Jack Roush Stuck with David Ragan and Now It’s Finally Paying Off
It took David Ragan 163 races, lots of torn up race cars, criticism and mistakes before he finally won his first career race. When he did it came at one of NASCAR’s most historic racetracks: Daytona International Speedway on Fourth of July weekend.
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[/media-credit]To some, Ragan was never going to get this far. After finishing 13th in points in 2008, just his second full season, things went downhill fast for the Georgia driver. The man handpicked to replace Mark Martin was having a tough go in the Sprint Cup Series, being called a dart without feathers and faced other such criticisms.
And while others might have sent him home, team owner Jack Roush never even thought about it.
“To have Jack’s support behind our team is very, very important,” said Ragan on Tuesday. “Without it, we couldn’t go and do our jobs. From day one when Jack gave me an opportunity that I probably didn’t deserve being a young kid, not having a full Nationwide Series or not having a full Truck Series [season] underneath my belt and being promoted to the No. 6 car in 2007.”
Instead of looking for replacements, Roush stuck by Ragan. Repeatedly saying that he believes in him and that he was going to stick with him. He put Ragan with strong team members that played a great supporting cast. Yet, the growing pains continued but according to Ragan his confidence and ability in making the right decisions blossomed.
It helped that Roush was always there, either at the shop or at the track, always in Ragan’s ear. Support unwavering, Ragan pushed forward, the results just needed to start showing.
“We had a lot of hard conversations after bad weekends and good conversations after good weekends,” said Ragan of Roush.
The 2009 season was the worst of Ragan’s career. He finished 27th in points with only two top 10 finishes. But he did score his first career Nationwide Series win at Talladega. Something that might not have ever come either but just like he’s done with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and his other young drivers, Roush never gave up on them.
“It was probably three or four years ago, my rookie year in 2006, where I was running the Truck Series some, my first year in a Nationwide car and we talked about it: Was my Nationwide car affecting my Cup performance” said Ragan of behind the scenes discussions.
Drivers running in both series have always been a discussion around the sport. Not only in the sense of championship eligibility but about focus on the Sprint Cup side. Roush made the decision to keep Ragan in both cars. Citing that his lack of experience and the much needed seat time. Telling Ragan they were going to keep working.
“He saw I had a lot of driving force behind me to go out and do a good job,” said Ragan. “A lot of pressure I put on myself. So I always had a lot of confidence that I was the guy and that I needed to show progression.”
Progression though still wasn’t made in 2010 as Ragan finished 24th in points with numbers similar to those in 2009. On the NNS side he saw his team owner bench Stenhouse Jr. as he too was having a hard time and was tearing up more cars than he was finishing with.
As Stenhouse Jr. was taken out of the car, it never crossed Ragan’s mind that Roush might do the same to him. As Ragan says while he did tear stuff up and make bad decisions there were a few years were Roush-Fenway Racing as a whole was just slow. When you’re running that badly there aren’t opportunities to destroy equipment, the focus was on trying to turn things around.
Now heading into New Hampshire and the 19th race of the 2011 season Ragan is rewarding Roush’s patience and belief in him. He’s competitive and fast, winning poles and finally a race. He sits 15th in points but does have a chance at the Chase, thanks in part to NASCAR’s new wildcard format.
It’s been a long, hard road for Ragan to even think about a chance to compete for a championship. Had it not been for a team owner who has given all of his drivers a chance and isn’t afraid to make team changes, it might have all been a dream for Ragan. Now, instead of fighting for a job or to prove himself, Regan is perfectly comfortable fighting for the finishes he deserves.
And he’ll do so under the watchful eye of Jack Roush.
Todd Peck Looks to Leave a Legacy in Iowa Truck Series Debut
Todd Peck intends to leave a legacy, both professional and personal, in his debut Camping World Truck Series race at Iowa Speedway this weekend.
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[/media-credit]Peck is a family legacy race car driver, as the son of Dr. Mike Peck and the nephew of Tom Peck, both of whom raced their central Pennsylvania family team in the Nationwide Series. Peck’s family team has more than 50 top-10 finishes in five full seasons under their belts.
“Most people get into racing after growing up at the race track and I’m no exception,” Peck said. “My uncle raced dirt in central Pennsylvania for years and progressed into the Busch Series where he and my dad as a team owner had a partnership, racing there for ten years through the mid 90’s.”
“When you’re a kid growing up, you get hooked and you get the bug and your destiny is in the race car,” Peck continued. “That’s all you want to do.”
Peck, hailing from Hanover, PA whose claim to fame is being the home of Utz Potato Chips, started racing go karts at age 14 years. He has continued working his way up the rungs of racing, including 15 starts in the K&N Pro Series East and running currently in the Super Cup Stock Car Series.
This will, however, be the legacy driver’s first ever Truck Series race, as well as his first time ever at Iowa Speedway. He will be piloting the No. 96 Chevrolet race truck for his family-owned team and is clearly using this debut run to attract not only attention, but potential sponsors as well.
“I can’t wait to get to Iowa and debut our team in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series,” Peck said. “We’ve been working toward this weekend since we made the decision at the beginning of the year to race a truck.”
“This is our maiden voyage.”
But even more important than his Truck debut is the personal legacy that Peck hopes to leave, racing in tribute to the Arthritis Foundation’s campaign, ‘Kids Get Arthritis Too.’ It is personal for Peck, who himself was diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis (JA) at the age of 15 years old.
“At that age, you don’t think of kids having arthritis,” Peck said. “It’s an old people’s disease that my grandparents have.”
“But there are over 300,000 kids diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis and it’s not as uncommon as you’d think,” Peck continued. “Being as I’ve struggled with it, once we were given the opportunity to perform on the big stage of the Truck Series, it was a no brainer to be involved.”
Peck actually unveiled his race truck at the national JA Conference in Washington, DC last week. Kids, struggling with the same disease that he does, signed their names all over the truck that he will race.
“We did the unveiling at the national JA conference and that was awesome,” Peck said. “Well over five thousand people attended the conference and it was really cool to see the kids’ reaction and excitement.”
“We spent the weekend talking to the kids and their families, sharing stories and inspirational messages,” Peck continued. “Our message was that even though you have JA you can work with it and do what you want to do.”
Peck and his team will also be hosting JA youth and their families at each and every race in which he will compete. In fact, two children with JA and their families will be present for Peck’s Iowa debut.
“For all the races we have, we’ll be hosting families at the track and around the garage area,” Peck said. “We’ll let them get up close and personal to the racing and I’m looking forward to that as well.”
While Peck was touched by every child with JA and their stories, he was especially moved by the story of two children in particular.
Because of complications from their arthritis, these two children were unable to attend the conference. So, their friends made cardboard cut outs of them, using their head shots, pasted them on bodies and laminated them so they could not only be ‘present’ at the event, but to also get ‘their pictures’ taken with the race truck.
“We decided that if they couldn’t be at the conference with the truck, we were going to take them to Iowa for the race,” Peck said. “So we are putting their pictures on the dash of the truck for that race.”
With the children from the Arthritis Foundation on the truck and his family standing behind him as part of his race team, Peck hopes to leave his own legacy in the Coca Cola 200 at Iowa Speedway. At present, however, Peck is not quite sure what that legacy will be.
“I have tried to give myself expectations on one hand,” Peck said. “And I’ve tried to keep myself from having expectations on the other hand.”
“We tested and I was extremely pleased with the Truck,” Peck continued. “But just to get the ball rolling and get out there, part of me says I need to stay realistic, qualify and run hard to get a foot hold for the next race.”
“But the other part of me, the racer, knows that once the green flag drops, it will be about three seconds into the race that I’ll forget about that, put it into kill mode and away we go,” Peck continued. “No matter what I expect, once the green flag drops, it’s an all or nothing deal.”
