RAGAN FINISHES 32ND AT PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
David Ragan and the No. 6 AAA Insurance Ford Fusion

AVONDALE, AZ (November 11, 2007) – After several weeks of disappointing finishes for the No. 6 AAA team, they headed to Phoenix with high hopes of a good finish.

As Ragan drove out of turn two during the first lap of his qualifying session on Friday, the back end of his AAA Fusion broke loose and caused him to make contact with the outside wall. Although it did not cause any severe damage to his race car it did slow him down and after all 49 cars had qualified Ragan was set to line up 41st for the start of the Checkers Auto Parts 500 on Sunday afternoon.

The 312-lap event began at 1:30pm local time. Ragan immediately started to charge to the front and on lap 13 he contacted his crew chief, Jimmy Fennig, to report that the car felt pretty good.

Ragan came down pit road under caution on lap 26, for four tires and fuel. He gained one position while on pit road, returned to the field in 30th place and gained two more positions when the green flag dropped again on lap 28.

Ragan continued to move toward the front and was running in 19th position when the caution flag came out on lap 86. He radioed to his team that his car was a little “tight” through the center of the turns and a little “loose” at the exit of the corners, but still drivable.

Ragan came down pit road on lap 87 for four tires, fuel and an air pressure adjustment before returning to the field in 18th place.

After the restart on lap 90 Ragan dropped back a few spots and was running in 22nd place on lap 96 when the No. 10 car pinched him against the curb in the tri-oval causing damage to the aerodynamic splitter on Ragan’s AAA Ford.

Fennig brought Ragan into the pits on lap 97 in an attempt to repair the splitter and work on the right front fender, which was also damaged during the incident. While in the pits Ragan’s front tire carrier, Shelton McCall, was injured when he slipped on a piece of the splitter that had already been removed from the car. He was taken to infield care and later released with minor injuries. Front carrier, Jeremy Dyer, from the No. 99 team filled in for McCall throughout the remainder of the race.

After several more trips into the pits the AAA pit crew finally replaced the missing piece of Ragan’s splitter, but all the time spent on pit road left Ragan a lap down and little to no down force, with the damage sustained.

With the inability to maintain the lap times that he once could Ragan soon fell another lap down leaving him to finish out the day in 32nd position and two laps down.

“I felt like we had a good car to start off with,” said Ragan. “We moved up to the top-15, top-20 there the first couple of runs and were very happy with the car. Then on one of those restarts the No. 10 car obviously didn’t know we were down there. He was just in the middle trying to hang on for dear life I’m sure and we just got run down. I hit the curb going through the tri-oval here and broke part of our splitter this caused us to lose a lot of front down force. We came in and making repairs lost a lap. It’s tough to go fast with a race car when the front end it beat up and when you’re down two laps you have to show a little bit of respect to those other guys racing for a good finish. I thought we had a top-five or top-10 car. You just can’t do anything when you get down two laps in a short race like today.”

Ragan maintained his position of 23rd in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings and is second in the Raybestos Rookie of the Year race to Juan Pablo Montoya.

Ragan will compete next in the season finale, the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 18th. Coverage begins at 3:00PM Eastern on ABC and MRN.