| | BY KURT HIMSELF | Racing in a 'parking lot' | |
| | By Kurt Busch Just the facts
Race: Goody's Cool Orange 500
Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Date: Sunday, March 30
Track: Martinsville Speedway (.526-mile oval), Martinsville, Va.
Race format: 500 laps
Green flag: 2:00 p.m. ET
TV: FOX — 1:30 p.m. ET.
About this weekend's race
The one thing that is really tough about racing at Martinsville Speedway — no matter what type of car or truck you run this weekend — is dealing with your brakes. When you are racing more or less in a parking-lot environment, you are going to burn up some brakes. And with our new car, it seems more difficult to ventilate the front brakes. That old cliche about "you gotta save your equipment" really comes into play this weekend.
Martinsville Speedway is a very demanding racetrack. You are busy all the time, whether you are hard on the brakes decelerating, hard getting on the wheel trying to yank and muscle your car through the corners, etc.
Add to that the fact that the car is always jumping around on you. No matter whether you are loose in or are tight in the center, you are always fighting that loose off feeling because you have all that horsepower, and it's hard to hook it up to the racetrack.
When your day is good at Martinsville, it's really easy. When you are off, even just a little bit, it becomes a long, long day.
Also, the track changes quite a bit throughout the weekend. It really rubbers up during the race, but it never does that in practice, and that's what causes a dramatic difference during race day. You have to be able to make your car very adjustable. If you can make adjustments during the race to make it better, you are only going to move toward the front.
The No. 2 Miller Lite crew needs a solid top 10 showing this weekend at Martinsville to demonstrate that the team can do it and that the driver can do it. The track has been tough for me ever since I took over the No. 2 Dodge, so I'm just looking for a nice solid run.
Analyzing the year so far
Looking back at the first five races this season, we've started 29th or further back in all but one race so far this season — started dead last at Daytona and 36th in two races when qualifying got rained out — so this season so far has been a matter of playing catch-up in every race.
Still, I feel like we have done well at certain places, then there's other tracks where we need to do better. It seems like the regular 1.5-mile tracks are where we are going to have to pick up our game if we want to run stronger, and as a result, the team is working on any type of engineering project that we can to pick up speed.
On the positive side of things, I think our teamwork within Penske Racing is at an all-time high, especially with the way the Daytona 500 went with us helping Ryan Newman to claim the victory. I also think our restrictor-plate program is going really well.
I feel like the communication between the three Penske teams is going better than expected with Sam Hornish Jr. joining us this season. We hope to keep him in the top 35, ourselves and Newman's team in the top 10, and everybody marching forward.
Getting back to normal
To answer a few of your e-mail questions at once, because we were without owner points for the first five races this season, a few things were different:
Our hauler went in last, so our drivers have to wait as long as it takes until they get the call to go inside and park.
Our car would have to go through technical inspection last, which sometimes went into practice time so you don't get to go out on track for the full session like everybody else
We got our tires last.
The next thing is that when they send you out by points order during practice being in the top 10 allows you to get out on track first. If you are in the back, you have to wait until enough cars cycle through. Sometimes I would be 20 minutes late into practice because of that.
There were all sorts of side effects that happened because of the points swap — not only the fact that you start from the rear if qualifying gets rained out.
It's going to be fun getting back into the swing of things. We'll be up there in the garage area with everybody else, we'll hit the track with the first group — it's just going to be that feeling like everything is back to normal again. Also, if qualifying gets rained out — which has happened to us twice already — we will start closer to the front now. That was a tough blow to start 36th during both of those rainouts.
We wish Hornish was a little better off, but we remember that he is a rookie, and rookies are prone to finding some accidents that are of their doing, and some that are not. He just has to figure out how to avoid them.
Last Call
Everybody should be getting excited about this weekend because it is racing at its best. NASCAR's short-track atmosphere is great because these type of tracks are where we grew up racing and cutting our teeth. Now it's the big time, though, and with this new car the competition is fierce and competitive.
This is going to be a tough race. It's probably going to come down to pit strategy at the end, so you gotta stay in tune with the race on what the tires are like for everybody because a lot of times at Martinsville, a group will get off-sequence with their pit stops and suddenly tire wear comes into play.
It's always fun to see who comes out on top.
| | Posted March 28, 2008 , 11:38 am EST
Last Updated March 28, 2008 , 11:38 am EST | | | | | | |
