Forth Worth, TX – Since everything is bigger in Texas, the Menards Racing team put forth a king size effort for success at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend.  

The Dale Earnhardt Inc. team’s proven record on intermediate style tracks, left driver Paul Menard with a clear cut goal for Sunday's race.  

“We’re here to get that top-10 that we’ve been lacking all year.” Menard said Friday at the track.  “I think we’ve got a pretty good car here and it’s definitely a good possibility we could get our best finish of the year.”  

Menard started out on the right foot for a strong finish in Sunday’s 334-lap event by qualifying his No. 15 Menards/MOEN Chevrolet in 16th spot for the Dickies 500.   The effort tied is season best qualifying effort and Menard was feeling positive following his lap of 28.230 seconds.

“The track feels really good right now.  I probably tried getting a little bit too much getting into both ends, into one and three, and it might have hurt my exit.  But I can’t complain.” Menard said following his two lap qualifying effort.  

Menard followed up his Friday performance by running 11th quick in Happy Hour.  He was the top performing Raybestos Rookie in the final practice session.  

“We’ve been fighting a little bit loose on throttle the whole time and made some adjustments right then in the second practice to get back to the gas good and a little bit snug so we’re going to try unhooking the rear end again but the front end is working good.  We should be good.”

Sunday morning prior to the race, the buzz in the No. 15 hauler was that a top-10 finish was an attainable goal.  While the first ten laps of the race held that same promise, an early race caution sparked a domino effect of problems for Paul Menard.

On lap 15, Menard got loose coming off turn two and slapped the outside retaining wall before spinning around. Menard managed to keep it off the wall a second time, minimizing the damage to his Chevrolet.  The crew went to work on the car and managed to keep from going multiple laps down.  On lap 20, the second caution flag flew and Menard got the Lucky Dog pass back onto the lead lap.  Once again, trouble struck on the restart when the field checked up and Menard got into the rear of the No. 00 and did more damage to his car-this time to the front end.   Menard returned to the pits on lap 28 to survey and repair the damage, but was forced to return to the pits under green on lap 35 for continued work.

When the problem was all said and done, Menard had lost four laps and the handling on his racecar for the remaining 300 laps of the event.  

After a hard fought race with an ill handling racecar, Paul Menard brought the MOEN Chevrolet home in 30th place in Sunday’s Dickies 500.
 
“It’s too bad.” Menard said following the event.  “We could have had a really good finish today and instead we had to run most of the race knowing we were down a couple laps.  That makes a tough day for everyone.”
 
With the 30th place finish, Menard and the team remained 29th in NASCAR Nextel Cup Owners Standings with two races left in the 2007 season.