Ragan riding wave of momentum with strong start to season

Ragan currently sits in 14th place in the Sprint Cup standings after finishing last season in 23rd.

Posted 4:10 p.m. May 7, 2008 — Updated 4:10 p.m. May 7, 2008

SceneDaily.com

A year ago, David Ragan endured his rookie season, trying to get a handle on NASCAR’s Cup series without getting into any incidents with veteran drivers.

He studied and listened to his experienced Roush Fenway Racing teammates. He’d never seen most of these tracks, he carried the pressure of being the driver that famed No. 6 recently vacated by Mark Martin – and he handled it all quietly.

Although he only finished 23rd in the standings – a performance that was considered respectable before first-year drivers started winning races – and finished second in the Raybestos rookie contest, he had faith in himself and believed that better things were coming.

Clearly, they are.

Ragan has climbed to 14th in the Sprint Cup standings after just 10 races this season – and sits 56 points out of contention for a spot in the field in the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Team co-owner Jack Roush has continually expressed confidence in his 22-year-old driver and continues to seek sponsorship for Ragan’s car for next year (sponsor AAA has already announced plans to leave).

Ragan, meanwhile, has held onto his belief that, with time and a little more experience, he can become a factor in this series.

This season, he’s done just that. Ragan is becoming increasingly consistent on the track. He’s running better week to week and gaining experience by running in both the Cup and Nationwide Series (where he is fourth in the standings).

All of this has helped him keep his confidence intact.

“Certainly I’ve always had a lot of confidence because of the people around me on my race team, and I knew that if we just did our jobs and including myself we could go out and run well,” he says. “I think better runs and finishing races and a higher position in points certainly does add confidence, and it’s all in a circle – running well in the Nationwide Series on a Friday or Saturday night before the Cup race adds confidence, not only for myself but for the team members and everyone.

“We’ve always had confidence in our team. We knew that we could get the job done. It’s just a matter of taking care of the particulars and not making mistakes. We’ve done more of the right things this year, which has led to better runs and more confidence.”

Part of that relates to basic experience on the track. When Ragan entered the Cup series full time, he had not run a full schedule in any of NASCAR’s three major touring series. He simply did not have laps of experience on these tracks. Still, he partnered with crew chief Jimmy Fennig – a man who has helped jumpstart more than one career – and concentrated on soaking it all in.

Robbie Reiser, general manager of Roush Fenway, said that he’s not surprised at all by Ragan’s rally this season.

“I think we saw flashes of brilliance last year, and it just had to get [time on the tracks] – David didn’t have a lot of experience at all,” he

said. “It wasn’t like he ran two years in Busch or three years in truck or any of that. A lot of these tracks he was seeing for the very first time, and a lot of people didn’t understand that. But with the potential that he showed, Jack wanted to give him an opportunity to run in this series, and I think this year he has really stepped up.

“[He’s] done a really good job of finishing races and doing the right things, and I think a lot of credit also needs to go back to Jimmy Fennig and the whole 6 bunch because they’ve done a really good job, as a group, putting that thing together and making it competitive.”

Ragan says that his team focused on qualifying better to get a better position entering the race, something that is helping it finish more consistently week to week.

That’s been a major part of the change in the team this season.

“We would have some good cars on occasion [last year], but qualifying in the back and having poor track position the whole race, we were never in a position to show everyone what we had, so that’s one of the things that we tried to work on harder,” he says. “I’ve just got a better feel for what I need to go fast for two laps. We’ve been doing more qualifying runs, where last year we had been locked into the top 35 in points since day one, so we usually just did all race runs for qualifying practice, and every now and then we’d squeeze in a qualifying run toward the end.”

All of that has Ragan in much better position this year than last. A year ago, the team was thinking about getting more consistent finishes. After the strong start to this season, they are considering the possibility of competing for the championship.

Can Ragan climb from outside the top 20 in the standings to championship contender over the course of one year?

He thinks it’s definitely possible.

“Certainly, I think we have a chance,” he said. “I think a lot of people have a chance of making the Chase. It’s just a matter of what we do with our chance. We’ve got to continue to perform like we have. I’ve got to keep working on not making mistakes inside the race car. I think we’ve got a great pit crew on pit road that we can depend on when I come down.

“Jimmy Fennig has been making a lot of the right calls, so things have just been working our way. We could very easily be 25th in points right now with a couple of DNFs, if things hadn’t have gone our way a few times, and we could have very easily be eighth in points right now or seventh in points, if I wouldn't have had the DNF at Daytona and a couple of bad runs. Anyway, we just have to keep working hard and doing what we know is right. I have to keep running all the laps, not make mistakes and finish races. Ultimately, you can average a 15th-place finish and make the Chase. You just can’t have a bunch of DNFs, so that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Suggest A Correction