Dan Pardus Official Web Site-Press Release

June 12, 2000

THE LITTLE TEAM THAT COULD

Dan Pardus started 11th and finished 12th in the Flagstar 200 at Michigan Speedway, Brooklyn Michigan 6-10-2000.

There's a bigger story than just stating the starting and finishing positions. Racing is a sport of Mega teams with Mega bucks, even in the ARCA BONDO-HYDE Series. This week’s race entries included teams backed by Roger Penske, Dale Earnhardt and Jeremy Mayfield in the race.

Jim and Judie Motorsports is not a Mega Team. The 2000 Chevrolet Monte Carlo was built by co-owners Jim Gardner and Dan Pardus, together with team members Dave Savicki, Ron Utter, Larry Moore and Irv McDougall. The car was completed at 5:00PM Wednesday, then loaded on the transporter and the team headed out for Brooklyn, Michigan. Testing would have to wait for the following morning's practice session just before qualifying.

Teams normally have 2 ½ hours of practice before qualifying for ARCA events. Delays in the inspection line kept Dan off the track until midway through the test session. With only seven laps of practice before qualifying, Dan and the team dialed the car in to capture eleventh place on the starting grid with a qualifying speed of 180.569. Fine tuning on Friday had Dan posting the seventh best practice time.

On Saturday, when the green flag was waved, Dan did another of his patterned “fast starts” and moved into eighth place before Turn Two. An early race caution came and Dan informed the pit the car was set up just fine for race conditions. After the restart, Dan had worked his way up to fifth place when Bobby Gerhart hit the wall on lap 21. When the leaders pitted, a call was made to stay out. As TV announcers, Benny Parsons and Ray Evernham commented, “A courageous call. If the race stays green, they could one-pit the race and Dan Pardus just might sneak in and steal a win.”

On the restart, the lead was relinquished to Tim Steele on Lap 31. Dan kept pace until he pitted on Lap 52 under the green flag. Dan went a lap down on the green flag pit stop, but the leaders would have to pit between laps 70 and 80 If the race stayed green, Dan could regain the lead. A caution came on Lap 64 and the lead group was able to pit under yellow flag conditions keeping Dan a lap down.

For the remainder of the race, Dan ran with the top five cars. Late races cautions kept Dan from regaining his lap back.

Dan stated after the race, “A 12th place finish, one lap down does not tell the story of how good and strong the car ran all day. If things had worked out, we could have finished in the top three.”

Crew Chief, Larry Moore was disappointed. “I made the call to stay out. I gambled and lost.” Larry added, “The car was running good at the time, the tires were good and the set up was right for track conditions. We didn’t need to make any changes, so I thought a one-stop race would give us the advantage. It’s no fun second guessing yourself. I'm just proud of this team. They put a good car on the track, and Dan drove the heck out of it. We’ll get 'em in Pocono.”

Jim Gardner had high praise for the team and all the volunteers. “We’re a small team and we could not make it through the race weekend without the help of friends and volunteers.”

Jim was quick to mention the race day help from the Winston Cup garage. “We had Lorin Ranier, Bill Elliott’s spotter on top spotting for Dan. Mike Hillman of Robbie Gordon’s team sent over his entire race day pit crew to do our pit stop.” Did it help? “Under 20 seconds., you bet it did.”

Next week is Pocono, and with the experience of this weekend...

THIS IS THE LITTLE TEAM THAT COULD………………………….WIN!