This thread is for the articles, press releases, discussions and comments about David Ragan in the 2008 season.
__________________
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
David Ragan, who is coming off a top-15 finish in California, is beginning his second full season as driver of the No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion. He has made just one prior NASCAR Sprint Cup start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of this weekend’s race. Ragan says that things are a little bit different for him now that the rookie yellow stripe is no longer on his car.
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion –
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO YOU TO HAVE THE YELLOW STRIPE GONE?
“One, it means you successfully made it through your first year and you have a job and you’re still around working your second year. But, the things that learned that rookie year just help you so much. We’ve only been through two races so far this year and a few tests, but I can just tell that I’m a lot more calm, I know what’s around the corner, I can make better decisions, and we’re going to be a lot more prepared this year. Last year things happened so fast, you really couldn’t predict what was going to be around the corner. I didn’t know all the answers to the questions – I didn’t even know all the questions last year. So you had to make really quick decisions, and sometimes they were right and sometimes they were wrong. So I think this year what’s going to make or break us in our Sprint Cup car and the Nationwide car, it’s all about making less mistakes than we made last year. So I’m going to know what’s around the corner, I should be better prepared, I’ve worked with these guys before, I’ve been to the tracks before, and I should be better at making decisions than I was last year, and hopefully that just boils down to less mistakes and better runs.”
WHAT DO YOU KNOW THIS YEAR THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW LAST YEAR?
“You’ve always got to prove something, when years ago you were trying to do spectacular to catch an eye of a team owner where you could get a chance at a ride in one of his race cars. And now you’re in and just have to do the right things to stay here. It’s all about consistency. We’re not necessarily looking at the next race; we’re looking at six months from now and one year from now, so we’re looking into the future and certainly we are taking it race by race, but we’re doing things now to make us better six months from now. So, just a few simple things, like how hard you can push the car on new tires; what a car does from four o’clock in the afternoon to six o’clock in the evening; what a late draw means; what two tires, getting on and off pit road – a lot of things like that where you’ve had a little bit experience with but it just takes a lot longer to perfect – and I still haven’t perfected yet, but we’re a lot closer than we were a year ago.”
A YEAR AGO, YOU HAD NEVER RACED AT LAS VEGAS. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GO TO A TRACK EVEN JUST ONCE BEFORE?
“A lot. Hopefully, we’ll be able to unload faster, we’ll be able to make more practice laps, I’ll be able to give the crew chief more information, where last year we had to rely on our teammates’ information and some of the different past years’ notes and different things, where now I should be able to predict: I know what the car is going to do in the evening or what it’s going to do late in the run. It’s got this feel, so we need to make this adjustment. And so I think as a combined effort with my team and myself we should have a better idea on the right and the wrong things to do. It’s all about not making mistakes, and finishing races and getting points every week.”
HOW’D YOUR TEST AT LAS VEGAS GO?
“The test went well, but we did tear up the one car the first day, but when we tested our second car, the second day and at California, I felt overall really happy. We went back to the shop and made a few adjustments. I should be better going back and the car should be better, and I think that there is no reason that we can’t unload better and qualify better, and finish in the top-10 or top-15 at just about any track we go to.”
ROUSH FENWAY RACING HAS DONE VERY WELL OVER THE YEARS AT LAS VEGAS, BUT THIS A NEW CAR THIS YEAR. ARE THERE ANY ELEMENTS FROM THOSE OLD WINS THAT COULD TRANSLATE TO NOW?
“I don’t believe so, because the track has changed and the race car has changed. I think the only thing would be re-living some of those good moments will just add a little extra confidence and know that we can do it and that we’ve been there and done that. Maybe the engines are probably the only thing that haven’t changed over the past three or four years since the Roush cars were dominant there a couple of years ago; they’ve torn up the place and re-paved the track. We’ve got a completely tire and a completely different race track, so as far as the notes from years past, that’s just all something to sit back and talk about.”
This Press Release and any images that are used,
are used with permission. Do not duplicate or
redistribute in any form without permission or credit.
__________________
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Don't know if anyone saw this story or not, but it is about David Ragan and his brother. Here is a link with a video of the story. It is sooo sweet and awesome!!
Don't know if anyone saw this story or not, but it is about David Ragan and his brother. Here is a link with a video of the story. It is sooo sweet and awesome!!
Thanks for posting this link, Sweetie! It made me cry, and made me even more of a David Ragan fan!
Quote:
Originally Posted by gordonfan1989
Cant say enough about this guy. Posible chase you think?
I sure do hope so! We meet David Ragan in Atlanta and he was so nice to us! It made me his fan. He was just so sweet and treated us like we were so important! I want David to get to the top of this sport!
__________________
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
David Ragan has shown consistent improvement in his second year in Cup
DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer
Friday, May. 02, 2008
Ragan's father, Ken, started 50 races between 1983 and 1990 in NASCAR's top series. He won $210,180 in those races - or about $57,000 less than David did for finishing 42nd in this year's Daytona 500.
The 22-year-old second-generation driver has already won more than $6 million in just 47 career starts, and that number could grow rapidly if the driver of the No. 6 Fords for Roush Fenway Racing continues to improve at his current rate.
David Ragan has finished better in each of the past eight races this year than he did in the same events during his rookie season. Only at Daytona, where he crashed out early this year after finishing fifth in 2007, has he had a worse result.
Ragan had his best finish this year Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, coming home fourth in the Aaron's 499. It was the second-highest finish of his Cup career, and this weekend he returns to the site of the best. Ragan finished third at Richmond International Raceway in September.
Ragan was frustrated after the race at Talladega because he said it was hard to find any drafting partners when it came time to potentially make moves late in the restrictor-plate race. Jimmy Fennig, the veteran crew chief who's working with Ragan, echoed that.
"He's doing a heck of a job," Fennig said of his young driver. "He's for real. Just if somebody would realize it and help him out there once in a while, we might've won that race."
Ragan won't need as much help to have another good finish Saturday night in the Crown Royal 400. Racing on the three-quarter mile oval is about as different from running the 2.66-mile Talladega track as you can get.
"Richmond is an awesome racetrack," Ragan said. "I love racing on Saturday night, racing underneath the lights. That's always been one of my favorite racetracks, growing up watching, because you could pass on the outside and you could run the bottom.
"At 400 laps it's a good length; it's not long race where you have to get out there and ride for a certain amount of time. You can race the whole race."
Ragan found himself in heady company late in last fall's Richmond race, finishing behind Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart and just in front of Jeff Gordon.
Nine races into the season in 2007, Ragan was 25th in the Cup standings. This year, he's even with Brian Vickers for 15th in the standings and is only 35 points outside the top 12.
Ragan certainly has more experience on short tracks. He began racing at age 11, running "bandolero" cars built by 600 Racing. His father is general manager of that Harrisburg, N.C.-based company, which also builds cars used in legends racing.
Then again, Richmond is a giant step up from a quarter-mile legends track.
"Richmond is a short track that you can go fast on, definitely," he said. "You've got to take care of your brakes, and you've got to take care of your car.
"You just can't get out there and beat and bang, because you'll get yourself in trouble and your car won't perform like it would if it was a clean car. It's really a fun track if you can get your car hooked up."
Stepping up
In his second full season in the Cup series, David Ragan has started better eight times and finished better eight times than he did in the first nine races of his rookie year:
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
11th so far in practice...and with a 3rd place finish at this track last yr for him...could this be the race that gets him into his first ever vistit with the chase? We can only hope so.
__________________
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
By Jared Turner
SceneDaily Staff Writer
Sunday, May 11, 2008
DARLINGTON, S.C. – David Ragan appears to be a vastly improved race-car driver.
The most telling evidence yet of that: a fifth-place finish in Saturday night’s Dodge Challenger 500 at tough and tricky Darlington Raceway.
“That’s an awesome run,” said the second-year Roush Fenway Racing driver after scoring his first top-five finish in three Cup starts at the newly paved 1.366-mile facility. “Whether we were at Daytona, Talladega or Richmond or Bristol, that would be great, but to do it at Darlington is just something special.
"Darlington is an awesome track. You’re running laps out there and you think about the guys that made this place famous like Cale Yarborough and [Bill] Elliott and David Pearson and people like that.”
On Saturday, Ragan was also thinking about just surviving. Well before the green flag dropped on the season’s 11th Sprint Cup race, the 22-year-old Georgia native had witnessed multiple drivers sustain damage from contact with Darlington’s walls during prerace practice and qualifying.
Ragan got his own so-called Darlington stripe on Saturday after brushing up against the concrete more than once during the race, but his No. 6 Ford steered clear of heavy damage.
After rallying from a penalty incurred as the result of a commitment cone violation early in the event, Ragan’s reward was an outstanding finish that backed up a fourth-place finish two races earlier at Talladega and lifted Ragan two positions to the coveted 12th-spot in the series standings.
It’s the first time since Ragan joined the Cup ranks full time in 2007 that he’s been in Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup standing at this point in the season.
“It's something to talk about and it's something to enjoy but guess what: in two more weeks everybody's going to forget about this race and be worried about the next one,” said Ragan, who nearly ran down Hendrick Motorsports’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. for fourth in the closing laps. “It can easily slip back and forth. This points deal's pretty tight.
"We don't have much breathing room in front of us and we don't have much behind us. [We're] just fortunate to have gotten some good runs and got a good start to the season.”
__________________
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
David Ragan is on the fast track to success—and respect
By Kenny Bruce
SportingNews
May 30, 1:16 pm EDT
The second race of his Cup career barely in the books, David Ragan found himself being chastised by veteran drivers for his actions on the track. Concerns were strong enough that NASCAR didn’t allow him to compete in the Cup race the next week at Atlanta.
Though Ragan made it through all 500 laps in his second start, the fall race at Martinsville in 2006, he didn’t make any friends.
“The best thing would have been to black flag the 06 and park him for the rest of the day and save half the cautions,” Tony Stewart said, comparing Ragan, then 20, to “a dart with no feathers.”
Tony Raines, driving at the time for Hall of Fame Racing, was a bit more diplomatic though no less forgiving.
“He had a bad day,” Raines said of Ragan. “He ran into a lot of people, so I guess I shouldn’t feel singled out. You just need to iron that stuff out before you get into this series.”
“He’s just got to learn how to race, and this isn’t where you learn how to race,” said Ken Schrader, whose day ended after contact with the young driver.
Ragan attempted to make amends, apologizing to Schrader for their incident and later bidding nearly $6,000 for the right to ride during the prerace with Stewart at a subsequent event. Ragan also did the two best things any young driver can do outside a racecar—he listened and he learned.
Now, one-third of the way into the 2008 Sprint Cup season, Ragan is still learning. But his mistakes have dwindled and his confidence has risen. Through 12 races, Ragan has two top five finishes and three top 10s—those numbers equal his totals for all of 2007—and is 13th in the points, one spot out of the Chase.
Credit car owner Jack Roush for his staunch belief in the young driver’s talent. Credit veteran crew chief Jimmy Fennig, who has an uncanny ability to get the most out of a driver. And credit Ragan, who has settled down to become a smarter, more patient pupil.
“Anything you can do twice you should learn from your first time and do a little better job, and the bottom line is everything is easier,” Ragan says of his team’s improvement.
“A year ago, we would eventually be fast and I would be comfortable and I would run good lap times, but it was probably 100 miles to go in the race and it was a little bit too late. We’ve been qualifying a lot better, so we’ve had better track position, better pit stall selection. So everything has seemed to happen a little easier and a little smoother.”
And because of that experience, he says, there are fewer surprises and fewer situations that he hasn’t found himself in before. “I know what’s around the next corner,” he says.
Ragan is a second-generation racer—his father, Ken, logged 50 career Cup starts between 1983 and 1990, with a best finish of 11th at Talladega in 1984.
As he prepares to eclipse his father’s career starts mark, Ragan says he’s slowly earning the respect of those he competes against each week.
“Just wrecking less and being around more (helps),” he says. “They know your face and who you are. Hanging out with them more in the garage and also running the Nationwide Series helps a lot. Anytime you can get experience racing with your fellow competitors, they kind of get a feeling on how you’re going to race them, and then I get a feeling on how other people are going to race me.”
The result is a little more give and take in the close quarters of the racetrack. A bit more trust. And, under the right circumstances, improved performance.
“It certainly goes both ways,” he says, “but I do get a little more respect out there.
“I’ve certainly got a long ways to go, but we’re on the right track. We’ve just got to keep doing the right things and eventually we’ll be where we need to be.”
Kenny Bruce is assistant managing editor for NASCAR Scene
__________________
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
David Ragan 2008
This Week In Ford Racing: NSCS Driver David Ragan
Steady Progress
Ragan makes Darlington latest sign of improvement
Linear Mode
