RUDD HAS BEST FINISH OF THE SEASON IN CHARLOTTE

CONCORD, NC (May 27, 2007) – The #88 Snickers® Dark Ford Fusion had its best finish of the 2007 season Sunday night garnering a seventh place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. After a weekend culminating with the longest race of the season, Ricky Rudd and the #88 team came into the weekend knowing they had a strong car capable of a top finish. Following an impressive qualifying run on Thursday evening, Rudd and his team decided to take a gamble on gas mileage Sunday night that ended up paying off in the end and allowed the team to finish in the top-ten for the first time this year.

Rudd started the race on the inside of Dave Blaney on row four from the seventh starting position. Rudd’s Robert Yates Racing teammate, David Gilliland, began the race from row ten in the 19th position next to Juan Pablo Montoya. Sunday’s weather was 87 degrees when the green flag flew at 5:52pm EST and found the track temperature at 130 degrees. Bud Pole Winner, Ryan Newman led the field to the green flag and continued to lead for the first ten laps of the evening before losing the lead to Penske racing teammate, Kurt Busch.

The first caution of the evening came on lap 46 after Greg Biffle hit the wall and dropped some debris onto the track surface. Rudd brought his Snickers Dark Ford in for his first pit stop and took on four new tires and fuel. No changes were called for even though Rudd had called in over the team communications that the car felt a little snug going into the turns. Crew chief Butch Hylton assured Rudd that track conditions would keep changing all night and that the car would loosen up as the evening went on and temperatures continued to drop.

There were two laps of green flag racing after the restart until the caution flag once again flew and found 13 cars involved. The incident began when Jimmie Johnson lost the tread off of his left-rear tire at the start-finish line and caused a pile-up going into turn one. Rudd’s teammate, Gilliland was involved in the incident and was forced to limp into the garage for major repairs.

The field restarted on lap 61 but unfortunately another wreck occurred a lap later on lap 62 in which Jeff Gordon found himself airborne after Tony Raines got lose and hit into Gordon. Gordon was then hit by AJ Allmendinger on his passenger side causing Gordon to slam nose-first into the outside wall just past the start-finish line entering into turn one. Rudd restarted in the seventh position as Kurt Busch continued to lead the Coca-Cola 600. Jeff Burton lost control of his car going into turn four and the drivers found themselves under the fourth caution of the night in only 77 completed laps. Rudd and his Snickers Dark Ford jumped up to the third spot on the restart, but the car was becoming a little tight in the center of the turns causing Rudd to drop down to 12th.

Rudd and Hylton spent the next 200 laps of the race focused on the handling of the #88 along with the effects the sun and temperature changes had on the car. Minor air pressure and trackbar adjustments were made throughout the evening but Rudd felt comfortable with his car and kept fairly quiet over team communications. During a caution on lap 289, teams started to cycle though pit stops but Crew Chief Butch Hylton told Rudd to stay out and lead a lap of the race while the race leaders came in to pit. Rudd was scored the leader of lap 292 in which he received five bonus points towards the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series driver point standings.

The final lap of the evening occurred on lap 337 and found Rudd on pit road for a routine pit stop of four tires and fuel. Hylton and the #88 crew asked Rudd to pit one more time before the restart, and on lap 340, Rudd once again returned to pit road for the crew to top off his fuel levels. The move was considered a gamble since no other team on the lead lap had returned to pit road to top off their fuel levels. Hylton gambled on the fact that the #88 could make it to the end of the race without having to make another pit stop.

The remaining 60 laps found Rudd methodically running laps and the #88 team feverishly calculating fuel mileage. Rudd had restarted in 14th but due to many of the lead cars needing to splash and go with fuel, Rudd jumped up to seventh by race end and found himself finishing the Coca-Cola 600 where he had began it over five hours earlier.

“We knew we had a good car,” commented Rudd after the race. “We obviously didn’t have a winning car, but we knew we had a top-12 or top-15 car. Even when we got here we qualified seventh with it. It’s been quick all along, but I’m really proud of our guys on this Snickers Dark Chocolate team. They kept chasing the race track. We started off and were just about right with the car. We needed to free up more and we were just almost a stop behind every time on getting the car freed up enough, but our guys did a great job calling the shots on getting the car freed up. We were OK. We were about a 12th-place car and we ended up seventh or eighth, so we’ll take it.”

Teammate Gilliland who had started from 19th at the beginning of the evening spent the majority of the evening in the garage while his team hurried to make repairs to his #38 M&M’s® Shrek the Third Ford. Gilliland returned back onto the track after he had spent 125 laps in the garage, but at the end of the night, the #38 only completed 265 of the 400 laps and finished the race in 35th.

After Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, Jeff Gordon continues to lead the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series driver point standings. Fellow teammate Jimmie Johnson gained points on Gordon after Sunday’s race when Gordon failed to finish the race due to an accident early on. Johnson remains second in the standings and is followed by Matt Kenseth in third, Denny Hamlin in fourth, and Jeff Burton who is currently fifth in the driver point standings. Rudd gained three spots climbing to 31st in the driver point standings, while Gilliland fell seven spots in the driver point standings moving to 34th place.

Casey Mears won Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 making it his first victory as a NEXTEL Cup Series driver. Mears held off J.J. Yeley, who also had a career-best finish in second, while Kyle Petty finished third making it Petty’s first top-five finish in ten years. Reed Sorenson and Brian Vickers piloted their cars to fourth and fifth place finishes respectively. All of the top-five drivers had their best finish of the year on Sunday night proving that this Memorial Day weekend provided numerous memories for all those involved.

Next weekend the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series travels to Dover International Speedway for the Autism Speaks 400 Presented by Visa. Pre-race coverage of the Autism Speaks 400 Presented by Visa begins on Sunday, June 3rd at 1:00 p.m. EST on FOX. Radio coverage will be provided by the Motor Racing Network (MRN).