David Ragan

David Ragan, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford

Starting Position: 38

Finishing Position: 32

David Ragan started in 38th position for the Capital City 400 -- a race that was threatened throughout the day by on-and-off rains.  But the clouds cleared and the green flag waved on schedule under drier but cold conditions.

Ragan reported his Ford Fusion was tight-handling in the center of the turns, but he had moved up to 34th position by the first caution of the night on Lap 50.  Air-pressure and chassis adjustments on the first pit stop helped, but the issues seemed to persist to some extent throughout the course of the evening.

Once again, the race was dominated by long, green-flag runs, which made it difficult to gain positions even as the car's handling improved incrementally with each pit stop.  Ragan was also hit with a speeding penalty on pit road on Lap 292.  By the final restart of the night on Lap 389, Ragan was in 33rd and on the same lap as one other competitor, the No. 10 car of David Reutimann.  He passed Reutimann in the final laps of the event to climb one spot to 32nd.

Comments from Front Row Motorsports team driver David Ragan after the Richmond race:    

David Gilliland

David Gilliland, No. 38 Long John Silver's Ford

Starting Position: 41

Finishing Position: 36

David Gilliland and the No. 38 Long John Silver's Ford team started Saturday night's race in 41st, but confident in their car's race set-up and eager to run up the leaderboard.

Unfortunately, they didn't have much chance to prove themselves as the team was struck with a mechanical problem just 32 laps into the event.  Sitting in 35th position, Gilliland radioed crew chief Pat Tryson that he'd lost his brakes and needed to come in for repairs.  After first investigating the problem on pit road, the team had to take their car to the garage, where they had to replace a master cylinder. Gilliland returned to the race 42 laps down in 39th.

The mechanical issue was especially unfortunate because Gilliland told Tryson on the team radio that the car was set up "closer than we've been at a track like this in a long time."  He raced competitive laps the rest of the event, picking up three positions to finish 36th.

Comments from Long John Silver's team driver David Gilliland after the Richmond race:

"Yeah, that was frustrating because our Long John Silver's Ford was actually pretty good later in the race.  We just had a fluke thing happen with the brakes and it set us back pretty far.  But, like I said, we made some pretty good progress with our race set-up, and that's something that's definitely going to help us in the future in our short-track program.  But for right now, I can't wait to get to Talladega." 

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