(April 29, 2001) Mark Reed and the Food 4 Less Motorsports team had an opportunity to win their second race of the season from the pole position Saturday in the Pontiac Widetrack Grand Prix 200 at California Speedway. The team won the race at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway from the pole earlier this year. Reed had qualified his Food 4 Less sponsored Pontiac in the number one position by setting a new track record for the series with a lap of 39.649 seconds (181.593 MPH) on Thursday afternoon.
Reed led the first lap of the race, but started to lose positions due to a handling problem with the car early in the race. “The car was tight coming off the turns”, said Reed. “As a result, my crew chief Jerry Pitts planned to have the crew pull a spring rubber out of the right-front spring on the first pit stop”. Reed’s Food 4 Less Pontiac was running in the 9th position on lap 36 when the team decided to pit under green flag conditions on the next lap. As Reed was slowing to enter pit lane, he was tapped from behind and lost control of the car. “I was waving to the car behind me to let him know I was slowing down”, said Reed. “He must not have seen my hand signal”. At first, Reed’s car spun down into the grass. Then it came back across the track making slight contact against the outside wall with the nose of the car. “We were fortunate that we didn’t make contact with any other cars”, said Reed. “It could have been a real disaster for us in the points”. The Food 4 Less Pontiac sustained only cosmetic damage to the front end. The crew was able to beat the nose of the car back out while making repeated pit stops during the caution period. When racing resumed on lap-43 Reed was running in 17th place, one lap down to the leaders. The second caution of the day came on lap 57. The Food 4 Less team was able to do additional work on Reed’s car that made it better for the last portion of the race. After coming back into the pits to top off the fuel tank on lap 60, Reed restarted the race in the 19th position. He was able to make steady improvement and was shown in 14th place by lap 65. Reed moved into 13th place on lap 81 when Eric Norris made an unscheduled pit stop while running in 2nd place. Even though Norris eventually got back by him on lap 89, Reed was still able to move up another position and finished the race in 12th place.
Reed dropped to second in the Winston West Series points standings as Austin Cameron moved into first place by 16 points after his 3rd place finish Saturday. “The Food 4 Less Motorsports team definitely came up short, but this team never gives up”, said Reed after the race. “This is just a bump in the road. If this is the worst luck we have this year, we’ll be fine”. Reed increased his lead in the Rookie of the Year standings over Johnny Borneman who finished the race in 14th place.
