Promising Day for McDowell Goes Up in Smoke

Fontana, February 23, 2009: Michael McDowell and his Pacific Packaging Group team were excited about their prospects for Saturday night’s race in Fontana California and with good reason. McDowell had practiced consistently in the top 10 fastest cars during the pre-race practice sessions and backed it up with a strong 3rd place qualifying run.

As the race began, McDowell reported that the car was extremely tight. He fought the ill-handling car until the first pit stop so that Crew Chief Gene Nead could work on the chassis set-up. “The car didn’t’ want to turn when we started the race. Gene made an aggressive adjustment during the first pit stop, and it made a big difference. The car was just starting to come to me when suddenly there were flames all around me in the cockpit. I was looking forward to burning up the track tonight, but I didn’t mean it literally.”

An oil line was the culprit, an inexpensive part that ended a promising day. Crew Chief Gene Nead reflected on the results, “We had a fast race car all weekend and it’s disappointing to not finish a race due to a mechanical failure. We’ll regroup for Las Vegas. I’m really excited about the car that we’ve built for next week’s race and expect it to be even faster than the car we raced tonight.”

The 36th place finish leaves the JTG/Daugherty team 20th in the points standings.