David Ragan – NSCS ADVANCE Team: No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion Crew Chief: Drew Blickensderfer Chassis: Primary: RK-691 Last ran Talladega – finished 21st Backup: RK-723 Brand new chassis
Ragan, NSCS at Daytona International Speedway: Date Event S F Laps Led Status Money 7-3-10 Coke Zero 400 25 38 116/166 0 Accident $91,500 2-14-10 Daytona 500 19 16 208/208 2 Running $289,695 7-4-09 Coke Zero 400 31 13 160/160 0 Running $111,750 2-15-09 Daytona 500 33 6 152/152 0 Running $412,163 7-5-08 Coke Zero 400 6 5 162/162 0 Running $141,150 2-17-08 Daytona 500 14 42 161/200 0 Accident $267,763 7-7-07 Pepsi 400 24 12 160/160 0 Running $137,250 2-18-07 Daytona 500 35 5 202/202 0 Running $529,350
Races Wins Top-5s Top-10s Poles Led Money Spring 4 0 1 2 0 2 $1,498,971 Summer 4 0 1 1 0 0 $481,650 Cumulative 8 0 2 3 0 2 $1,980,621
Ragan on racing at Daytona International Speedway: “I’m excited and pumped up for the first race of the year. Hopefully everyone had a good off season and are ready for Daytona. The new track surface is so smooth so it is going to be a different type of race than we’ve seen in the past. When we were down here for testing we didn’t do any drafting and just worked on handling, so practice and the Duels will be important to see how the cars draft. The Duels in general will be more important than in years past because the cars will handle different and there will be different pit strategies with the new fueling system. We’ll be able to see what kind of fuel mileage we can get. Hopefully we can start the year with a good run in our UPS Ford.”
Crew chief Drew Blickensderfer on racing at Daytona International Speedway: “The new track surface at Daytona is super smooth. It’s going to be extremely important to find a drafting partner because I think we’ll see a lot more two-by-two racing like we’ve seen at Talladega. We are going to work on being fast for qualifying and then hopefully by having a fast car it will help us find drafting partners. Handling will be less of an issue then in the past with the new smooth track surface which will make for fewer changes being needed from qualifying to race time.”
FAST FACTS • David Ragan earned a fifth-place finish in his first-ever Daytona 500 in 2007. • Ragan has an average finishing position of 17.1 at Daytona. • Ragan had three top-five finishes out of four restrictor-plate races in 2008. • Ragan has six Nationwide Series starts at Daytona, four of which resulted in top-10 finishes. • Bob Hook, a UPS tractor-trailer driver from New Jersey, will deliver the green flag for Sunday’s Daytona 500. The 33-year UPS employee has 31 years of safe driving and was inducted into UPS’s Circle of Honor program when he achieved 25 years of accident-free driving.