A Short Day in Kansas Still Shows Progress for BACE

After piloting his No. 74 Staff America Chevrolet into the top 20 at Dover International Speedway just one week prior, Tony Raines and the BACE Motorsports Team headed to Kansas Speedway with their sights set on another competitive run in their current Winston Cup campaign. 

Raines looked to make his fifth career Winston Cup start at the 1.5-mile facility in Sunday's Protection One 400.  After starting the Winston Cup race in Dover from the 42^nd position, Raines drove his Chevrolet into the top-20 in just 130 laps - consistently clicking off times in the top-15 as he worked his way through traffic. The run at Dover proved a step in the right direction for the BACE Motorsports Team as they continue to prepare for a full-time 2003 Winston Cup effort.

Raines did not stand far off the learning curve from his 45 other competitors as this is just the second year the Midwest track has been included on the NASCAR Winston Cup schedule.  In addition, Raines and company tested their Busch Series and Winston Cup machines at Kansas just three weeks prior to the event.  So when the No. 74 stood 21^st on the leader board after the completion of practice on Friday, no one from the BACE camp seemed surprised.

The knowledge gained during the test and practice sessions transferred to Raines' second strongest Winston Cup qualifying effort to date.  The No. 74 would make its attempt 44^th out of a total 46 cars.  With a fast lap time of 30.904 seconds, the No. 74 would hold the 23^rd position eventually dropping to the 25^th starting spot after drivers John Andretti and Kurt Busch both posted faster qualifying lap times.

"It was a good, smooth lap," Raines said.  "I wanted to be sure that I didn't overdrive the car at all. The car felt good and I was able to put it down on the bottom of the track going through the turns.  I'm happy with the lap.  We have made a lot of progress as a team on the Cup side over the past couple of months. The credit goes to the team on this one.  They put a great car under me."

Carrying momentum from the strong qualifying effort and a top-five finish in the No. 33 Chevrolet in the Busch Series race on Saturday, Raines looked forward to the 400 mile event on Sunday.  With the drop of the green flag, he charged the Staff America Chevrolet from the 25^th position into the top-20 in just five laps radioing to his team that the car felt good.  Unfortunately, the progress made by the Staff America Chevrolet would be brought to a sudden stop when on lap seven the left rear tire on the No. 74 came apart.  This caused the No. 74 to spin making contact first with the No. 36 machine, eventually spinning hard into the outside wall. 

"It's disappointing," Raines said. "The car felt great during the first couple of laps, actually as good as the Busch car felt on Saturday so I was looking forward to moving up through the field.  The car got really loose all of a sudden and then the tire came apart.  I'm not sure if I ran over something out there but whatever the reason we lost a good race car and unfortunately some other cars got caught up with us."

"Even though we didn't get to turn really laps today, this weekend still continued the building of our Cup program.  We had a good car here today.  It felt better than the car at Dover last week so we're making strides and that's the goal right now."

With the damage to the No. 74 too severe to return to the track, Raines would finish the Protection One 400 in the 41^st position remaining in the 46^th position NASCAR Winston Cup owner points.