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Rick Crawford Driver Diary: Until We Meet Againâ€¦

Rick Crawford · Friday December 14, 2007

2007 was a good year for the Circle Bar Racing team and the No. 14 Power Stroke Diesel Ford by International. It was a great year for Circle Bar Racing to have two of its trucks, with our teammate David Starr in the Top 10 in the points and the No. 14 truck in the Top 5 in the points. We had a good strong finish at Homestead with third place, and it was just a good year for us. My hat's off to Hornaday for winning the championship and Skinner for second. Those guys had great years, and earned top finishes all year, and ultimately deserved to battle it out for a championship.

The banquet was painless. It was short and sweet. My owner's daughter, Lisa Mitchell, received the top finishing Ford award for the No. 14 truck from Ford Racing. That was a pretty neat moment for her. She gave a speech thanking everybody at Ford Motor Company and International and all of our sponsors and everybody that worked on the crew for a great year – and especially from her Dad. I received a Top 5 award in the year end points and that was pretty neat. I got to be on stage and that's a good place to be at the end of the year, on stage. That's what everybody shoots for, so I'd say it was a good year for us.

Rick Crawford Driver Diary: Home Sweet Homestead

Rick Crawford · Thursday November 15, 2007

I've been in Florida all week doing some interesting things. Tuesday we kicked it off with the Ford Ride n'Drive where we give rides around Homestead Miami Speedway in the Ford Cup two-seaters to over 30 South Florida Ford dealers. One of the sales managers got in the car with me and wanted to video tape the deal with a handheld video camera. He caught me laughing in my helmet when he started up the video camera and I just kept laughing and by the time we got to the end of pit road the video camera was in his lap so that didn't work out too good. It was funny. I guess he thought he'd have home video so he could show it at Christmas time or something but it didn't work out. Maybe he got he sound on the inside of the car anyway.

Rick Crawford Driver Diary: Four Feet Short and Gone Golfing

Rick Crawford · Thursday October 18, 2007

Sorry for keeping you all waiting on this edition of my diary. Sometimes our schedules just get crazy! Our last race at Talladega was definitely a good one. That was a very important one for me since Talladega is my home track. I'm from L.A. That stands for Lower Alabama, which is where my hometown of Mobile is. Kevin Starland and the Circle Bar Racing team gave me a great truck and we just went out there and did our best to try and win that one but came up about four feet short. If you were watching that last lap it was actually kind of boring until we got to the trioval. We'd been practicing making our move all day in both the trioval and coming out of turn four but we decided the trioval would be the best place to actually do it.

Rick Crawford Driver Diary: Drag Racing, Sweet Trucks, and Toyota's Secret

Rick Crawford · Friday September 14, 2007

I've gotten to be pretty good friends with John Force and his team. We're all part of the Ford camp. They race the Ford Mustangs in the NHRA Funny Car ranks while we race the Ford F-150s, the F-series pickups, in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. We had an event where we were trying out some new 2008 vehicles in Dearborn at the Ford test facility and I was able to give Ashley Force a ride in a new Edge on the road course. I think she enjoyed it, especially letting a round track guy do the driving. John told her before we went out, "Honey, you've got to let these round track guys give you a ride on this road course because they like turning left and right." John was pretty animated about that and it was a lot of fun and I think they really enjoyed it.

Rick Crawford Driver Diary: Still Good on Dirt

Rick Crawford · Thursday August 16, 2007

We’ve run two more races since the last diary, and these were pretty good races for our Power Stroke Diesel Team. We had a Top 5 finish at ORP, in the Power Stroke Diesel 200, and we just got finished with a Top 10 run, a sixth place finish at Nashville Superspeedway. We had a good run for Circle Bar Racing, David Starr and myself, with the International Maxx Force Diesel by International and the Power Stroke Diesel by International both in the Top 10. The 10 and the 14 truck have been
competitive, and we’ve had a good couple of weeks.

As far as Circle Bar Racing, with our new two truck team, I think it’s turning the corner. When you have two trucks that can run in the Top 10 week in and week out, I think that can enhance the program for the 14 truck and also put David Starr in the No. 10 MaxxForce Diesel by International in the Top 10 in points and that’s what we want him to do, finish in the Top 10 in driver points and be running up front competing for wins. We’d like to continue our Top 5 run in the points and maybe even just keep pressing them a little bit for the championship.

Rick Crawford Driver Diary: Graceland, Fine Wine, and Bad Luck

Rick Crawford · Thursday July 19, 2007

At Memphis the truck was in the Top 5 on each practice session and running really good. I had an early draw for qualifying, went out and was the fastest of the trucks that went out before me. I was pretty optimistic and thought we had a really nice piece but got knocked out early. Some dramatic things happened during that particular wreck that have just never happened to me before. We exploded a battery and the battery blew the back of the truck off. The crew did a fantastic job fixing it but we lost two or three laps in the pits when we had to install a new battery. We just made laps and finished where we finished.

In Kentucky we practiced about where we qualified and were trying to move up as soon as the green flag dropped. I don’t know, it just got away from me and that’s one of those things. I save it probably 90% of the time but there’s that 10% chance that you’re going to lose it.

Rick Crawford Driver Diary: The One That Got Away

Rick Crawford · Thursday June 28, 2007

I apologize for taking so long to update my driver diary. This stretch of consecutive races and appearances has kept us pretty busy.

Charlotte started with a two day NASCAR test the week before and allowed us time to decide which truck we wanted to use. Kevin “Cowboy” Starland and the Circle Bar crew picked out CB-21, nicknamed Black Jack, which has been the down force workhorse of the Circle Bar camp. The Ford Power Stroke Diesel by International ran decent that day but to me it was just way loose. I steered more to the right than I did to the left but we ended up with a top 10 finish. Anytime you have a bad day (I say it was a bad day) and still end up with a top 10 finish it’s OK, but I thought we could be a little bit better.

Rick Crawford Driver Diary: A Home Game in Charlotte

Rick Crawford · Thursday May 17, 2007

Hello everyone and welcome to our first driver diary. I guess the best place to start is to catch everyone up on what we've done since last season. As far as our team, the 14, there haven't been many changes which is probably the reason we’re running as good as we’re running. A team that doesn’t change much or adds people or this, that and the other usually keeps that momentum going. We had a good run going up until October of last year and then the last few races cost us a top five in the points or a top three in the points, but you know the team stayed together and we battled back. We added a second program, the International MaxxForce Diesel with David Starr and Dennis Connor, about four weeks prior to the season starting. I think that’s regenerated the 14 crew. With the 14 ramped up it helped us get off to a decent start and I still feel like the 14 team has not reached potential yet.

The Frontstretch: rcrawford by -- Saturday November 21, 2009

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