Patience earns Nadeau season-best second at Dover
By Tim Hipps, Special to Turner Sports Interactive
September 24, 2001
10:14 AM EDT (1414 GMT)
DOVER, Del. -- Jerry Nadeau charged from his provisional 41st starting position to a hard-charging runner-up finish behind Dale Earnhardt Jr. in Sunday's emotional running of the MBNA Cal Ripken Jr. 400 at Dover Downs International Speedway.
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Jerry Nadeau worked his way from the back of the pack to take second place.
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"Last year at this race, we blew a tire and ended up in the wall," said Nadeau, 31, who was making his 10th provisional start of the year. "To come out of here second after starting 41st, you can't ask for much more than that."
As strong as Nadeau's No. 25 UAW-Delphi Chevrolet was, he said couldn't cover the late-race moves of Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet.
"We thought we could've won the race just from our position yesterday in Happy Hour," he said. "We just had such a great race car. But there late in the race, Junior just turned it on. He had a great car."
Even greater than the elation of his runner-up finish was Nadeau's relief to get back on the race track in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on America.
"What happened last week, I think, was a wakeup to everybody in this whole world that anything could happen," Nadeau said.
"Obviously [President] George Bush, in his side of it, will do whatever it takes to regain our freedom. Our hearts and prayers, I think of everybody here, were with everybody in New York.
"We had a lot of firefighters here this weekend, and this was just a good tribute for the fans, New York City and the American people. I'm proud to be an American. I'm not afraid safety-wise. I pay a lot of attention to my race cars and to what we do inside the cars. I think this whole world and everybody's been kind of afraid in the land of the free. Hopefully, we can get that all straightened out and get back to business."
The day began with an outpouring of American pride when country music star Lee Greenwood preceeded grand marshall Cal Ripken Jr.'s emotional pre-race appearance by singing "God Bless the USA" and Tanya Tucker followed with "God Bless America" and "The Star Spangled Banner" as 140,00 race fans waved American flags throughout the grandstands.
"When Lee Greenwood finished his song, I had tears in my eyes," Nadeau said. "Just watching the race fans and everybody waving the flags -- and all of a sudden everybody was doing 'the wave' all through the turns. I was trying to hold back a lot of emotions because we were getting ready to race 400 laps.
"For what happened last week, and then everybody just coming together. This whole place was rocking. There wasn't an empty seat in the house. Everything was sold out, so this shows that everybody is back in action. Everybody supported what we were doing today. It was pretty neat. When Tanya Tucker was singing, I think everybody had a tear in their eye."
Nadeau said tire problems were the only things that slowed his No. 25 Chevy.
"Yeah, we had some right-front tire problems, but my guys were getting hard on me," he explained.
"They told me: 'Nadeau, take care of tires. Take care of the tires.' And I did. I tried my hardest. There were times when I was running my hardest that I was abusing the tires, but I couldn't run nearly as fast as Junior. I tried a few times, but I didn't want to risk my tires blowing out and ruining a good race car.
"We brought it home in second place, and I'm happy."
Nadeau said his key to success Sunday was patience. He worked his way up through the field midway through the race, only to get shuffled back in the pack. Then he gradually worked his way back among the leaders.
On the final restart with seven laps remaining, Nadeau went high on the track and lost ground to Earnhardt Jr., who hugged the low groove.
"I had a good run on him and he spun his tires on the restart," said Nadeau, whose previous best finish this year was third in Atlanta.
"I went to the outside and he closed the doors. So I got to the back of his car and said 'to heck with this, I'm going to drive it in there.' But that didn't help because he drove it in there 10 more car-lengths. He had a strong car. I pulled away from the guys behind me so I wasn't that bad, either. He was just that much better than I was.
"But I think starting 41st and finishing second isn't too damn bad."
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