Catchfence

“Qualifying seventh and running Top 5 not enough at Bristol”

Bristol, TN (August 22, 2009) – 25 laps into the Food City 250, BigSpot.com driver Brad Coleman had taken his car from seventh to fifth and felt like he and his Joe Gibbs Racing team had done everything they needed to put themselves into contention for the win. On lap 28, smoke started coming out of the left front tire due to a fender rub inherited from typical Bristol racing, so the team elected to pit during the next caution flag ten laps later to repair the problem.

“Brad did an excellent job of handling the rubbing fender situation for those ten laps and did not give up any space on the track,” noted Crew Chief Dave Rogers. “We knew we had to bring him in to repair the car and were not the least bit concerned about his ability to bring us back through the pack to the front again, so we called for the stop.”

Following a full-course red flag situation only a few laps later, the team brought Coleman back in the pits to work on the damage again and give him four new tires and fuel. Coleman took the No. 20 BigSpot.com Toyota back out on the track in 25th position and had worked his way to 17th in a few short laps when the tire blew, careening him up into the retaining barrier.

“I felt the tire give out and knew I was headed for the wall,” said Coleman. “We had worked really hard on the car in practice to bring it up the charts and got it good enough to qualify seventh and run up front for the first part of the race. We felt like we could contend for the win before the night was over.”

It wasn’t meant to be as the crew pulled the car behind the wall for 70 laps of repair before getting him back out on the track to finish the race in 29th position.

“I’m not sure exactly what happened but understand the fender damage that was cutting into our front tire was more extensive than we originally thought,” said Coleman. “All I know is once again my guys and I missed out on an opportunity. I thank God for my strong faith because we have really been tested lately, and most of it has not been of our own doing. We have consistently qualified and run up front, but not finished off the last piece of our responsibility. They don’t pay us for effort, they pay us for results.”

Coleman is only scheduled to run one more race with Joe Gibbs Racing this season, and that will be the road course of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada on Sunday, August 30.

About BigSpot.com

BigSpot.com is an online service that introduces online users to consumer research where they will have the opportunity to share their opinions in order to influence the products and service of today and tomorrow. BigSpot.com is owned and operated by Offerwise, a Virginia based company that provides offline and online marketing strategy services to the consumer research Industry. Serving the industry since 2006, Offerwise has emerged as a trusted leader in helping market research firms promote their respective online consumer panels to online users worldwide.

- Big Picture Thinking Press Release