Ragan crashes in practice, still feels like a contender

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Despite wrecking his primary No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford in Saturday morning's first practice at Martinsville Speedway, David Ragan still feels he has a shot to win Sunday's TUMS QuikPak 500.

"Oh, absolutely we can still win at Martinsville," Ragan said. "We started in the back at Bristol [in August] and finished 10th, and ran as high as sixth or seventh. We'll have a car that can win and a pit crew that can win and it'll be all about not getting caught up in somebody else's wreck and me not making a mistake throughout the race that'll hurt our chances."

It's a remarkable transformation for Ragan, who when he made his second career start here in October 2006 was called "a dart without feathers" by then-defending Cup champion Tony Stewart.

With only 69 career starts heading into Sunday's sixth race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Ragan has six top-fives this season and narrowly missed qualifying for the Chase in only his second full season.

"Obviously everybody's a rookie to start with and it all depends on how quickly you can learn and adapt to the different racetracks and to the competition," Ragan said. "We feel like we've adapted well and we've made progress, though obviously, from wrecking my car [Saturday] we're not perfect yet.

"I've still got some things to learn and I feel like I've still got some more progress to make to be a championship contender. But we're sitting here [13th in the standings] in some pretty good company and we haven't gotten here by just a fluke and being lucky -- we've been good a lot of weeks.

Ragan leads the unofficial "Chased-out" standings for drivers not in the Chase during the 10-race playoff, and after all of Friday's track sessions were rained-out, proved how good his car was when he clocked the third-best lap in the first practice.

The bad news came when he crashed in Turn 1 midway through the session.

"I just made one mistake and now we've got to go to a backup car," Ragan said. "I drove in a little bit too deep getting into Turn 1. I was just trying to drive as hard as I would in the race to try and give good feedback and just made a mistake.

"I didn't use good judgment on what we had -- we had a real good car. [We] will still be fine. It's gonna be fast. Jimmy [Fennig, crew chief] and the guys always prepare good racecars so, fortunately, there's still no reason why we won't be a contender on Sunday."

That became apparent in final practice, when Ragan turned 52 laps, about three times as many as the 18 laps he ran in the first practice, and was 14th-best on the sheet.

"The backup car's good," Ragan said. "Our primary car was good, but with this [new car] all the cars are the same. You can have a little bit different suspension or geometry but basically, with the old cars you had to have them with the body just in the right place -- but you don't have that anymore.

"We feel like our backup car is just as strong, and I got more laps in it than the primary, so maybe it's even stronger. I feel like we've got a top-five or a top-10 car -- I'm just going to be 30 spots back at the start. But it's going to be fine and it'll be a fun race."

Ragan's team put the engine from the primary car into his backup after final practice, but he'll still have to drop from his 13th position on the grid to the rear of the field for using his backup car. His best Martinsville finish, 11th in the spring, came from the fourth starting position.

The two times Ragan's started worse than 40th here, he's finished beyond 25th, so he knows what he's faced with as he tries to maintain his 41-point edge on Bobby Labonte in the Chased-out standings.

"Yeah, the biggest thing is just staying on the lead lap and between everyone beating and banging and some cautions, we should be able to make it to the front pretty quick," Ragan said. "I just have to drive a super-smart race and just have to be perfect the rest of the weekend, but it can be done."

Ragan feels like his first Cup win could come at any time.

"Texas has been a great track for us, we ran strong there in the spring and so have Phoenix and Homestead," Ragan said. "At Homestead, we finished in the top 10 last year and the Roush cars are always fast there, so we feel like we've got a pretty good shot the last five races to certainly finish in the top five and get some more top-10s; but we feel like there's really no place that we count ourselves out before we get there.

"The Chase is a great thing in the sport and every team elevates itself for the Chase. It's a great thing to be in and we feel like we've put a little bit of pressure on ourselves to finish 13th and we're almost racing like we are in the Chase so next year it won't be a surprise and we'll know how to act once we get there."