Team Dodge struggles in week 5 of the 2012 NASCAR season

It has been an up-and-down 2012 NASCAR season for Team Dodge
with the week #5 stop in Fontana California being another “down”.  Between Saturday’s Nationwide Series Royal
Purple 300 and Sunday’s rain shortened Sprint Cup Auto Club 400, there were 86 entries
qualified for the two races but just 5 Dodge racers were able to start to the
two races this weekend.  One could point
out that Dodge takes a “quality over quantity” position but with the best
finishing position being a pretty solid 3^rd in the Royal Purple 300
and a very mediocre 15^th in the Auto Club 400.

On Saturday, the Team Penske Dodge Challengers driven by Brad
Keselowski and Sam Hornish Jr were the best qualifying Dodge racers with 3^rd
and 13^th place qualifying positions. 
David Green was the only other Dodge Challenger to qualify, starting 40^th.  When the race ended 150 laps later, Brand
Keselowski ended up right where he started with his #22 Discount Tire Dodge
Challenger while Hornish Jr dropped 2 spots from start to finish – ending up 13^th
in his #12 Alliance Truck Parts Challenger. 
David Green was never really competitive (at least not like the other
two Dodge drivers) and although he moved from 40^th to 31^st,
Green ran into suspension problems and left the race 11 laps short of the
finish.  Joey Logano won the Saturday
Nationwide Series race in his #18 Toyota Camry. 
Hornish Jr’s 13^th place finish helped him to move up to 5^th
in the series championship points (54 points behind the leader) and since
Keselowski is a Sprint Cup player, he is not in the Nationwide championship
running.

On Saturday, two only two competitors driving Dodge Chargers
were from Team Penske, with Brad Keselowski driving his #1 Miller Lite Charger
and AJ Allmendinger driving the #22 Shell/Pennzoil Charger with the #2
qualifying 17^th while Allmendinger’s #22 car started in the 25^th
position.  Allmendinger had a strong car
and moved from his 25^th starting position up to 15^th but
unfortunately, rain forced officials to shorten the race to just 129 laps.  This prevented Allmendinger from making a
better run to the front of the field and Keselowski dropped to 18^th
place before the race came to a soggy end. 
Tony Stewart to claimed the win in his #14 Office Depot Chevy.  Keselowski’s poor finish dropped him two
spots in the Sprint Cup championship standings to 16^th while Allmendinger
remained frozen in 26^th place on the season.

Week 6 for the 2012 NASCAR season heads to Martinsville
Virginia where the Sprint Cup Goody’s Fast Relief 500 will be run Sunday while
the Camping World Truck Series joins the NASCAR bigs on Sunday for their second
stop of the year with the Kroger 250. 
The NASCAR Nationwide Series takes a week off, with their next stop coming
when they rejoin the Sprint Cup drivers in Texas on the weekend of April
13-14.  The Camping World Truck Series
made their debut for 2012 at the Daytona speed weeks, with just two Dodge/Ram
entries in the field.  There is a chance
that Brad Keselowski will be in a Ram race truck in Martinsville, having run
the #119 Twitter sponsored Ram at Daytona.

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Patrick Rall

"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.

"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.

"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.

"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.

"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.

"Being based on Detroit," says Rall, "I never miss the North American International Auto Show, the Woodward Dream Cruise and Roadkill Nights, along with spending plenty of time raising hell on Detroit's Woodward Avenue with the best muscle car crowd in the world.

Rall can be contacted at QuickMirada@Yahoo.com

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