February 17, 2003

Two Separate Cautions KO Bill Lester’s Chances at Daytona

After posting an amazing lap in qualifying on Tuesday afternoon everyone on the No. 8 Dodge Dealers Team was pretty excited about their chances on Friday for a solid run. But things began to go wrong even before they started the race. On Thursday morning during final practice, a piece of rubber off the track got into the carburetor and the engine shut down in a pack of trucks. The subsequent stalling of the engine created a log jam and the No. 15 truck ran into the back on the Dodge Dealers Ram damaging the tail of the truck. The team spent the rest of the afternoon on Thursday fixing the truck.

On Friday morning, Bill Lester and the team still had high hopes of a solid finish despite what had happened the day before. When the truck rolled off to take the green flag no one knew what would happen next. After running among the fastest trucks all week long, the ignition box failed on lap two of the event forcing Lester to switch to the backup box, but not before losing the lead draft.
Luckily, Lester and the team caught a break when the caution flew on lap two and they were able to catch up to the field. When the green flag fell to restart the race, Lester wasted little time getting back to the front. In fact, it took only 23 laps and Lester was back up to 13th position in the running order.

Then on lap 29, the caution flew again, and on the next lap, Lester pitted for tires and fuel on the No. 8 Dodge Ram. He had a little trouble getting into his pit stall and that cost the team a few seconds on pit road. When the race restarted, Lester began to battle his way back into contention when his bad luck returned. Exiting turn two the No. 1 truck and the No. 2 truck both crashed and showered debris everywhere. Some of the debris from the accident sailed under the front of Lester’s truck damaging the front bumper. The team pitted twice to fix the damage and change tires, but unfortunately the front end was torn up in such a way that the team could not get it completely fixed. That meant that Lester would have a handful driving it the rest of the way.

On the restart, Lester fell to the back of the pack and tried to just finish the event on the lead lap. But in a final cruel slap to the team, as Lester was exiting turn three a tire went flat sending him spinning. It appeared that Lester had saved the truck, but as he came to a stop at the bottom of the track the No. 31 truck slammed into the side of the door ending the team’s day. Lester was credited with an 18th place finish.

“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am,” said Lester. “We had a great truck all week and just nothing went right from the start. It just wasn’t our day. I don’t know what to even say about today. It may take a few days for it to all sink in, and then I can tell you what all I felt. I am happy with how well the team worked together all week though. Danny (Rollins) really has everyone and everything running smooth. It shows me what this year will bring. Well, we’ll take a few weeks off here now, and we’ll get back after them in Darlington next month.”

Driver: Bill Lester, No. 8 Dodge Dealers Dodge Team
Starts Pole Wins Top Fives Top Tens Earnings Points Position
1 0 0 0 0 $ 15,165 18th

Race-by-Race Run Down:
Location Start Finish Laps Status Money Won
Daytona 8 18 97 of 106 Accident $ 15,165
Darlington (Next Event)
Totals 97 of 106 (91.5%) $ 15,165

NEXT EVENT: Craftsman 200 at Darlington Speedway in Darlington, South Carolina on March 14, 2003. The event will be televised live on SPEED Channel at 4:00 PM Eastern Time.