HAMPTON, Ga. (March 9, 2008)- With less than 10 laps remaining in Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Nicorette 300, the No. 41 Polaroid Team and Bryan Clauson were working toward a top-20 finish when the No. 24 car spun in Clauson’s direct path and left him with no way to escape. The No. 41 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) Dodge smashed into the wrecking car and then went nose first into the outside wall. Clauson walked away from the incident unharmed but the No. 41 Polaroid Dodge was done for the day in 29th place.

Leading up to Saturday’s green flag for the fourth NNS start of the 2008 season, Clauson and the No. 41 Polaroid team were gunning for a strong effort after they finished their final practice of the weekend on Friday 19th fastest. The team lapped the 1.54-mile speedway at 175 mph in 31.7 seconds.

Snow visited the Hampton, Ga., area early Saturday morning and forced NASCAR to cancel the NNS qualifying session for the second time this season and thus lined the cars up according to the 2007 owner standings. That put the No. 41 team in the 18th-starting spot on row nine.

Fortunately, the weather cleared in just enough time for the NNS race to get underway just after 2 p.m. ET. Clauson maintained a top-20 run the majority of the day and was going to wrap it up just the same when the No. 24 car wrecked right in front of him on lap 189 of the 198-lap competition. The late-race collision ended the team’s day just nine laps away from the finish line in 29th place.

The No. 41 CGRFS NNS team now stands 29th in the overall owner points rundown. With a current tally of 321, the team is 158 points outside the top 10 and 284 out of first.

Clauson and the No. 41 Polaroid crew will head to Bristol Motor Speedway next Saturday, March 15, to run the Sharpie Mini 300. The race will broadcast live on ABC, starting at 2:30 pm EDT.

CGRFS DRIVER QUOTEBOARD:

BRYAN CLAUSON: : “It’s crazy, I think, how fast things change the picture of a day. We were really good there at the end, I think we had a top-10 car easily. We got caught a lap down earlier in the race and just kept digging and got the car good there at the end and unfortunately got in that mishap with the 24. I’m not sure really how it got started but he just kind of came sliding up in front of us and didn’t really have anywhere to go. I hate it for my guys. It’s two races in a row, California and here, that we’ve had two things happen to us and take us out that weren’t really our doing. We’re really excited to have Polaroid on the car this weekend and introduce them into the sport. This is their first weekend on a NASCAR car so we’re really excited about that. We didn’t quite have the ending that we hoped for but it was a good day besides the ending there … That one hurt more than California. I’m a little sore but we’ll be all right. We’ll keep digging and go to Bristol next week.”