David Ragan Circling the Calendar

When David Ragan first got the assignment as fill-in driver for the injured Kyle Busch, he likely had a few races circled on his calendar. The first of those would be Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

Why? Well, the driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) can look back at the No. 18 team’s record at the 2-mile oval and it paints a very optimistic picture for Ragan’s chances this weekend.

Busch and the Interstate Batteries team has posted back-to-back wins at the Southern California track and have finished no worse than third in their last four starts together at Fontana. 

Sunday’s Auto Club 400 will be the first of six races for Interstate Batteries for the 2015 season. Ragan has fond memories of watching the green Interstate Batteries car as he was growing up, whether it was Dale Jarrett’s 1993 Daytona 500 win in Interstate green, or Bobby Labonte’s 2000 Sprint Cup championship. He would like nothing more than add his name to the winning history of the green No. 18 Interstate Batteries teams of the past.

Ragan will be supported by the efforts of Joe Gibbs Racing’s founding sponsor and its social media campaign, which can be followed via Facebook (www.facebook.com/interstatebatteries), Twitter and Instagram (@InterstateBatts) with the hashtag #Relentless.

So while Kyle Busch won’t be able to defend his win from the past two years at Fontana, Ragan and his fellow Team Interstate drivers Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, and Carl Edwards hope they can feed off of the recent magic from the No. 18 team and make it three in a row for JGR in Southern California.

TSC PR