Raines Indy Homecoming Ruined By Early Race Accident

Date:                      July 29, 2007
Event:                     Allstate 400 at the Brickyard (Round 20 of 36)
Series:                   NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series
Location:               Indianapolis Motor Speedway (2.5-mile oval)
Start/Finish:        11th / 41st (Accident, completed 39 of 160 laps)
Winner:                Tony Stewart of Joe Gibbs Racing (Chevrolet)

An early-race accident caused Tony Raines and the DLP HDTV team to finish 41st in the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Raines, who started 11th in the No. 96 DLP HDTV Chevrolet, and Kasey Kahne were involved in an accident in turn 1 on Lap 39. The damage was bad enough to both cars that neither driver continued in the race.

“I can tell you what Kasey said to me,” Raines said. “I went by him so fast on the outside that it got him loose and made him mad. So he said ‘I figured if I was going, I’d take you with me.’ That’s what he said to me. I guess he’s having a bad day. It’s a frustrating sport and neither one of us want to be racing in the race like this today.

“When you win six races last year and you can’t get out of your own way this year, I can understand the struggles,” continued Raines. “We go though that a little bit more than he does. I just don’t like being the guy he takes it out on.”

After the start of the race, Raines told crew chief Brandon Thomas that his DLP Chevrolet was too tight for his liking. After falling to 21st by lap 14, Raines pitted under caution and Thomas called for a track bar adjustment as well as having a spring rubber taken out of one of the rear springs.

Raines restarted the race 34th, but quickly began picking off cars and was up to 26th before the accident ended his day.

“We were real tight, but we’re we going to get better, for sure,” Raines said. “We started off good and then had a bad pit stop on the first one, but we were moving forward. We caught the 9 car and passed him in (turn) 3 and then I got a little tight off of (turn) 4 and let off and he got beside me again, but then I thought that he had pulled down to let me go around him in turn 1. His car wasn’t handling great I guess. I told you what he told me and that’s all I can go off of.”

The No. 96 fell three spots to 29th in Nextel Cup owner points with 1,722 points. Raines remains 32nd in driver points with 1,599 points.

Tony Stewart won the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard to score his second consecutive victory in 2007 and the 31st of his career. Juan Pablo Montoya, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and Reed Sorenson rounded out the top-five. Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Dave Blaney and Matt Kenseth comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were nine caution periods for 43 laps, with nine drivers failing to finish the 160-lap race.

The next event on the Nextel Cup schedule is the Aug. 5 Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway.  The race starts at 2 p.m. EDT with live, high-definition coverage provided by ESPN beginning with its pre-race show at 1 p.m.