Tony Raines’ No. 96 DLP HDTV Chevrolet suffered a freak mechanical failure during the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series event at Charlotte Motor Speedway and was sidelined early.

Raines completed only 264 of the 400 laps and finished 40th.

“It was a freak deal,” Raines said. “It was something with the carburetor, which is really, really rare. It‘s disappointing, because we‘ve had good reliability all year. We got the car going pretty good in the middle, but we won‘t get to race all night unfortunately .”

The No. 96 DLP HDTV Chevy fell from 27th to 31st in NASCAR Nextel Cup owner points. The No. 96 car has 1,062 points and is five points behind the No. 21 car (Ken Schrader) and 16 points ahead of the No. 45 car (Kyle Petty). The No. 96 car is 203 points ahead of the 36th-place car (No. 4 - Scott Wimmer).

The next event on the Nextel Cup schedule is the Neighborhood Excellence 400 presented by Bank of America June 4 at Dover International Speedway. The race will start at 1:30 p.m. (EDT) and will be broadcast live on FX and MRN.