(June 12, 2001) It was member appreciation night at Irwindale Speedway on June 9th. There were over 400 members/guests from Food 4 Less on hand to watch Mark Reed race in the Food 4 Less 150 NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Series event. Based on his 5th place finish in the Southwest Series race at LA’s ½-mile super speedway on April 21st and his 2nd place finish in the Winston West Series race on May 12th, Reed was optimistic about the prospects for at least another top-5 finish. “We were really hoping to give all of the members from Food 4 Less something to cheer about tonight”, said Reed after the race. “I’m disappointed we weren’t able to finish higher than 11th place”.
The Food 4 Less Motorsports team had a decent practice session prior to qualifying. They were shown 7th fast out of 31 cars with a best lap of 18.235 seconds. “The car was good on longer runs with old tires”, said Reed. “We never really made an all-out qualifying attempt during practice”. Unfortunately, Reed drew a low number for qualifying and was the third car to make a qualifying attempt. His lap of 17.933 seconds (100.374 MPH) was faster than he ran in practice, but would not put him in the top-10 for the start of the race. “The track temperature made a big difference during qualifying”, said Reed. “Any of the cars toward the end of the qualifying line had a huge advantage due to the cooler track temperatures later in the day”. Reed’s lap placed him 17th on the starting grid.
When the green flag waved to start the Food 4 Less 150, Reed started his move toward the front. He was in 14th place by lap-6 and assumed the 13th position on lap-10 by passing the car of Joe Herold. A battle with Auggie Vidovich Jr. from lap-13 to lap-22 resulted in slight contact that put Reed back two positions. “It was a real dog fight running in that big pack of cars”, said Reed at the conclusion of the race. “There were several times we were running three wide and I was the car in the middle”. Reed was not able to make significant forward progress all night. He moved up to the 12th spot on lap-116 and passed the 54 car of Marc Groskreutz to take over the 11th position on lap-122 where he would finish the race. “The car was tight in the middle of the turn”, said Reed. “Our notes from the two previous races this year didn’t do us much good. This track is so sensitive to weather changes that you almost need to test here prior to each event to have a chance of winning”.
The good news for the Food 4 Less team was that they didn’t have any damage to repair prior to their next Featherlite Southwest Series race on June 23rd at Sears Point Raceway. Reed won the Bud Pole Award at that event in 1997 and finished second there in 1999 and is very optimistic about the chances for a strong run there this year.
