SEASON PREVIEW: Roush Fenway Racing’s David Ragan aims to rebound after disappointing 2009 season
David Ragan plans to focus more on his No. 6 Sprint Cup car this season. // Sam Cranston, NASCAR Illustrated
Sensing a breakout season was afoot last year, some bold prognosticators picked Roush Fenway Racing’s David Ragan to make the Chase For The Sprint Cup.
After all, Ragan barely missed the Chase in 2008 and was coming off a 13th-place finish in the point standings.
Ragan – and perhaps those who predicted his first “playoff” appearance – was unhappy with his 27th-place finish in points. He was the lowest finishing driver at Roush Fenway Racing, which struggled overall in 2009.
“Certainly, it’s not the year we wanted or hoped for,” Ragan said. “Fords were a little slow overall last year, and a combination of some bad racing luck and a few mistakes on our behalf put us where we are.
“We’re disappointed but you can’t change what happened in the past. We just need to recognize our weaknesses, fix them and control the future.”
Ragan is taking more control of his schedule with the decision to focus more on his Cup duties. He won twice in 19 starts last year in the Nationwide Series, but this year the emphasis will be on the No. 6 Cup car.
“We’re dedicated to our UPS team this year,” Ragan said Tuesday on the Charlotte Motor Speedway media tour.
As he enters his fourth full season of Cup competition, Ragan will have a new crew chief in Donnie Wingo, who led former teammate Jamie McMurray to a win at Talladega last year. Wingo has brought members of the former No. 26 Roush team along with him, including several over-the-wall crew members.
“There’s [been] a lot of change over the off-season, which I see a lot of it as good,” Ragan said.
Wingo and Ragan will have to mesh quickly if the team hopes to render last season’s effort – one that produced no top-fives and just two top-10s – a distant memory.
“We should be a top-10 or top-15 team every single week, and the top-10s that you make the Chase with, we haven’t been able to get,” Ragan said. “Any time you’re going through a slump and you can’t get it turned over, you have to mix some things up.
“We just have to keep that upward trend. I feel like myself and the crew chief have to be on top of things with the race car, the engines. It all happens based on the decisions we make. It’s our job to do it. I feel like I’m better prepared than ever, but so is everyone else.”
Ragan’s qualifying efforts – his average starting position last season was 26.9 – will need to improve in 2010. Mired in the middle of the pack, with an average mid-race running position of 21.1, he ran a greater risk of being involved in wrecks. His four DNFs last year – which tied a career-high set in his rookie season in 2007 – bore that out.
“We were just a little off last year,” Ragan said. “You find yourself racing back there in the mid-20s, and that’s where the wrecks happen. You can’t get any momentum going.
“NASCAR Sprint Cup racing is a tough sport, and you have some years that everything happens your way. You miss the wrecks and you make good adjustments over the weekend.”
Ragan and his No. 6 teammates will try to do that and more in 2010.
THE RAGAN FILE
- Best career finish: 3rd (three times; most recently at Talladega, 2008)
- Career top-10s: 19
- Laps led: 33
- Best track: Auto Club Speedway (13.2 avg. fin.)
- Worst track: New Hampshire (28.8 avg. fin.)
- Did You Know: Ragan is the son of retired NASCAR driver Ken Ragan, who made 50 career starts in what is now the Sprint Cup Series.
Coming Thursday: No. 24 Jamie McMurray
