Race 2 Win: O'Reilly Challenge - Reed Sorenson Notes

NASCAR Busch Series

O'Reilly Challenge - Reed Sorenson Notes

Reed Sorenson, No. 41 Discount Tire Dodge
Texas Motor Speedway – 11.04.06

No. 41 Discount Tire Team Fast Facts:

Meet Reed in Texas: Reed Sorenson will stop by the Discount Tire store located at 2405 Grapevine Mills Circle in Grapevine, Texas from 4:30 to 6 p.m. CT Thursday, November 2, to sign autographs and meet area race fans.

Sorenson has Texas Talent: Sorenson has three Busch Series starts and one NEXTEL Cup start at Texas Motor Speedway (TMS), in which he has never started or finished outside the top 15. In Busch, he has averaged a top-10 performance across the board at the1.5-mile speedway, sitting on the outside pole when he raced at Texas this past April. He grabbed two top-five finishes at the Lone Star State track during his 2005 rookie season (started 15th and finished third in April, started ninth and finished fourth in November). This past April he also started and finished 13th in his NEXTEL Cup debut at the Dallas-Ft. Worth area race track. Sorenson has completed every lap of competition in races run at TMS (904) and he has led a total of 31 laps.

Still Standing Strong: After scoring a steady seventh-place finish at the Memphis (Tenn.) Motorsports Park this past weekend, Sorenson and the No. 41 Discount Tire team maintained their top-10 stance in the Busch Series standings. The team’s running tally of 3,517 helped hold its ninth-place position in the owner standings while Sorenson held on to 10th in the driver ranks with 3,432 points.

Habla usted español?: Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) announced earlier this week its official website—www.chipganassiracing.com—has expanded its online arsenal to include a fully-functioning Spanish microsite located at http://espanol.chipganassiracing.com. The initial Spanish site will work to immediately accommodate the outpouring of Juan Pablo Montoya fans and media that have spiked the website’s traffic number since the Montoya-Ganassi announcement in July. CGRFS plans to incorporate all of its teams in the months to come. Visitors can also access the Spanish site by selecting the “En Espanol” button in the navigation scheme on the team’s homepage.

Montoya to Compete the Remainder of 2006: CGRFS announced earlier this week Juan Pablo Montoya and the No. 42 Texaco/Havoline NASCAR Busch Series team is scheduled to compete in the final three races of the 2006 Busch Series season, including Texas Motor Speedway, Phoenix International Raceway and Homestead-Miami Speedway. Montoya made his NASCAR debut last Saturday in the Busch Series race at Memphis, piloting the No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge to an 11th-place finish after qualifying in ninth place. The 31-year old driver also participated in his first official NASCAR sanctioned test at Homestead-Miami Speedway last week.

On the Cup Side: Sorenson and the No. 41 Target team were pushed up against the outside wall in the early going of last Sunday’s BASS Pro Shops 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. From that point on, the driver and team fought handling issues en route to a 29th-place finish. Still, they maintained their 25th-place spot overall in the NEXTEL Cup standings and are 170 points out of 20th heading into this Sunday’s Dickies 500. Sorenson also still stands third in the NEXTEL Cup Raybestos Rookie of the Year race.

Chassis: Crew chief Brian Pattie and the No. 41 Discount Tire team have selected chassis #556 to run at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. It is the same car the No. 41 team brought to Texas last fall to finish fourth in the November race (started ninth). The chassis’ most recent run was at Kansas Speedway last month when Sorenson and team maintained an average running position of seventh place all day to call it a day just the same (started fourth). In June, the same car helped Sorenson and the CGRFS team average a 10th-place running position the entire 200-lap race at Dover International Speedway before finishing it just the same—in 10th place (started 16th). In 2005, the car was entered in a total of five events, and helped the team score a total of four top-five finishes (at both Dover races, Kentucky and the second Texas race).

Reed, comments about his return to Texas Motor Speedway: “I really like running at Texas. Everyone here at the shop does a really good job putting together the 1.5-mile cars and the finishes we’ve had this year at tracks like that prove they do a good job. Casey [Mears] got a win at Chicago earlier this year and it is another 1.5-miler. We’re also bringing back the same car we ran at Texas this same time last year and managed to come out with a top-five finish. We’ve learned even more since then, so hopefully we can grab a good start like we did there earlier this year. I’ll take another fourth-place finish, but would really like to move up just three more positions ahead of fourth to get that win that has eluded us so far this year.

“I am really looking forward to the last three races because I really like Texas, Phoenix and Homestead. We had a really good test in Florida with the Cup car, so both the Target and Discount Tire teams should be able to wind things down here on a positive note. I’m just glad October is behind me. That was a tough month. That’s for sure.”