NASCAR BGN Food City 250: Laps 135 - 192
22 August 1997
BRISTOL, TN - Bodine, Green, Lepage and Barfield all make pit stops. Under caution on lap 135: LaJoie, Jones, Sawyer, Kenseth, Fedewa, McLaughlin, BLabonte, Wilson, Reeves, Fuller Spencer will restart 16th. Bodine restarts in 21st. Back to green on lap 136. The leaders clear lapped traffic. Lap 140: Jones is trying to pass LaJoie and one lap later he makes the pass in turn two for the lead. He's the fifth different driver to lead. Sawyer bypasses LaJoie for second. Lap 148: Spencer is already up to seventh. And now he takes 6th from Fedewa. Lap 149: Jones, Lap 155: Hard crash on the frontstretch. Jones and Diamond make contact. Diamond swerves across the track and collects Sawyer, who was running 2nd at the time. Sawyer's car makes contact again with Diamond and crashes into the inside retaining wall. The Barbasol Ford is junk. Yellow #7. The leaders are in the pits. Spencer, Park, Buttke, TLabonte, Trickle, Pressley and Mark Krogh stay on the track and assume positions 1-7. McLaughlin is eighth...he's the first of the drivers who made a pit stop. Parsons is out of the race. Back to green on lap 164. Trickle looks inside of TLabonte and makes the pass for 4th. Pressley goes to fifth and TLabonte is back to 6th. Lap 172: Spencer, Park, Buttke, Trickle, Pressley, TLabonte is off the pace. He comes down pit road slowly. The crew checks the tires but no work is done. Now Terry takes the window net down and hands his helmet to a crew member. The car goes behind the wall. Trickle takes third from Buttke. Lap 182: McLaughlin spins in turn two. Jones and LaJoie narrowly miss him. Sadler also spins. McLaughlin gets his car refired and just gets going as the leader bears down on him. Caution #8 Lap 184: Spencer, Park, Trickle, Buttke, Pressley Green flag on lap 188. Lepage is trying desparately to get his lap back. Spencer slips and Lepage gets his car back. Buttke gets out of shape and loses several positions. Buttke spins. The yellow flag comes out for the ninth time on lap 192.
