Connolly's Cagnazzi Racing Cobalt to wear special Lucas Oil Colors as he seeks repeat Virginia Nationals Pro Stock Victory
Dave Connolly finds himself at the NHRA Pro Stock championship crossroads
this weekend. The number of races remaining in the Countdown to the
championship has dwindled to three while his rounds behind the leader
stay the same.
"Now it's going to take quite a feat for us to overcome five
rounds in three races, but we've gone on streaks like that
before," said Connolly as he prepared for the Virginia Nationals at
Virginia Motorsports Park in Dinwiddie, near Richmond. "We'll
just try to stick our Chevy Cobalt into as many winner's circles as
we can."
Maybe a different look to that Cagnazzi Racing Cobalt will help.
As part of a new marketing alliance between Charter Communications and
Lucas Oil, Connolly will be sporting Lucas Oil colors as the primary
sponsor of his Chevy Cobalt for the Richmond race.
"The new program offers Lucas Oil an opportunity to expand its reach
and exposure beyond the quarter-mile asphalt through direct broadcast of
30-and 60-second Team Lucas TV commercial advertising spots directly into
5.9 million Charter Cable households," said Cagnazzi. "All of us
at Cagnazzi Racing are extremely excited about the partnership with
Forest and Charlotte Lucas and the potential of the new marketing
alliance and the platform for their iconic brands."
Likewise, Lucas Oil Products enjoys this new relationship with Cagnazzi
Racing and the business venues it enhances with Charter Communications.
"That certainly gives us a good chance of getting a Lucas Oil car in
the winner's circle," said Forrest Lucas, CEO and president of
Lucas Oil Products. "Dave Connolly is have a pretty good year and I
love the paint job. It's exciting and a big deal. We've helped
them out and they're doing us a favor back by putting out the Lucas
Oil/Charter Pro Stock Chevrolet this weekend." The spots started airing in mid-September on national cable networks CNN,
HLN, Fox Sports, Fox News, ESPN, ESPN2, Headline News, CNBC, USA, History
Channel, Speed Channel and TNT and will run throughout the rest of the
fourth quarter.
"That's a neat deal for us, Charter Communications and Lucas
Oil," Connolly said. "It's cool because the Lucas'
supported us in the Sportsman ranks when I was racing Super Comp and
Super Gas and they still support all the Sportsman racers. For me to
represent them in the pro ranks now is very cool. It would be neat to be
able to pick up a win for them."
Connolly, meanwhile, knows what he must do to get that winning trophy.
"Obviously, I have to get out there and concentrate, get focused and
drive good," he said. "We want to go out with a bang and win the
next three races -- starting with Richmond. We won at Richmond last
year. We've won at Las Vegas before and at Pomona (Calif., the
remaining stops on the 2008 POWERade Series schedule), so we've been
to the winner's circle at all three tracks."
Still disappointed with his quarterfinal exit at Memphis almost two weeks
ago, Connolly said he "had the car to win and we dropped the ball. I
kind of shot myself in the foot last week when you look at the big
picture. If we'd just gotten by that round we could've been
within a round and a half of the leader and looking at the championship a
little differently."We'll try to start off fast at Richmond."
Connolly is sixth with 2,183 points after three of the six playoff
events. He trails the leader, Cagnazzi Racing teammate Jeg Coughlin, by
94 points (five rounds).
Rallying is nothing new for this 25-year-old Pro Stock veteran. He was
down five races when his 2008 campaign started and still finished sixth
in the regular season. He notched three wins in seven final rounds --
going to the finals at four consecutive events in one stretch. Overall,
Connolly has 20 victories in 36 finals as he nears the close of his fifth
full Pro Stock campaign. He placed third in 2004, 2006 and 2007 and was
fifth in 2005.
"Whether we win the championship or not, we are still trying to keep
ourselves up there in points," Connolly said. "We definitely want
to finish in the top five again. We've never finished worse than
fifth in points. Even though we started this year five races down, we
were lucky to get into the Countdown to even have a shot at the
championship . . . so I guess we need to be pleased by that."But, in all reality, we're drag racers and we're so
competitive that we always want more than what we have."
-credit: vgr
