After qualifying in the top 20 for the Inaugural John Deere 250 race at Talladega Superspeedway, Scott Lagasse carefully maneuvered his way around the 2.66-mile-oval before his engine expired on lap 33 ending his afternoon. 

“The oil started spewing out of the truck and it got all over my tires and caused me to spin,” Lagasse said on top of his teammate’s pit box while he watched a few laps of the remaining race.  “I was gearing down and felt a lot of heat coming up on the floor and realized my Hemi Dodge had caught on fire.  Then the oil caused me to spin in the grass and that put the fire out.  So we brought it back in the garage and ended our day.  It is disappointing because we didn’t get a chance to do much.  I lost the draft there at the beginning trying to get with my teammates but then the caution came out and saved us all.  After that we didn’t get much time to see what we could do.  We are slated to race again in Atlanta and I’m sure that will be a great track for us.”

No. 04 Hemi Dodge Race Recap

• After attempting his two-lap qualifying stint at Talladega Superspeedway on Friday afternoon Lagasse picked up significantly from his practice times by touring the superspeedway in 53.741 seconds at a speed of 178.188 mph garnering his spot of 20th on the starting grid. 
• Then in the opening laps of the race, Lagasse radioed his Crew Chief Bob Bissinger that his water and oil temperatures were elevated because the track had a ton of trash on it.  Lagasse said, “When we are running with the pack my temperatures are getting higher and higher, but when I drop back they cool off.”
• Lagasse laid back to cool his Dodge and get away from the melee that was happening during the early laps of the race.  He joined teammates Bobby Hamilton Jr., and Chase Miller at the back of the field.   
• Then on lap 22 the first caution came out for debris in turns three and four.  The team utilized the time to clean off the front grill and give the driver four fresh Goodyear tires and top off the Dodge Ram with Sunoco fuel.  The grill had a piece of windshield tear-off stuck to it which caused the temperature gauges to elevate.
• Following the restart Lagasse was running with the field in famous Talladega fashion, sometimes three wide in the turns, when on lap 33 his engine expired.  Lagasse did an excellent job not getting any other competitors caught up in his oil spill even when the oil caused his Dodge to spin around itself.

Mark Martin won the Inaugural John Deere 250 at Talladega Superspeedway in front of a fantastic crowd of 100,000+. Mike Skinner, Ted Musgrave, Todd Bodine and AJ Allmendinger followed in the top five.