FONTANA, CA -- Butch Gilliland brought the #1 Ralphs/Food 4 Less Ford Taurus across the finish line in 6th place on Saturday afternoon, in the California "200" race at the California Speedway in Fontana. This jumped the team up into the Top Ten in the championship points race.

The Ralphs/Food 4 Less Race team brought a brand car to the race track this past weekend, to compete in the NASCAR Winston West race on Saturday. Little did they know how fast this new car was really going to be.

"This car is fast", said Gilliland. "This is going to be a good car."

After only 10 laps in the new car Gilliland turned the 2nd fastest lap of the day on Thursday afternoon, prior to qualifying for Saturdays race. The team qualified on the forth row turning the 7th fastest lap in qualifying.

"We only have 10 laps on this car", said Butch after qualifying on Thursday. "The race track was pretty cold and I didn't want to wind up in the wall. We could have qualified better, but I didn't want to push it."

Friday brought rain to the race track and kept the team from taking their new race car out on the track for a final practice before the race.

"It would have been nice to have been able to get out on the track before the race",said Butch. "We had a top 5 car, but didn't have enough time in the first practice to work on our race set up for Saturday." The team had to make a couple of unscheduled pit stops in the race in order to get the car dialed in, but charged to the front after each stop, making for a great race for the fans. Butch consistently ran the same lap times as the leaders throughout the race, but just couldn't get through the traffic in the end.

The team will now head to Colorado Springs for the King Soopers "150" Sunday May 16th. The Fontana race will be shown this Sunday May 9th on ESPN2 at 7:00 am.

Source: Ralph's/Food 4 Less Racing Team
Posted: 5/6/99