Sauter

It looked as though we might turn in a top-10 finish last Saturday at Dover, Del., until a late-race restart on Lap 191. As I raced down the frontstretch on the restart with nine laps to go, the motor lost a cylinder and I nursed the car home and settled for an 18th-place finish.

I believe I had a good shot at getting into the top-10. I had been moving up in the late stages of the race and the car was really good going into those final 10 laps. It's a shame because Gene (Nead, crew chief) and the Quality Farm Stores team really worked hard all weekend to get this car competitive. And, who knows? I just might have been able to break in the top-10 in those last few laps. That top-10 would have been a good ending for this weekend for our team.

We qualified in the 25th position with a lap of 24.401 seconds, at 149.744 mph. However, both Gene and I felt as though we would race better than we qualified. A good showing during Happy Hour gave everyone on the team high hopes for the race.

It didn't take long for the action to start. Geoffrey Bodine and I made contact exiting Turn 4 on Lap 34. Bodine drifted up the track into my path exiting Turn 4 and we made contact. Bodine slid down the frontstretch, but fortunately made no contact with the wall. We would take this opportunity to make our first pit stop of the race for tires, fuel and a chassis adjustment. A problem with one of the tire guns resulted in a longer than expected stop. I was forced to restart the race in 26th position.

I maintained running between 22nd and 25th for the next third of the race until the second pit stop on Lap 94 under caution. A quick, efficient stop by the pit crew enabled me to restart the race in 20th on Lap 98. When another caution waved on Lap 110, we chose to come back to the pits to top off the fuel and make a minor chassis adjustment. With only a few drivers electing to pit during this caution, I restarted 22nd on Lap 113.

Gradually, I began to move toward the top-10 as I worked through traffic.

On Lap 180, I had moved into the top 15. The final caution of the race came on Lap 185 when Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth and Mike McLaughlin tangled in Turn 2. This allowed the field to tighten up for a 10-lap dash to the finish.

I restarted in 11th position with nine laps remaining. Then, the unpredictable happened. We lost a cylinder. Fortunately, I was able to drop down to the lower racing groove and out of the way. The end result was an 18th-place run.

All-in-all it's not a bad weekend for the Quality Farm Stores team. In light of the problems in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, it was good to get back to the track and racing. The minor problems we had this weekend pale in comparison to what those people are going through.

It really was great to see the NASCAR community and all of the fans join in a tribute to those real heroes during this tragic period. Everyone tried to get back to racing this weekend, but our hearts and prayers were with those people who have suffered so much in the past week.

The next stop is the inaugural event at the new Kansas Speedway in Kansas City.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend and another new track. We did not test Kansas, but we've heard from others that it's very similar to Kentucky Motor Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway. That was sweet music to my ears when I heard that. Our team has run really good at the other new tracks this season even though the records don't show it.

At Nashville Superspeedway, I led a lap and had a solid top-five car until engine problems sidelined us. At Kentucky, I got my first career pole in the Busch Series and had a strong car all night and finished ninth. At Chicagoland, I was running in the top-10 when engine problems put us out there, too. So, I'm looking for another strong run this weekend. We've just got to finish what we start and we'll have a good afternoon.

Everybody wants to win the first-ever race at any track. The Quality Farm Stores team is no different, except that any win would be a big win for us. And, with the strong runs we've had at similar tracks, we've heading there with high hopes!

Jay Sauter drives the No. 43 car in the NASCAR Busch Series Grand National Division and will be submitting a weekly diary to ESPN.com throughout the season.