Kobalt Tools 500

What a crazy day for Dale! He had the pole but was not able to hang on to the lead and Shrub led the first lap. After a quick caution he stayin the top 5 for quite a while. He started complaining that it was too tight for him, but was able to stay in the top 10 for the first part of the race. At lap 112, Dale gave up his sixth place position and pitted while complaining about possibly having a loose wheel. Lance had the guys make a chassis adjustment and went a lap down. Dale kept saying he felt like one of the tires was loose and so the crew set to find out why. They were puzzled by it, and ruled out the tires and rear axle, but still were not able to find out what was causing the problem. I had the scanner on and after the incident between Carl and Brad, you hear the concern in Dale's voice when he asked TJ Majors if Brad was ok and if he got out of the car. TJ said he did, but needed help getting out and was limping a little bit. In the end after both the second green-white-checker, Dale made his way up to 15th and finished the race there. Over the radio, a pumped Lance McGrew said something like, "YEAH MAN! THAT'S THE WAY WE GET IT DONE HERE!" This great finish after a horrible day moved Dale up two positions in the standings which puts him in 13th, one position out of the top 12. Next week is the first weekend off for the guys and on March 21st Thunder Valley will be roaring as the guys head to Bristol.