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 'It just wasn't a great day' Talladega can't come fast enough after Martinsville mess
Posted: Monday April 19, 1999 03:52 PM
Sunday was not one of our finer days. We struggled almost from the get-go at Martinsville. I told you last week there were some concerns about the new pit road there, and while that in itself didn't do us in, it sure didn't help us any. We got caught up in somebody's deal 10 laps into the race, cut a tire and lost a lap. Later, we were turned again, and spent more time in the pits. That knocked some lines loose and they finally broke loose about 100 laps into the race, so we lost a bunch of laps fixing those. It just wasn't a great day. One of the really nice things about NASCAR racing, though, is the fact you don't have long enough to get too high or too low. With one race after another, generally week after week, all you can do is move onto the next race. And that's what we're doing -- forgetting Martinsville, and looking ahead to Talladega. Talladega is a different kind of speedway, no doubt, and especially after the last two weeks. We just ran half-miles at Bristol and Martinsville -- our two shortest tracks -- and now head to our longest and fastest speedway. Talladega is the kind of track where you see a lot of people running three-wide but nobody really gets comfortable running that way. You can go from way back to up front and to way back again pretty fast too. Everything happens fast at Talladega. The air is either your friend or your enemy at Talladega. Every bit of work you do on the car is to try to get through the air a little bit better. Once you get into the draft, the way that air moves around determines how stable your car is -- or isn't. If it moves the right way, the air is your best friend in the world. If it swirls the wrong way, all you can do is hold on and hope everything works out the way you want. Nobody wins when you go three-wide. Usually you end up with three guys trying to get out of the situation they're in, and not really sure how to do it. You can't back off, or you're going to really mess up everybody behind you. You can't go any faster -- either you'll run over the guy in front of you or you're already going as fast as you can.
If you're on the outside, the wall keeps you from doing much. If you're on the inside, you're blocked out by the grass and the apron. If you're in the middle, you feel like a kernel of corn on the verge of being popped. The car is shaking and shimming and wanting to go left or right, anywhere except straight. Running three-wide at Talladega is like being a character in one of those old Mafia movies. You're into it without knowing exactly how you got there, and you're not too sure how you're going to get out of it. You just hang on and hope everything works out. One slip by anybody in that situation and a lot of people's days are done. There just aren't any single-car wrecks at Talladega. When you run those 20 and 30-car trains, it's pretty tough to do anything with just one car. Everybody runs so close together and so tight. The front of your car sits a few inches away from the rear bumper in front of you, while it feels like the guy behind me is trying to rub the Mobil 1 Pegasus off the rear of my car. What happens is you end up talking to the guy in front of you and the guy behind you at the same time, whispering under your breath most of the time. You're "driving" three cars at the same time, and hoping they are thinking the same things you are. ESP would really come in handy at Talladega. Qualifying is going to be tough to figure. We had a really good test at Talladega but just about every Chevrolet and Pontiac had a good test when they were there. Those guys are going to be tough to beat. It will be interesting to see how everybody stacks up with everybody else once qualifying is over and we start looking at race setups. We're ready to get moving again, and figure Talladega would be a really good place to start. We've been pretty good on the restrictor-plate tracks, and we think we can do pretty well at Talladega too. NASCAR's Jeremy Mayfield drives the No. 12 Mobil 1 Ford for Penske/Kranefuss Racing. His column appears regularly on CNNSI.com.
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