October 10, 2006

East Settles for 23rd in Truck Series Talladega Debut

Bobby East ran up front and challenged for a top-10 finish in the John Deere 250 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series inaugural race at Talladega Superspeedway before a flat right front tire sent the No. 21 Edy’s Dibs/State Fair Corn Dogs Ford into the turn three wall.  Quick work by the Wood Bros/jtg Racing team kept East on the lead lap, but the right side damage ended any chance East would have to contend for the victory.

On lap 58 of the 94 lap event, East was running in a tight draft of 25 trucks when the truck suddenly lurched to the right running through turn three.  Doing a masterful job of controlling the truck, East glanced off the wall at the top of Talladega ’s 33-degree banking before slowing it down and coming to pit road.

“It’s a shame we had the tire go down but we really lucked out all things considered,” East said.  “We were running in the high groove when it happened and there was no one outside of us.  If we were down low when it happened you would have seen one huge crash with the pack all running together.  We bounced off the wall and did some pretty good damage to the Edy’s Dibs Ford F-150, but the team did a great job getting it patched back up and getting us back out to finish the race.”

Despite the disappointing finish, East enjoyed his experience at Talladega .

"That was wild. Until that last lap, it was a lot of fun,” East said.  “The trucks were so fun to drive; we had so much power. We got right to the front and ran in the top ten all afternoon until we ran over something in turn two and cut down a tire. Everyone on this Edy’s Dibs/State Fair Corn Dogs team worked really hard to keep me on the lead lap. We stayed two-, three-wide all afternoon and our Ford F-150 was really fast. If we had a little racing luck, we would have had a good top ten or possibly even a top five finish."

Next up for Bobby East and the No. 21 Edy’s Dibs/State Fair Corn Dogs Ford is the Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway.  SPEED will have the live broadcast starting at 12:30 P.M. Eastern, and the race will also be carried live on select radio affiliates nationwide on the Motor Racing Network.  TruckSeries.com will have complete event coverage online at www.truckseries.com.