Story by: Langley Austin ~ [email protected]

Nashville, TN(June 15, 2012) — When the green flag waves over the field at Kingsport Speedway on Friday night, one of the championship contenders won’t be in the field and isn’t sure when he’ll return to the 3/8 mile track.

Daniel Pope II is usually the tracks furthest traveling driver, making the more than 275 mile trip from Nashville, TN to Kingsport, TN weekly, but this week he won’t be making the trip following a hard crash last week. The severity of the crash was probably lost on most fans who were wrapped up in what happened in the aftermath of the crash, but Pope’s car was too damaged to continue following the lap three incident. By now everyone should know about the whole incident last week, so we’re not going to rehash that again.

Pope start and parked Ryan Stiltner’s Lonesome Pine Raceway entry for points in the second of twin races last Friday night following the wreck, but those points won’t matter anymore after missing this weeks race. However, Pope is taking it in stride.

“We could have thrown it together,” said Pope in a phone interview on Thursday night. “We wanted to make sure it was 100% and it wasn’t going to be 100% by Friday. So we decided to just skip this weeks race, so we can make sure we’re as good as we were last Friday before the wreck.”

Pope will forfeit his position in the points standings, which has him in a near deadlock for the lead with two other drivers, including his arch rival, Nate Monteith, with whom he wrecked with last Friday night. Pope says that he’s not all that worried about points.

“If we could have been 100%, we would have been there, but it bent the halo bars and tore the dash out of the car. And, I’m not worried about some plastic trophy, it’s not worth it. The Piston Cup doesn’t mean that much honestly.”

Pope says that while he still plans to support Kingsport Speedway that it won’t be every week.

“This opens our options up,” continued Pope. “We’re not in the points battle anymore and we can go back over there and race with nothing to lose or we can go somewhere else and not worry about it there either.”

Pope says that while he hasn’t decided, he doesn’t expect to be back at Kingsport Speedway this month.

“We’ll probably go to Motor Mile(Radford, VA) next Saturday and skip Kingsport again just to make sure we’re completely out of the points deal. I mean we’re not decided, but that’s what we’re thinking right now.”

Pope’s crew chief, Randy Weaver, who has been in the headlines before this season when he, along with Pope protested Monteith’s engine, doesn’t seem to be so sure that they’re already out of the points chase.

“Even though we’re going to miss tomorrow night’s race, I don’t think that means that we can’t still come back and battle for the championship,” said Weaver on a phone interview Thursday evening. “We’re only one protest away from being back in the Piston Cup.”

So, no matter what happens it appears that the rivalry between Pope and Monteith may be on hold for at least one race maybe longer. But, don’t think that it’s over.

“We need to go back to winning races and not wrecking,” continued Pope. “But, you know how racing is, I’m sure me and Nate(Monteith) will be right there together the next time we hit the track together.”

Pope also said that while he’s OK, with not making it back this Friday he appreciates the fans that have been supporting him.

“Fans are quite upset about me not being there this week. They say that it takes the fun out of it, but they have some good racers there that can race with Monteith and I think some are close to beating him.”

While Pope won’t be behind the wheel of a car at Kingsport, he will be there, he says as a fan.

“I’ll be there as a fan,” laughed Pope. “People will know I’m there, I might be helping someone or heck I might even be a pit reporter for RACE22.com, you never know, but I will make my presence known.”