Bayer Consumer Care Racing Recap

Raines Survives "A Funky Day in Texas"

Fort Worth, TX: After a strong run two weeks ago on the high banks of Bristol and an Easter Weekend opening to recuperate, Tony Raines and the No.33 Bayer Consumer Care Team headed to the lightning fast Texas Motor Speedway for the O'Reilly 300 Busch Series event with intentions of continuing their march up the point standings ladder. However, rain, constantly changing track conditions, and some untimely misfortune would relegate Raines and his crew to a 20th place finish in the Alka-Seltzer car in front of an estimated 130,000 race fans.

During Bud Pole Qualifying on Thursday afternoon, Raines posted a timed lap of 28.546 seconds at an average speed of just over 189 mph to notch a 28th place starting position for Saturday's event. "Obviously, it is not where we wanted to qualify," said Raines. "We actually picked up time from what we practiced this morning, but it just wasn't enough. I feel confident about the way the car will perform in race trim and am looking forward to having a good finish here on Saturday."

Saturday would turn out to be both a long day on and off the track for the No.33 team as rain delayed the start of the O'Reilly 300 nearly three and a half hours. After two hours of track drying, Jeff Green led the field to the green flag under threatening skies shortly after 4:30 pm. During the early part of the race, Raines patiently worked race traffic in an effort to get a good feel for how the car was responding to the rain-washed racing surface and what changes could be made to improve the car under NASCAR's mandatory caution flag on lap 40.

With the yellow flag being displayed to the field on lap 40, Raines hit pit road to the attention of Crew Chief Michael Kadlecik and the Bayer Consumer Care team. "I'm a little tight coming out of turn two," said Raines as he made his way down pit road. "I can pull up on them, but I just can't keep the nose down to complete the pass." In response to his comment, Kadlecik elected to make a slight air pressure adjustment to try and help Raines' pushing problem out of the turn. After a quick 17.6 second stop, Raines exited pit road in the 22nd place position with four fresh Goodyear tires and full tank of gas.

On lap 54, Raines was running in the 20th place spot when driver Lyndon Amick lost control of his car directly in front of Raines in turn two. The accident, which collected six cars, was highlighted by the No.99 car of Michael Waltrip that was launched onto its roof and sent sliding down the backstretch. Raines had as bird's eye view of how the accident started but was already out of harms way by the time the fireworks started. "Lyndon was sliding down the banking and I just missed him to the inside (Raines made a quick evasive move to the apron to avoid the sliding No. 26 car) and I looked in the mirror and I seen Michael (Waltrip) hit him, but I didn't realized he had rolled over," said Raines. "I just got a lucky break there. We could have easily ended up in 41st or 42nd like Waltrip did."

The race restarted on lap 65 with Raines running in the 18th position. Over the next 30 laps, Raines managed to race his way into the 15th place position while running lap times equivalent to those cars running in the top-ten. The preferred line through the corners was the bottom groove since the rain from the previous showers had washed away the majority of the rubber that had been built-up on the track. Passing presented a challenge for any driver no matter how strong their car performed. "The track is real fast and it is hard to pass out there," said Raines. The car was little tight, so that made it even harder." On lap 95, Raines and the Bayer Consumer Care team caught the break they needed to fix the cars tight condition when rookie driver Kasey Kane spun through the front stretch grass coming off of turn four and brought out the fifth caution of the day. With rain looming in the close vicinity, Raines came to the attention of his crew for a routine stop with the needed adjustments. As the Bayer Consumer Care crew went to work on the No.33 car, a problem with the lug nuts on the right front tire proved costly as the team lost six positions on pit road and entered back onto the track in the 20th place position.

Under the caution, rain began to sprinkle the speedway until lap 115 when heavy downpours forced NASCAR officials to call the race due to weather. Raines finished the day in the 20th place spot due to the untimely misfortune on the final pit stop. Jeff Purvis was declared the winner of the O'Reilly 300 rain shortened event.

"We tightened the car up a little bit from 'happy hour' to the race," stated Raines. He continued, "The car was a little tight, but it wasn't terrible. I was planning on staying out of trouble and moving up a few spots. We had moved up to 15th when we had that caution and had some trouble in the pits. We come out 20th and the race went to completion due to the weather and that's what you got. Just a funky day in Texas. I am sure we could have worked on the car and made it a little better, it just wasn't where we needed to be to have a top-five."

Raines 20th place finish puts him 16th in the overall Busch Series point standings after just six of 32 events. Raines still sits just 74 points out of tenth place in the points as the Busch Series heads to the Nashville Speedway on April 13th.

Events of the Week

On Wednesday, Tony Raines gave his time to support the efforts of the Speedway Children's Charities by participating in their annual Texas Golf Tournament to benefit a number of charities in the state of Texas. Raines had a number of good shots including one drive that covered over 315 yards. The highlight of the day was one participant who scored a hole-in-one to win an Indian Motorcycle valued at nearly $24,000.

In addition, Bayer Customers from the Texas area were present on Saturday to take in the events of the Busch Series race. The group, which received over an hour long meet and greet visit by Tony Raines during the race's rain delay, enjoyed the food, festivities and atmosphere of the Texas Motor Speedway Club that overlooks the TMS racetrack. A number of VIP guests including Rich Ehrmann, Reese Fitzpatrick, and Rachel Meuleman were also in attendance and representatives of Bayer Consumer Care.