Message #2121

[Darnell99Fan]

10-28-2007

DARNELL: Day Ends in Frustration at AMS
~TruckSeries.com Report

What started out as a strong weekend for Erik Darnell and the No. 99 Northern Tool + Equipment team ended in frustration on Saturday afternoon, with the team perplexed as to what happened to their Ford F-150. Darnell had been strong all weekend, but as soon as the green flag dropped, things seemed to go the other way. After trying to make several adjustments to help the handling problems, the driver and crew agreed that a suspected part failure was to blame for their long afternoon.

Darnell took the green flag in the ninth position, and in the opening 10 laps things seemed to be going his way. Darnell then suddenly began to free-fall through the field, but remained silent on the radio. When he finally got the chance to diagnose the situation to crew chief Matt Puccia, he reported that the Northern Tool + Equipment F-150 was "Really, really loose, like a nine on a ten scale." Darnell's slide continued until he was saved by a competition caution that was thrown at lap 30. The No. 99 showed in the 28th position, one lap down to the leaders.

"It's really loose, Matt," Darnell reported to Puccia. "And I've got a vibration in the drive train. I think we've got a problem here," he continued. Darnell came to pit road for tires, fuel, a track bar and air pressure adjustment, hoping that the situation would clear itself up.
Unfortunately, things continued to get worse for Darnell as the laps continued to click off.

Puccia took advantage of an extended caution at lap 44 to bring Darnell to pit road to get a look under the No. 99 Ford. Nothing seemed visually wrong with the truck, so Darnell returned to the track hoping for the best.

Darnell's problems continued, reporting to the crew at lap 85 that "It's so bad, I'm nearly wrecking by myself." Puccia called Darnell to pit road on two more occasions to make more adjustments and make additional attempts to diagnose the problem, but he was unable to make any changes that would have a positive effect on the Northern Tool + Equipment Ford.

Darnell settled for bringing his No. 99 Ford home in one piece, clearly frustrated with his mechanical problems.

"It was a long day for the Northern Tool + Equipment team," said Darnell.
"We made so many changes to tighten the truck up, but it just wouldn't react. With all the changes we made, it should have been pushing so bad that I wouldn't have been able to keep it out of the wall. We think it was a problem with the locker in the rear end. We won't know for sure until we take everything apart and get a better look at things, but that's the only explanation we can come up with. We've had a tough three weeks. Hopefully we can go to Texas next week and have some better luck."

As a result of the 26th-place finish, Darnell and the No. 99 Northern Tool
+ Equipment team fell to the eleventh position in the Craftsman Truck
+ Series
point standings with only three races remaining in the 2007 season. The Craftsman Truck Series races next at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday, November 2, 2007.