Considering no one on the 81 team had any experience at Atlanta,and they had less than an hour of practice yesterday, I would say their set up was way out. On lap 2 DJ was coasting into the pit apparently with no power.When the positions showed he was down 7 laps at lap 24 and you could see him slow and low on track  till about lap 60-65 when the scroll showed him down 17 laps. At lap 100 to 160, he was still down 17 laps, so I guess they found the set up.
I guess this is what is called "Learning By The Seat of Your Pants"
Congrats to the MacDonald Motorsports group and DJ for hanging in there......I'm sure this is going to pay off before season's end.

  I really do wonder what the goal of this team is ? Now into their second season together and with fifteen races under their belt there seems to be very little improvement when you look at the numbers . I'm sure no one thought this would be a winning team but i assume they believed  that they could be a competitive team . If just being competitive was indeed their goal by any objective measure they have fallen far short of the mark . Could it be that the teams only goal was to give Kennington some southern exposure in hopes of securing a ride in better NASCAR equipment ?  Again this has been a failure if it was ever realistic to begin with given the level of preparedness and quality of the team . A couple of decades ago a driver who will soon turn 31 may have had realistic expectations of starting a NASCAR career but not now . In todays world teams wait for a driver to turn 18 like Joey Lagano with all the pieces in place or have then in a development deal even younger .

  One can only speculate what the original expectation of this group was but i imagine reality is starting to settle in about now .

While i do agree with some of your points a lot of these tracks are a first for DJ so i would hope improvement would show on a return to tracks for the 2nd time.

I would hazzard a quess the goal for this organization is for now to make races  , after missing shows last season and the season before.  that being the case they are doing a good job of it right now . although not finishing on the lead lap  they are finishing  races and to mee that could only lead to progress.

From the NASCAR site DJ is 33rd in points out of the 32 drivers ahead of him approx 18 drivers are regulars from the NASCAR SPRINT SERIES.Which would mean he could be in the top 20 of the old BUSCH Series.This is when that series was for upcoming stars not for the big money boys who want to run the whole NASCAR show now.Personally I think DJ is doing a great job with what he has to race with.Keep it going DJ all of Southwestern Ontario is watching you.