to an incident in turn four. The team lost its second lap under the same circumstances less than 40 laps later when the caution waved on lap 91.
"It's not been an easy weekend," Jarrett said after the race. "We had the transmission problem on Friday and that's the kind of thing you just don't anticipate because those things seem to be so foolproof these days. We knew going into today we were going to have it tough just because we haven't been able to find anything at all this weekend to help this UPS Toyota. We had issues at the beginning with the rear-end gear and we thought there were issues with the carburetor. Our finish could have been a lot worse."
"Usually this early in the season you don't like to see a weekend off but I think it is something that we need as a team to try to get up to speed," Jarrett said, speaking of next week's off week for the series. "We'll take what we learned from this week and try to get ready for Vegas in two weeks."
While Michael Waltrip didn't make the starting field for Sunday's race in California, Jarrett's other teammate, David Reutimann, started the race in 33rd position. Reutimann lost a lap to the race leaders the same time Jarrett did on lap 53 and was unable to get back on the lead lap. The #00 Domino's Team's day ended early on lap 243 when Reutimann was hit from behind and slammed into the outside retaining wall. He was scored with a 33rd-place finish.
Matt Kenseth completed the California "sweep" on Sunday by picking up the win in the Auto Club 500. He won the NASCAR Busch Series race that took place Saturday afternoon at the two-mile track.
Mark Martin, who has not made plans to run the full 2007 schedule, assumed the lead in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series point standings. As for the trio of Michael Waltrip Racing drivers, Jarrett dropped seven positions to 28th while Reutimann lost four positions and now sits 42nd. After missing the race, Waltrip dropped to 45th in the standings.
Next weekend is an off week for the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. Teams will return to the West Coast the following week for the Daimler-Chrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 11. FOX will broadcast the event live beginning at 1 p.m. PDT. The green flag is scheduled to wave at 1:30 p.m. PDT.
