Ragan Finishes "Disappointing" Sixth at Memphis

Courtesy Rory Connellan

CONCORD, N.C. - David Ragan had a strong race in Saturday night's O'Reilly 200 at Memphis Motorsports Park, but was looking for more. The driver of the No. 6 Scotts Miracle-Gro Ford F-150 was coming off the strength of consecutive top-10 finishes for the first time in his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career, and was looking to continue adding to his successes by scoring a win.

Ragan took the green flag in ninth position, but would drop to 11th by the second lap. The race was quickly halted when the No. 08 truck spun on lap five, causing the first caution flag of the night to come out.
"It's a little snug center off, but the entry is good," said Ragan. "I know it's only been a couple of laps, but that's what it feels like here early on."

The race restarted at lap 11, with Ragan continuing on in 11th. The race would stay green until lap 60 for an incident with the No. 98 truck.

"It's definitely tight in the center, especially on the throttle," said Ragan.

The No. 6 made its way down pit road to the attention of the Scotts crew at lap 63 for tires, fuel and a track bar adjustment. Good work by the crew got the No. 6 back on track for the lap 67 restart in the ninth position.
The race continued under an extended green flag run, letting Ragan work his way to the front of the field uninterrupted.

"It's still just a little tight in the center, that last adjustment helped, we just need a little bit more to get it where we need it to be," said Ragan.

The Scotts Ford showed fifth on lap 168, giving the crew reason to believe that they might contend for the race win at the end of the night. A timely caution would come at lap 175 for debris on the backstretch, bringing the field to pit road for service. Mike Beam (crew chief) made the call for tires, fuel and another track bar adjustment to get the No. 6 to the end of the race. Ragan would restart at lap 182 in the fifth position thanks to a strong stop by his No. 6 Scotts crew.

Ragan did what he could with the remaining laps, but was unable to mount a charge to the front of the field. For the young driver, finishing sixth would be hard to take.

"It's pretty amazing when I'm disappointed with a sixth-place finish," said Ragan. "That just shows you what kind of awesome team that Mark Martin and Jack Roush and everybody at Roush Racing has put together. Erik and I both finished in the top 10 and we had awesome race trucks. What an awesome feeling to see a teammate of ours up there in the top two or three racing hard for the win. We're going to get a win soon in this Scotts Ford. It might not be next week or the following, but we've got some awesome race trucks and Erik and I are having a blast."