Talladega, AL - Menards Racing arrived in Talladega, Alabama with sights set on flexing it’s superspeedway muscles and closing in on the top 35 in owners points.  Things started on a high note with Menard turning in a qualifying lap that earned the No. 15 Turtle Wax Ice Chevrolet a spot in the field for the Aaron’s 499.

“We picked up about two tenths from practice so it’s always good when you pick up.” Menard said following his lap of 48.479 seconds, which placed him first out of the three Dale Earnhardt Inc. cars in the race.  “My guys broke their butts getting a little more speed out of this car from when we unloaded.  They did a good job doing that.”

Sunday dawned and Menard’s car lined up 19th on the grid.  The field took the Green Flag under sunny skies in front of more than 160,000 race fans.  

Menard was quickly shuffled out of the lead portion of the draft but took the opportunity to hang back as an opportunity to avoid any superspeedway may lay.  On lap 21 Menard radioed in to report a loss of oil pressure and that he thought the motor was going.  On lap 22 Menard brought his Chevy down pit road and turned it in into the garage area where the crew assessed the situation and determined that day was over for Menards Racing.

“We didn’t have a whole lot of oil pressure all day and the motor finally, I guess, let go because of that.” Menard said.  “I just started losing RPMs and finally something broke.  We’ve got a ways to go so we’ll bounce back in Richmond.”

The situation was all the more disappointing to Menard who thought he had a car to beat in Sunday’s race.  “

The car was really good.” Menard said following the call by Crew Chief Tony Eury Sr. to load up.  “It’s hard to call this racing because here its wide open and you can do whatever you want.  Everybody was going to the back and hanging out and that’s not the way races are supposed to be run.  But we were one of them that were just hanging out because that’s what you’ve got to do.  Typical plate racing, I guess.”