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PORTER WINS BIGGEST RACE OF THE SEASON -
2nd IN A ROW
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 7, 2006
By J. Maudsley
August fifth was a special night for all the Challenger Truck drivers at Delaware during the second annual All-Truck night, featuring ARCA Lincoln Welding Truck Series, and an All-Truck ‘King of the Hill’.
For the Porter Racing Team, it was also a special night as they unveiled a new paint job, ‘Petty Blue’. “We’ve had a silver truck for a while, and now there are some other silver trucks out here now, so we switched to blue. We also added some decals on the bottom, got rid of the orange numbers, and added a new sponsor Glazier Graphics, who helped with the design. I think it looks pretty sharp.”
The night started with a qualifying session and Darrell ripped off the sixth-fastest lap. “We put a brand new right rear tire on for qualifying, and it cost us. The truck was really loose, but I think we’ll be okay with the new tire for the feature.”
Following an inversion of ‘11’, Darrell took the green from sixth on the grid, and he was fast right out of the chute. It took all of four laps before Porter had found his way to the bumper of Doug Braunton, and just one more circuit for him to take the lead. He paced the field until lap nine when he came upon a pair of slower trucks. The pair continued to race, and finally Porter gave a tap to one of the competitors about to go a lap down. The driver spun, and Darrell was black flagged for the incident.
He served his penalty, but would finish the race in 22nd-position.
Porter would be force to start the second event from the back of the field, but a lap two incident would be costly. As three trucks got together in turn one, Porter tried to avoid the incident, but hit the pileup with the right side of his new paint job. He would come to pit road and the crew took off the fender and door, leaving the right side of Darrell’s truck exposed. On the restart, there was another wreck and Darrell locked up the brakes trying to avoid it, stopping just shot of the dustup.
When the field was turned loose again, Porter went on a rampage. He passed a bunch of trucks on the outside, and then with seven laps on the board, went to the bottom of a three-wide situation to take second into turn three. Jeff Showler was showing the way, with Porter 2.6 seconds behind. Over the next eight laps, Porter reeled in the leader and pulled to Showler’s back bumper while the pair were taking the white flag. Porter took a stab on the outside entering turn three but came up one truck length short. “We just needed a yellow when we were trying to catch Jeff. I just ran out of time.”
The seven-truck inversion put Porter sixth for the start of the final 10-lap segment, and with a class record $750 up for grabs to win, everything would be brought to the table. The first laps saw Paul Fothergil get black flagged for rough driving, after an incident that ended Matt Robblee’s night. On the next restart, Porter got boxed in and slid back to fifth as Jeff Showler got by on the highside. “I was between a rock and a hard place, and had nowhere to go,” explained the driver. Porter then went to the outside as well, and dispatched Joe Windas. He then tried to make a move on third-place Tom Zagorodny, while Jeff Showler was getting into the back of leader Norm Roy and sending him for a wild ride into the tire barrier at the start of pit road. Darrell was able to avoid the carnage and slip by on the outside. This put Zagorodny on the point for the restart, with Porter nipping at his heels. When the field was turned loose again, Porter took to the high line and when the field put lap four on the board the freshly painted # 8 machine was leading.
Darrell would survive one more restart, before pulling away en route to the checkered flag and celebrating with a tremendous burnout on the front straight. “This was awesome. Trucks were running over each other, but we survived. It didn’t look too good earlier in the night, and we ripped most of the right side off the truck winning, but we’re the ones standing in victory lane tonight.”
Following an emotional rollercoaster of a night, Porter summed up the evening, “We were shafted, then we were vindicated, then we dominated.”
With the victory, Porter moves even closer to the top of the championship points heap, and now sits second in the championship standings, just 19 markers behind Fothergil.
For more information about Darrell Porter, Porter Racing, or Delaware Speedway, please visit www.team-porter-racing.piczo.com, or www.delawarespeedway.com.
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