Cohon DNQs Dollar General 200; McKenzie, Jugar miss third straight race
It hasn’t been a great start for Jimmy Cohon’s Carson Racing career, there are rumors circulating that Cohon is very unhappy at his new team. In Daytona qualifying, those rumors intensified as Cohon’s #33 failed to make the race, placing last in the unlocked session.
“Just don’t have it right now.” said the frustrated Cohon, “Were in a funk right now and we need to stop it before it spirals into a longer slide here. We just don’t have the urgency.”
Cohon was traded from Sam David’s Racing earlier in the season, and now faces rumors of unhappiness, particularly with teammates and owner Adam Carson.
“I’m not going to address that,” he said, “All I’m focused on right now is figuring out what this team needs to do to make the field at Miami. I can’t believe I’m even saying that sentence. We should be talking about how to find victory lane.”
David Jugar in Sauer Enterprises #27 Toyota failed to make the race as well, his third DNQ. Jugar has yet to make his AERS debut with his new team, Jugar has made 1 previous AERS start.
“We are just learning,” he said, “We will figure it out, it’s not too late to make a push. Miami is going to be huge for us, but we believe in ourselves and we know we’ve got the guys to do it.”
Along with Jugar, another rookie, Patrick McKenzie has also failed to qualify all 3 races, which begs the question of was this driver rushed into a ride way too early in his development. However, McKenzie echoed teammate Aaron Gallagher’s comments from last week, there isn’t any communication going on within the team.
“Well first of all,” he said “I don’t dislike anyone here, I have no ill-will toward anyone. We’ve bumped heads a lot and it truly does feel like the communication and relationship between driver, team and owner is strained. I can’t exactly pinpoint it and I don’t want to get into details, but you can feel the tension here and I’m not sure what to think of it, I’m a rookie, I don’t have much say in things. But we’re placed in positions where we kind of have to succeed, the pressure is almost overwhelming right now.”
Florence Garth has received criticism for how poorly his well funded race team has performed in recent years. As with every new season, ‘this year’ was supposed to be ‘the year’ they put it all together. But with a revolving door of veterans and prospects coming and going through the organization, one has to think there’s more to these quotes the two rookies have said. Lachner and Lapinski, the two drivers from the team who are doing decent so far, haven’t said a word about how the team operations currently are. Regardless, it seems that tension is building at Garth Enterprises.
Thu Feb 08, 2024 8:00 pm by NickSant15
