(May 7, 2001) Mark Reed and the Food 4 Less Motorsports team were competing for their third win in a row at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon. Reed was the defending champion of the Star Nursery.com 250 and he also won the Winston West Series race there on March 1st. At the end of the day, Reed was satisfied to leave town with a 3rd place finish. “We battled back from being almost 4 laps down early in the race to finish 3rd”, said Reed. “I’m proud of the team for not giving up and salvaging a podium finish”.
Reed’s Pontiac Grand Prix was the fastest car in practice, but qualified 10th for the 250- lap race due to an early qualifying draw. “The track continued to get faster later in the qualifying session”, said Reed. “I knew we weren’t going to have a chance for the pole being the 4th car to qualify”. The bad luck for the Food 4 Less team started around lap-50 when the water temperature gauge started to indicate an overheating problem. There was also a miss in the engine that caused concern for Reed. The crew brought Reed into the pits a few laps later under green flag conditions. The problem was diagnosed as an electrical short in the gauge. During the pit stop the crew changed left-side tires, opened the brake ducts to increase cooling of the brakes, and sent Reed back out 2 laps down. The next problem for Reed was the loss of air pressure in the right-rear tire which caused the car to get extremely tight around lap-80. Therefore, Reed had to make another pit stop to change right-side tires and was almost 4 laps down when he returned to the track. “The car was really fast after we changed tires”, said Reed after the race. “We were able to make up a lap under green before the caution flag came out on lap-165”. Reed pitted under caution and changed right-side tires again. When green flag racing resumed, Reed was turning laps ½ second faster than the leaders. He was able to make up another lap under green prior to a caution flag on lap-235. At that point in the race, Craig Raudman and Eddie McKean were the only drivers on the lead lap. All other cars were at least 2 laps down. Reed moved from 9th to 4th place prior to the final caution which forced a green, white, checkered conclusion to the race. Reed was able to get by John Baker on the last lap to finish the race in the 3rd position. “Congratulations to Craig and the Yerf-Dog team”, Reed said after the race. “Those guys have had a fast car at every race this year and they deserved to win one”. Reed’s 3rd place finish made it a podium sweep for Victory Circle race cars.
The next Featherlite Southwest Series race for the Food 4 Less Motorsports team will be June 9th in the Food 4 Less 150 at Irwindale Speedway. Prior to that, they will compete in three Winston West Series events, the first of which is the Food 4 Less 250 at Irwindale Speedway on May 12th.
