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Champagne in victory lane Winning at Pocono makes up for earlier woes
Posted: Tuesday June 20, 2000 12:21 PM
I've never been much of a drinker but I don't think there is anything that tastes sweeter than champagne in victory lane. Winning at Pocono on Monday was great for this Mobil 1 team, and it was great for a lot of reasons. Of course, anytime you win it's fantastic. But last week at Michigan we led most of the race and we were blowing the field away until we had motor problems. To come back from that -- with a heck of a motor, I should add -- is a great, great feeling. This team has had its ups and downs this year. But man, what an up! The last lap? I wasn't looking to do anything to Dale Earnhardt. He pushed coming off the second turn and I got a great run coming off two. To be honest, if he hadn't pushed up some right there, the third turn probably wouldn't have become an issue. But he did and I got a great run. Going into three, we touched. We didn't touch hard -- in fact, I didn't know for sure we had touched at all until I saw the video tape later -- but it was enough to get him loose. I hate it happened for him but it's nothing we haven't seen before. That kind of thing happens. Sometimes you rattle a guy's cage. I wasn't looking to hit him. If I had been in front of him -- and I have been a lot of times -- I probably would have expected the same thing, just maybe a little harder. And, like in the past, I would never have said a word -- just like Dale didn't say anything. Next stop, Sears PointWe're hoping to take a little bit of this momentum into Sears Point. The thing about Winston Cup racing is you don't have too long to celebrate and you don't have too long to feel bad for yourself. On the plane on the way home after the race Monday, we started talking about the road course. A strong short-track background is the type of oval-track experience that will help you on a road course. Lots of NASCAR drivers started on short tracks, and a lot of the skills from the short tracks can carry over to the road courses. A lot of the things you learned running street stocks or late models at some weekly track somewhere are a lot of the same things you use in road course racing -- at least, in road course racing with these big ol' heavy stock cars. I look at Sears Point as a short track that got stretched out of shape. I think most drivers would be better off to look at the place like that. Now Bruton (Smith, chairman of Speedway Motorsports, which owns Sears Point) has thrown in a few superspeedway looks, like the sweeping turn at the far end of the road course and taking the carousel out. But still, most of Sears Point is just a dysfunctional short track. A lot of the things you use on the short tracks are the same types of things you use on the road courses. Brakes are crucial, keeping them and using them wisely. Sometimes you lean a little bit on people and sometimes you get leaned on a little bit. The key is knowing how much to give and how much to take, just like you would on a short track. Even when the race is over, you usually have a couple of people pretty mad at each other -- just like a short track. There are a lot of differences too, of course. Transmissions are very important. Setting up the right gears and gear ratios to get you all the way around the course are really important if you're going to be fast on Friday (for pole qualifying) or good on Sunday (for the race). It's more than just shifting the things back and forth when you go around the track. You'd better have the right gearing and the right ratios in the transmission to begin with, or it's going to be a long, long day. And you absolutely have to have a bullet-proof transmission. That thing takes a lot of beating through a race. There is a lot of conservation too. You want to protect the transmission. You want to protect the brakes. You want to keep the sheet metal from caving in on your tires. You have to guard from over-revving your engine. You have to do all of that and still drive the thing like you stole it. It's one of the things that makes the road courses tough, but those are the kinds of things that make the road courses fun too. We've learned a lot on the road courses, and I have learned a ton as a driver on road courses the past few years. The way we've been running this year, maybe this will be a breakthrough race for this Mobil 1 team on the road courses. Jeremy Mayfield is in his third season driving the Penske-Kranefess Mobil 1 Taurus on the Winston Cup circuit. His diary appears weekly on CNNSI.com.
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