No slowing down

Stay off the brakes to keep your momentum up

Ricky Rudd, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus won the Brickyard 400 in 1997 and sat on the pole for the 2000 edition of the annual NASCAR Winston Cup event in Indianapolis. For Sunday's race, his Wood Brothers Racing Taurus will carry the colors of newly signed associate sponsor Rent-A-Center. Below, he describes a lap around the historic rectangle-shaped track.

Indianapolis presents a little different situation than at most racetracks. They have a warm-up lane there. You can't just pull up on the racetrack. As you leave pit road, you have an access lane that runs parallel to the track until you get to the backstretch. Usually by the time you get to Turn 3, you are at full speed.

Starting the lap at the start-finish line, you come down the long front straightaway with a lot of rpms. The start-finish line is down towards Turn 1, somewhat like Talladega. It seems like the start-finish line should be closer to Turn 4 than it is, but it is way down the track. By the time you get there, you are moving at a pretty good clip. On the front straightaway, you don't run right against the wall, but you are in the middle of the track for a reason -- it seems to help the cars run a little bit quicker down the straightaway.

Before you get to Turn 1, it is a timing maneuver. Indianapolis is all about the timing. The corners are very flat, about 90 degrees. It seems like it takes forever to get to the corner, but when you get down there close, it seems like it comes up on you in a real big hurry.

So the trick to Indy is to be in the middle of the straightaway, but then you have to time it so that when you get to the corner, you are up against the wall. It also helps if you start in the middle of the straight and then turn to the right and just get close to the wall before you turn left. It seems like it pre-loads the chassis and sort of makes the weight transfer go to the right side of the car. So as you arc it down in the corner, the trick is waiting almost until the very last moment to turn.

Most drivers, myself included, when they first go there have a tendency to turn into the corner a little bit too early. When you do that, it causes the front end to push really bad and it won't turn like it needs to. So you've got to keep working on yourself at Indy. A lot of driver discipline goes on there so you make a late turn into the corner. When you do that, your car has to be balanced just right. You don't really get a second chance because you will spin it out. If the car is too tight it will push and won't turn in the corner. It is a very fine line there -- probably one of the trickiest tracks to getting the chassis balanced to run a fast lap.

You start down the middle of the straightaway, swing the car to the right and then an almost immediate left-hand turn into the corner. It doesn't continue to wrap around like most tracks. Then you spill out into the short chute. You want to put your left front tire right down against the ripple strips and then, exiting the corner, you want to be right up against the fence. So, you are using every inch of racetrack trying to keep the momentum going.

You're not in the short chute very long. You leave it, making a late turn into Turn 2. You put your left-front tire down against the ripple strips and drive right across them. If they're real rough you'll stay on the outside edge.

Everything is about momentum. Keeping the momentum rolling when you head into the next straightaway, you start in at a much higher speed than if you let the car bog down. No matter how much horsepower you have, the car won't regain speed if you let the rpms run low in the corner.

You roll through Turn 2 and into the backstretch. It is a little greasy on those corners, so during the race the car can start slipping and sliding right there. The car just spills out into the straightaway. Hopefully, you've got the momentum going and you can make a fast corner. If you do, it makes for a fast straightaway.

The backstretch is very similar to the frontstretch. It is one of the neatest feelings on the circuit to run that backstretch and see all the green and the landscaping. It just gives you a different feel, not like a normal racetrack. Just like in the frontstretch, you run away from the wall, about in the middle.

And just before you get to Turn 3, you arc back to the wall and turn immediately when you get to the fence. You turn back left and pre-load the chassis, turn to the bottom of the track, and put your left-front tire on the ripple strips. Again, the exit to Turn 3 is very similar to the exit of Turn 1, and it spills you into the short chute. You use every inch of racetrack to keep the momentum going.

Use light brake pressure going into Turn 1 and even less going into Turn 3. That's another thing you have to work on -- telling yourself to stay off the brake pedal. If you hit the brake pedal hard, not only do you lose momentum, but it makes the car pitch and yaw. It will make it yaw in a different attitude than what you need it to. You can actually make the car upset and get a little sideways. So you have to work on not using the brake pedal. The less amount of brake you use at Indy, the faster you go. Not so much that the brakes slow you down, but it helps you roll through the corners with the brakes off versus on.

You are in Turn 3 and you exit into the short chute and head to Turn 4, staying off the brakes. You turn into the corner, put the left front tire down on the ripple strips. You want to make a late entry there and square the corner to keep the momentum going so that you roll onto the front straightaway with as many rpms as you can. You head onto that front straightaway, and there's your lap.

Ricky Rudd drives the No. 21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus owned by Wood Brothers Racing.

 

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