CONCORD, N.C. – The first half of the Coca Cola 600 could be described as a solid day for the Menards/Dale Earnhardt Inc. team.  
 
“It’s a longer race than were used to,” Crew Chief Doug Randolph said.  “But I think that would normally play into our hands since Paul is such a consistent driver and our over the wall crew is just as reliable on pit road.”
 
In the opening 200 laps, Menard raced hard from his 25th place starting spot to stay on the lead lap, even managing to score the Lucky Dog Free Pass to return to the lead lap on two separate occasions.  
 
While the handling of Menard’s racecar created a challenge for the driver of the No. 15 Johns Manville Chevrolet in the early part of the event, the team worked to make the car comfortable.  By lap 164, Menard reported that the car was “really driving good” and asked that the crew make “no adjustments” on pit road.
 
Menard was up to 17th place by lap 223, when the field came down the front stretch for a restart.  Shortly after, the driver of the No. 77 car reported that the No. 15 car appeared to be leaking something on the track.  NASCAR instructed Randolph to get a game plan together to identify the problem. Shortly after, the caution flag flew allowing Menard to come down pit road to survey the issue.  As it turns out, Menard had a piece of debris lodged in his radiator and the crew went behind the wall to repair the damage.  Unfortunately, the damage was too severe and the team had to make the call to end it’s day early.
 
“It seems like every time we have a good car, something out of our control happens to end our chances for a strong finish,” Menard said.  “It’s frustrating, but it’s also promising to see that the speed is there in our cars.  Once we get some better luck on our side I’m sure we’ll start knocking out some top-10 finishes.  As usual, the team did a great job on pit road tonight, so we’ll just head to Dover and do it all over again this Sunday.”