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10 Questions Pruett reflects on his jump into Winston Cup racing
Posted: Tuesday May 23, 2000 10:18 AM
Scott Pruett turned a lot of heads when he decided to make the move from CART veteran to NASCAR Winston Cup rookie. The youthful-looking 39-year-old has taken his share of lumps this year, but he has enjoyed success at tracks where we has tested. Before The Winston, he talked to CNNSI.com's Ryan Smithson about his former CART buddies, the road courses and moving his family across the United States to NASCAR's back yard. 1. What have you told your former CART colleagues about NASCAR Winston Cup racing? I told them that it is a lot harder than you think. There is a lot of racing, and getting the car right is tough. A lot of the things that I have learned racing Indy cars does not apply here. It's a big transition. 2. If you call some of your CART friends, who do you call? Ummm...let's see. Michael (Andretti), I talk to Little Al (Unser) and Bryan Herta and Jimmy Vasser. I obviously talk to (former teammate) Cristiano da Matta. 3. Do they kid you about moving to NASCAR? They are more interested than kidding. Of course, they'll say, "Oh, so you are going to pick up and live on the road now, huh?" 4. How much more of your time is taken up by Winston Cup as opposed to CART? Even in Cup, you are testing when not racing. CART has more off-weekends and they place a heavy restriction on testing to limit costs. When I got involved with Firestone's return (to CART) we did 15,000 miles of testing one year and 12,000 the next. Finally, CART said that teams couldn't do that and they began to restrict it. Here we have 24 days of testing and for the most part I am home one or two days a week. 5. We are almost through the first run through the schedule. Of the tracks that you haven't seen yet, which one are you looking forward to the most? Dover, we tested there. Obviously Sears Point and Watkins Glen (road courses). I am looking forward to those, especially if it starts raining, because we would be on even ground. It will be fun to go to Pocono. Some of the places CART has raced in the past, like Phoenix and Homestead. 6. Are you going to exceptionally good at the road courses? We are going to give them a good run for their money, but these guys have been doing this for a long time. But, some of the things I have learned in road racing over the years is really going to help. 7. But we know sometimes knowledge isn't everything on a road course, because even a road racing expert like Ron Fellows was passed at Watkins Glen for the win last year in the Busch race by Dale Jr.. Exactly. That's exactly right. You can't forget that I am used to driving a 1,200-pound, 900 horsepower, 6,000-pound downforce car, and now we are talking about a. 700-horsepower car that is limited on downforce and tires. It's a whole new world. 8. How difficult is it to stay on the lead lap in a Winston Cup race? Not hard at Talladega at Daytona and not too difficult at Texas or Atlanta. Places like Bristol, Martinsville -- the half-milers -- is hard. When the green flag falls on one of those short tracks, the guy in 43rd is already a straightaway down. You can't help but go a lap down. I was looking at the results from Dover last year (spring race) and I think three guys were on the lead lap. 9. Now, you had to move your family from where to where in order to make the transition to NASCAR? I had to move them from Sacremento, Calif., to Hickory, N.C.. 10. How have they adjusted? It's a big change. They have adjusted really well though. My 11-year-old daughter really loves going to school there. We are really getting settled. North Carolina is very NASCAR-driven, so everyone knows what is going on here. On any given weekend, people will see you and know who you are. Even now, with all the limited success we have had.
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