David Ragan staying in line
Even before last Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race started, David Ragan tried to make the best of a bad situation. Road courses have been a problem for the 23-year-old driver, and this race was no different.
Ragan crashed his best car during practice, was forced to start at the end of the grid and finished 30th - hardly the kind of effort his team needed as it tries to rally into the Chase for the Championship.
Ragan could have been crushed by the finish, especially because the playoffs start in four weeks. But he has accepted the upcoming challenge, starting with this Sunday's 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway, with his boyish smile and endless optimism.
The driver from Unadilla, Ga., has a different, if not refreshing, way of doing business. He's unusually polite and always direct. In a sport filled with agents and handlers, Ragan still prefers a simpler approach: If you want an answer, just ask.
"David Ragan is who he is because of my mom and dad,"
Ragan said. "I'm a hard worker. I enjoying tinkering on old cars and enjoy riding the tractor. I get that from my dad. I'm a neat-freak. I'm too nice to people. I like to keep things clean. I get that from my mom."
"Because of my mom, my dad and my brother, Adam, I am who I am. I'm a down-to-earth country boy from Georgia who's got a cool job. I love what I'm doing, and I get a paycheck for it every week."
Ragan's development as a Sprint Cup driver has been just as invigorating. Less than two years ago, Tony Stewart called Ragan a "dart without feathers"
after he was in the middle of several accidents in Martinsville, Va. - in just his second career Cup start.
NASCAR responded by restricting Ragan's license to slower, smaller tracks. Ragan accepted the criticism with humility and still works to gain fellow drivers' respect.
"Everybody was young at one time,"
he said. "As long as you learn from your mistakes and you try to do a better job the second time around, you can get better. I know what's around the next corner."
Ragan is 14th in the Sprint Cup standings, 89 points from the 12th and final cutoff spot to make the Chase.
Last weekend's race at Watkins Glen didn't work out, but Ragan managed to minimize the damage. And he found solace in knowing the next four tracks are some of his favorites.
"I think we can make the Chase,"
Ragan said. "The weekend at Watkins Glen was the one we had to get through and not lose a lot of points. I feel like we've really picked our game up on all the mile-and-a-half, two-mile racetracks. We've always been pretty good on short tracks."
Ragan, one of five drivers at Roush Fenway Racing, was hurried into one of the most-visible jobs in the sport without a lot of preparation. When Mark Martin left Roush Fenway after the 2006 season, Ragan was pushed into the No. 6 Ford with less than one year of Craftsman Truck and Busch (now Nationwide) Series experience.
"I don't know if it was too much too fast because we've overcome a lot,"
Ragan said. "It was definitely too much at the time. That was a lot of pressure.
"At the time, it was tough. It was wide-open. Ultimately, we overcame a lot of those obstacles. It's made us better racers now. It was tough at first. Now it was the right call. It was one of those deals where you couldn't say, 'No,' or, 'Wait a second.'"
Ragan qualified for only two out of four races in 2006; he finished 23rd in the standings last year with two top-five finishes. Now he's on the verge of qualifying for the Chase - and a chance to win the championship.
"It's amazing how far he's come,"
Stewart said. "When he started, he was a Nationwide driver in the Cup Series. Now he's a Cup driver. He gets it. He's where he belongs."
Roush Fenway teammate Carl Edwards is just as impressed.
"David used to be easy to pass. Now he passes me quite a bit,"
Edwards said. "He's a guy I can lean on. He's really mastering these cars. I think with the limited amount of experience he has, he's done an unbelievable job."
"I didn't realize how little experience he really had. It's spectacular what he's done. A lot of people would agree he's on the verge of being a winner and contending for a points championship."
