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Welcome to the Cup Scene Daily for
Vol. III,No.VIXII FINAL EDITION
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Quote of the day:
"I could not be happier with what I'm doing"
7 DAY ARCHIVE SundayMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday INSIDE TODAY'S ISSUE: NASCAR Apologizes for Truck Race mistake Craven says 600 is tough but not toughest Circle Bar Racing schedules open house today Gillette giving away $5 million Busch team set to debut NASCAR could be coming to Connecticut Donlavey returns to the track, with the "Butt Paste" Ford Gordon says again: I don't think I'm going to do F1 Women's groups combine racing efforts Blaney still looks for a full time gig Robby Gordon: Playing a pair more mental than physical Drivers to watch at Charlotte Shame on You, ESPN and About That Tony Stewart/Darrel Waltrip Thing Cup Scene readers speak out about Talladega
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Happy Birthday: April Horner, Jeremy Mayfield, Dick Berggren, Van Colley Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 is the closest thing NASCAR has to an endurance race. The extra hundred miles can take a toll on equipment, teams and drivers.
"But when you throw in the fact that we start the thing late in the afternoon and race on into the night, there’s just no other such animal to tame out there. Winning the 600 calls for you to be on top of the game from so many directions. You gotta’ pretty much be a chassis man, weatherman and have a little Houdini thrown in, too." The 600-mile, 400-lap battle around the 1.5-mile Lowe’s Motor Speedway has averaged almost four hours and 15 minutes (4:13:07) to contest that distance over the last five years.
"Things change so much from when we get the green flag at almost 6 p.m. and when the checkered flag is flown almost four-and-a-half hours later," said Wallace. "There is such a big transition, the track is so temperamental and it’s such a challenge to stay on top of it all." Wallace is right on the money when it comes to noting how much can change during that time frame in a typical day in Concord, N.C. Take for instance the weather conditions for Sunday, May 23 at the track – exactly a week prior to this weekend’s race. At 5:30 p.m., the temperature was 90 degrees under partly cloudy skies, with the wind out of the southwest at 9 mph. An hour later, a thunderstorm moved through the area and dropped the thermometer down to 81 degrees and the wind was gusting from the west at 18 mph. At 7:30 p.m., it was down to 68 degrees and the humidity up some 45 percent since the start of the race. The temperature climbed back to 70 degrees and stayed there for the next two hours and the wind was calm. "It’s pretty much a situation of making an educated guess of what you need chassis-wise to handle it all," said Wallace with a chuckle. "We’ll all put our heads together and see what our crystal ball comes up with. The biggest and most important thing is to be adjustable. Your setup has to be one that’s flexible enough to allow you to make the necessary adjustments throughout the race. You have to have an engine that’s durable enough to last that long and endure all of the weather changes. The team that wins will be the one that best stays on top of the situation all race long." Current points leader Dale Earnahrdt Junior says the extra 100 miles can take a toll physically. "A lot happens once we go beyond 500 miles. Physically, your arms, neck and eyes feel the difference. It beats you up and your eyes struggle to focus. Mentally, the challenge is just staying focused. It's not as difficult if you're running well. But if your car sucks and you can't pass anybody, then it's like a long road trip where you read every sign, look at every mile-marker and try to figure how much longer it's going to be 'til it's over. You start thinking about what you're going to do tomorrow or if your laundry needs to be done. Hopefully we won't have that problem." Bobby Labonte is one of the favorites this weekend and someone who enjoys coming to Lowe's Motor Speedway for all the obvious reasons -- it's close to home, the facilities are second to none and no one has more recent success at the track. Since getting his first Nextel Cup victory there in 1995, Labonte has continued to run up front. His average finish of 4.7 over the past 10 races at the track is by far the best, well ahead of Mark Martin's 9.4. He added a second win in October 2000, and he has three poles since joining Joe Gibbs Racing. Labonte's record at Atlanta Motor Speedway, which has a similar design to Lowe's, also is stellar: six victories and an average finish of 6.6.
That history at Lowe's hardly helped last weekend, when Labonte finished 15th in the Nextel All-Star Challenge. He struggled throughout the night and was the final car on the lead lap. Not only was the handling of his car off, but a vibration forced his crew to adjust the drive shaft after the first of three segments. Normally, a change like that only happens during practice or testing. "I just figured, we weren't going to fix whatever our problems were, we might as well see if we could stop the vibration," Labonte said. "It wasn't that big of a deal." Maybe he got his bad luck out of the way in time for Sunday's Coca-Cola 600. Qualifying is scheduled for Tonight. "We screwed up, we just missed it a little bit," Labonte said. "If there was a time to learn anything, I'd rather it be last weekend." While Labonte was plodding along in the all-star race, Gibbs teammate Tony Stewart was running away with a victory in the opening 40 laps. He eventually finished third and added to his own history of success at the track. Stewart has six top-five finishes in the past 10 races at Lowe's, including a win last fall. In that span, he has led 414 laps, a total that trails only Labonte and Jeff Burton. Finding the reason for the team's good runs is about the only thing that slows down Stewart and Labonte. "There's just something about Atlanta and Charlotte that we both like," Stewart said. "It's nothing about the track in particular. It's just something the crew chiefs have found with the package, and we seem to get around these two tracks pretty well." Those crew chiefs, Michael "Fatback" McSwain for Labonte and Greg Zipadelli for Stewart, work under team manager Jimmy Makar, who has been with Gibbs since the beginning. Makar was the crew chief when the team got its first victory at Lowe's in 1994 with Dale Jarrett. "We've been able to adjust over the years from what they had then," Labonte said. "We've made it work, and maybe I was able to give Jimmy and the guys better feedback than I do at other tracks." The strange thing about the success of Labonte and Stewart is they rarely experience it in the same race. "It's kind of been feast or famine for us," Stewart said. "Normally, both of us aren't really good here at the same time. But it's been that way at Atlanta, too." As far as tradition goes, NASCAR's longest race is also one of its most legendary. It was exactly 10 years ago this Memorial Day weekend that a young gun named Jeff Gordon won his first race.
Four championships and 66 wins later, Gordon returns to Lowe's Motor Speedway -- site of that first, emotional win -- looking for another victory and to maintain his winning percentage of nearly 20 percent starting with that first win at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "I never would have guessed 10 years ago that I'd be where I am now," said Gordon. "Sometimes it still amazes me that I made it to this level at all. "A lot has changed over the years both personally and professionally -- I certainly never thought I'd be a partial team owner at Hendrick Motorsports -- but the one thing that has stayed the same is the heart of this team that has kept this DuPont team strong for so long." Gordon has won seven Lowe’s Motor Speedway poles here, 2nd only to David Pearson, but there is a powerful case to be made that the Coca-Cola 600 pole is going to be won by a driver other than him. Ryan Newman is in only his third season, but already he has won three poles at LMS, including both races last year. He holds the track record, 186.657 mph, set on Oct. 9, 2003. His mastery of qualifying extends far beyond just this track, though. Newman, 26, has won 21 poles in only 91 tries, including three this year. Newman’s average starting position at this track is 2.5. The fact is that neither Newman nor his crew chief, Matt Borland, have much left to do or say where qualifying at LMS — or in general — is concerned. The big goal is a victory in the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR’s longest race. Starting up front is only a small step in that direction, and Newman has never finished higher than second in an official race at the track, although he did win the all-star race in 2002. “Strategy is not a huge deal,” said Newman. “We learned some things about the tires last weekend, but that’s pretty much it. Gas mileage is very important. You want to have great fuel mileage. That way you can be the last one out (on the track while everyone else is pitting). You’re not typically stuck in the pits when the yellow flag comes out, and as a result, you don’t get caught two laps down. That’s the biggest thing." “One of the biggest issues of the 600 is making sure you’ve got a car that’s handling well,” said Borland. “You’ll have one or two long green-flag runs, and you’ve got to have a car that handles well for the entire run or you can go a lap down pretty quickly. The durability of pieces — engine, transmission — has to be able to handle a 600-mile race, plus all the practice you put on it leading up to the race." Qualifying is scheduled to begin at 7:10 p.m. under the lights.
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