LONG POND, Pa. (August 4, 2008) – It took Elliott Sadler and the No. 19 Best Buy Dodge team less than one lap to experience a little tough luck early in the Sonoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway.
Immediately following the start of the race, the No. 29 car of Kevin Harvick spun out causing drivers immediately behind him to brake hard or take evasive action to avoid a serious collision. The No. 19, which started 29th, was just such a car. Sadler, attempting to avoid the situation, locked up his front brakes and flat spotted the tires forcing the team to make a precautionary pit stop to potentially avoid further damage later in the race. Sadler returned to the racetrack in 39th following the pit stop.
In order to make up track position following the first lap incident, the Best Buy team attempted a two tire pit stop during a caution on lap 20. When green flag racing resumed, the No. 19 Best Buy Dodge found itself running in the top-15.
Several laps later Sadler radioed the team that the car was "tight in the center and loose on exit" of the 2.5-mile triangle-shaped track and immediately began to lose track position.
Under caution on lap 65, the No. 19 team tried another two-tire stop seeking to gain track position. They were able to restart in the sixth position – their highest position of the race.
Again, Sadler radioed the team that the car was "really loose" and the tires were not good early in a run, but got better after 10-15 laps. By lap 80, the No. 19 had fallen back to 20th position.
The red flag waived on lap 131 causing a 41-minute delay due to rain. When the green flag waived to resume on-track action on lap 134, Sadler found himself in the 32nd position.
A quick caution followed on lap 138 when the No. 78 and the No. 15 cars were involved in a wreck on the backstretch. The No. 19 elected to stay out due to a recent pit stop, while others came in for service. The Best Buy Dodge was able to restart in the 26th position.
On the very next lap the No. 19 brushed the wall and fell back to 38th position. Sadler was able to continue despite the minor damage and race his way back to the 20th position by lap 165.
A green flag stop on lap 166 caused the No. 19 to again fall back to the 35th position, but shortly after began running some of the quickest lap times on the track. By lap 185 Sadler found himself back in the top-20. However, with less than one lap remaining the Best Buy Dodge experienced its final setback of the day when it ran out of gas resulting in its eventual 27th place finish.
ELLIOTT SADLER QUOTES
On the early pit stop: "The Best Buy Dodge had a tough day right from the first lap on. We worked on our race package on Friday instead of our qualifying setup because we thought it would rain on Saturday. We were right, but we didn’t qualify as well as we would have liked. That caused us to start towards the back of the field and we just flat spotted the tires on the first lap trying to avoid something in front of us."
On the race as a whole: "We just had one of those days. The car was loose, then it was tight, then it was loose again – we just couldn’t get it locked in. We tried a couple things to see if we could get it dialed in, but we had a hard time with it all day. By the end of the race we were able to make up some ground. I thought for sure we had a top-20 finish in the bag, but we just came up short on gas and we lost some spots right there at the end.
"The guys on the Best Buy Dodge fought hard all day. We never gave up and I just wish we had a little better result to show for it. But now this day is behind us. We’ll go back to the shop and learn as much as we can from it. Now our focus is on Watkins Glen and putting together a strong run there."