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Brimming with confidence The flat superspeedways have been good to us
Posted: Tuesday June 06, 2000 08:21 PM
Dover was great and it was disappointing. The way things worked out might have hurt us a little as far as the points are concerned but, believe me, our goals are set and we're going to reach them. The Mobil 1 Taurus was fantastic at Dover. We worked our way to the front and I really believe it would have come down to us and Tony Stewart at the end. But we had some engine problems, which is incredibly rare for us, and our day ended a lot earlier that we had hoped. We're working as hard on our points deal right now as anybody could work. You'd think some people might have given up a few weeks ago, but this Mobil 1 team just started working all that much harder. Nobody has given up and nobody will. Shoot, we haven't given up on winning the championship yet, much less finishing in the top 10. Winning races and winning poles are our immediate goals. We think we're capable of winning the race at Michigan, and we think we're going to be one of the teams to beat. We feel pretty confident about Pocono right after that too. Win or lose, believe me, we're going to going as hard as we can week after week after week. Nobody has ever finished in the top 10 of the Winston Cup points without running all the races. We've lost a race and that is our No. 1 goal - finishing in the top 10 of the points. We can do it, and we're going to do it. By running up front, by finishing in the top five and top 10 consistently and by winning races, we can end the year in the top 10 of the points. I can't think of anything that would better show what a great team this is than being able to walk across that stage in New York (at the season-ending banquet). We're pretty excited about Michigan especially since it's the kind of track where we've run pretty well. Las Vegas and California are pretty close to the same style, and we had good cars at both of those tracks. The past couple of years, somebody who ran pretty well at those tracks would usually move to the front at Michigan too. Well, the rain and the early end to the race at Vegas cost us a really good finish. We had moved to sixth, and then pitted and the rain got us. And we had a great car at California, especially when you consider the oil cooler quit right at the start of the race and that Mobil 1 had to run 500 miles at 350 degrees. We've run pretty well just about everywhere we've been. Look at where we are now in points, even losing an entire race like that. Plus, we had really good cars at Atlanta and Darlington too, and circumstances bit us there. At Atlanta, we had moved into the top five when we had a rear end problem. We were one of the fastest cars at Darlington and then got caught up in somebody else's race. Give us the finishes we probably deserved at Atlanta and Darlington, then add in the points for the race we lost, and we're right in the thick of things. So, our No. 1 goal is going to be the top 10 but I know how this Mobil 1 bunch is. Once we get into the top 10, they're going to be thinking top nine, and then top eight and on up the ladder. Top five is going to be high on their list of thinking. You might wonder if some of this thinking is unrealistic but I don't believe it is. As much as these guys want to win and want to finish high in the points, even if it is unrealistic, I wouldn't want to be the person to tell them. They'd run right over me or anybody else who told them it couldn't be done. We know we have a lot of ground to make up. We had a great run at Dover and ended up losing an engine for the first time in two-and-a-half years. We were right up front, though, and we showed everybody what we had. I kept hearing about how other cars "dominated" at Dover but I think they had their hands full with this Mobil 1 bunch. It was a bad deal to finish 37th but we had a winning car. And we're going to have more winning cars. Somebody always steps up on this team. We have a bunch of people who are totally and completely focused on reaching our goals. Even our sponsor - the way that Mobil 1 held up at California with the strain we were putting on it - has stepped up. How many other teams out here can say that not only every member of the race team has stepped up, but even the sponsor has stepped up? We're focused and we're together on doing everything we can do with the rest of this season. We're going to get this Mobil 1 Taurus back into the top 10 of the standings. We're going to win some more races before this year is out. Our motto has been "Total Focus" and that's where everybody's focus has been all along. We'll be there. Believe me. Jeremy Mayfield is in his third season driving the Penske-Kranefess Mobil 1 Taurus on the Winston Cup circuit. His column appears weekly on CNNSI.com.
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