Homestead Roughs Up Darnell To End Season Finale With A 31st-Place Finish

HOMESTEAD, Fla. (November 21, 2009) – Today's Ford 300 was Erik Darnell's final shot of capturing victory in 2009. A series of events though beginning with qualifying and continuing through out the race ended any hopes of Darnell driving his No. 6 Northern Tool + Equipment Ford Fusion into victory lane. The No. 6 ended the season finale three laps down and searching for answers to what happened to the second half of 2009.

Darnell came out for Saturday morning's qualifying run looking to put the No. 6 NT+E Ford Fusion on the pole. Crew Chief Dan Stillman and the crew put a lot work into getting the car ready for their run, and Darnell knew they had a great shot of capturing the top spot. Darnell wasted no time getting up to speed hitting his marks through turns one and two, but then trouble struck the No.6 entering turn four. Darnell got loose sending the tail end of the car up against the wall. He was unable to finish his qualifying run forcing the team to roll out the backup car to begin the race from the 41st position.

Over the first seven laps Darnell managed to pick up 12 spots even though he was battling a really loose race car. The first caution came out two laps later and Stillman decided to take a gamble and bring the No. 6 in for service. After a four tire change, fuel and a wedge adjustment, Darnell sped away from his pit stall now having to restart from the 35th position. Stillman's call worked to perfection as the No. 6 climbed up 17 spots over just the next nine laps.

A second caution on lap 22 due to debris gave Stillman the idea to come in for a quick stop just to top off on fuel and make another wedge adjustment. While most of the field was still in their pits making their first adjustments of the race, Darnell was already back out on the track. The No. 6 was now all the way up to fourth when racing restarted on lap 27.

By lap 40 Darnell had bounced back to seventh and was losing ground on the sixth-place car driven David Reutimann. While Reutimann was driving away from the No. 6, Darnell was collected up with three other cars which included the No. 1 of Mike Bliss, the No. 5 of Kelly Bires and the No. 16 of Matt Kenseth; all of which were looking to take spots away from one another. As Bires and Kenseth passed the No. 6, some great hard racing was going on between Darnell and Bliss. The two went side-by-side for several laps with Darnell eventually holding Bliss off.

With the No. 6 NT+E Ford Fusion now just a touch tight, a fourth caution on lap 79 gave way to four tires, fuel and both air pressure and track bar adjustments. The restart on lap 84 showed Darnell in seventh place.

Darnell now in 11th at the midway point of the race was side-by-side with the No. 66 of Steve Wallace, but also had to worry about the No. 88 of Brad Keselowski who was on his back bumper. Darnell held off Wallace, but was unable to do so with Keselowski.

Now in 10th place at lap 127, Darnell's car seemed to be doing well on the long green flag run as he began to march down Keselowski. Seven laps later though Darnell's great run turned sour as he got loose coming out of turn four with the right side of the car sliding against the wall. Darnell got back to the throttle and continued racing. It wasn't but three laps later that Darnell did the same thing again, but this time in turn two caused by a blown tire which was brought on from the incident in turn four. Now with right front fender damage and a flat tire, Darnell had no choice but to come in under the green flag. By the time repairs were made, Darnell was now down three laps and shown in the 32nd position.

His troubles would continue when he would bring out sixth caution of the night on lap 157 after hitting the wall again in turn four. Damage to the car was minimal, but Darnell's night was shot. The No. 6 NT+E Ford Fusion ended the night three laps down and another miserable finish.

"Nothing seemed to go right today. We had a really great shot at the pole and I just over drove it. I knew the car was that good and I just tried too hard. Dan [Stillman] and the guys worked so hard getting the backup ready for the race. We started from the back, but Dan made a couple of great calls early on that got us up front. We had a really nice race going tonight in the No. 6 Northern Tool + Equipment Ford Fusion until I did it again in turn four. I didn't know at the time whether we had a tire going down or not during the hit and that's what got us in turn two. I just hate it for this team. It's been rough the last several months. I just wish things would have turn out differently," explained Darnell.