Race 2 Win: Busch Silver Celebration 250

NASCAR Busch Series

Busch Silver Celebration 250 - Reed Sorenson Notes

Reed Sorenson, No. 41 Discount Tire Dodge
Gateway 200 presented by Shop ’n Save – Gateway International Raceway – 07.29.06

No. 41 Discount Tire Team Fast Facts:

Great at Gateway: Reed Sorenson has only raced at Gateway International Raceway one time in his young NASCAR career, but it is one time he will never forget as he scored his second-career win at the race track last July after starting from the outside pole. Sorenson took over the lead on lap 168 of the 200-lap competition last year and never looked back. He piloted the No. 41 Dodge over the final 33 laps in commanding fashion to earn his second NASCAR Busch Series win of the 2005 season.

Pattie Extends Contract: Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) announced earlier this week Brian Pattie, who currently serves as crew chief for Reed Sorenson and the No. 41 Discount Tire team in the NASCAR Busch Series, signed a multi-year contract extension with the CGRFS organization. Pattie joined CGRFS in 2004 to serve as the crew chief for the team’s limited Busch Series schedule, and then teamed up with Sorenson in 2005 to run a full season in the Busch Series, competing for rookie-of-the-year honors and a championship. Sorenson narrowly missed capturing the rookie title and finished fourth in the overall standings. Earlier this year, Pattie and Sorenson continued their partnership to make another full-season run in the Busch Series. Altogether, during Pattie’s time at CGRFS he has accumulated 64 starts, three wins, four poles, 17 top-five finishes, and 34 top-10 finishes. His career total as a NASCAR crew chief includes 18 wins and 17 poles.

Where They Are Now: Sorenson scored his second top-five finish of the 2006 season at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday, finishing fourth in the Goody’s 250. The top five elevated Sorenson three positions in the NASCAR Busch Series standings, where he now ranks 13th and just 186 points outside the top 10 with 14 races remaining in the 2006 season. The team stands 16th in the owner standings with a running tally of 2,163, and is just nine steps out of 15th and 101 points outside the top 10.

On the Cup Side: Sorenson and the No. 41 Target Team battled handling woes at Pocono Raceway this past weekend to finish 26th in the Pennsylvania 500 on Sunday. Sorenson and team dropped one position to 23rd in the standings at the conclusion of the Pocono event. They are only 53 points out of 20th and 203 out of 15th heading into the next event at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, August 6. The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series will have this upcoming weekend off, which will mark the series’ last off-weekend before it embarks on a 16-consecutive-weekend stretch that will conclude with the final race of the 2006 season at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla., on November 19.

Rookie Rundown: Sorenson is still third in the NEXTEL Cup Raybestos Rookie of the Year standings with 168 points. He trails leader Denny Hamlin by 55 points. Sorenson has captured rookie of the race honors in four of the 20 races run thus far in ’06 , including Atlanta (finished 10th), Martinsville (finished 12th), Michigan (finished fifth), and Chicagoland (finished seventh).

Chassis: Pattie and the No. 41 Discount Tire team are going racing with chassis #452 for the second week in a row this Saturday. The chassis was run just this past weekend at Martinsville Speedway, where Sorenson raced his way to a fourth-place finish. Before that, the chassis #452 was run at Richmond International Raceway (RIR) in May when Sorenson and team spent their entire weekend practicing, qualifying and racing inside the top 10 until a late hit from another car sent the No. 41 CGRFS Dodge slamming into the outside wall and out of the race. The hit concluded the team’s night just 21 laps short of the finish line in 36th place. They also took the same car to race at RIR in September 2005 and scored a seventh-place finish (started 15th), and then went on to score an eighth-place finish (started fifth) at Phoenix International Raceway that following November.

Q&A with Sorenson:
Sorenson sat down to reflect on his win at Gateway last year: “Last year, the No. 41 Dodge was a great car all night. We were strong in practice. Brian [Pattie] and I knew we would be able to turn in a strong lap for qualifying but I think even we were surprised with the outside pole. Starting from the outside pole obviously gave me a confidence boost but it didn’t take long for me to realize the car was going to be strong. We had some great competition there last year, and will again this year, but I do remember at one point my current NEXTEL Cup teammate David Stremme and I were running one and two. We had a good time and I managed to pass him there to take over second, but it was fun to run with him like that up front. We both had great cars that day.

“It was one of those runs where your car may be a little too tight or too loose, but you don’t want to touch it because it is so close to perfect you don’t want to chance messing up a good thing. We are bringing the same car we just raced at Martinsville because it is just a great car. It was a little loose early on in last Saturday’s run, but really came around. We had some brake chattering, too, but we know that will not be an issue at Gateway because we’re not as hard on the brakes there as we are on them at a shorter track like Martinsville.

“The NEXTEL Cup Series has the weekend off, and although I will be racing it is going to be one of the weekends where I can just focus on the Busch run so it will actually still feel like a bit of a break for me not having to fly between states and racing both on Saturday and Sunday.

“Where we are right now in the Busch standings, a lot can still happen between now and the end of November. We’re not where we were last year, but the last few weeks have been overall good runs for us. Last year at Gateway, we capitalized on some pit strategy, so hopefully we can do that again this year to get a second win in Madison and our first this year.”