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'Cat' man do Mayfield prepares to take on fickle New Hampshire
Posted: Monday July 03, 2000 07:35 PM
When I was a kid, there was this legend near some woods where I lived in Owensboro, Ky. People -- usually the older kids -- talked about something called the "Wampus Cat." Nobody really knew what it was or what it looked like. All they'd tell you is, "Man, it's different. It's just different." Well, the track at New Hampshire is a lot like that "Wampus Cat." I don't think it's as ferocious as that cat was supposed to be but it can be pretty tough, too. What we're hoping this Mobil 1 Taurus team can do is lay a "whomping" on that "Cat" in New England. New Hampshire is one of those tracks where you know it doesn't matter what your thinking is early in the weekend -- or early in the race, for that matter. It's most likely going to change. The track is going to change, you know that much. It's just a question of how much. You start off thinking about being aggressive and positive. At some point, you might take a more defensive tact but you have to be really careful not to do that too early in the race. Winning has to be the uppermost thing in your mind. I guess there was a time when you could run hard early in a race, ride for the middle part and then run hard at the end, and still have a chance at winning the thing. From what I've seen, you'd better be going as hard as you can go from the time the green flag drops until the checkered flag drops, or you're going to be so far back you won't believe it. You need to start off pretty strong at New Hampshire. You need a good-handling car, a good engine, a good starting spot and some good luck early. The chassis doesn't have to be perfect when the race starts and, to tell you the truth, you're probably going to be in trouble if it is perfect at the start. The tracks tends to change a lot. It usually slickens up because of the sunshine and heat but, if it's cool and overcast, it will get tighter. The one thing you know for sure about New Hampshire is whatever your car is doing at the start of the race, it won't be doing at the end. Still, you have to be pretty good at the start of the race to keep from falling too far behind and you have to be able to adjust everything quickly. The short, fast, flat track means the driver and the crew chief have to communicate really well, and they have to keep talking about what the car is doing. You're just about for sure going to make a chassis change on the first pit stop. It is always better if that first stop comes under a caution, but that doesn't happen too often at New Hampshire. If it doesn't, you need to make quick changes -- tire pressure adjustments, that sort of thing. If you come in under caution, sometimes you can make more complicated and time-consuming changes. The main thing is holding onto that lead lap if you are having problems. It's really tough to get a lap back at New Hampshire, and you don't want to lose one. It's better to give up some time to the leader and some track position than to pit and lose a lap to make a chassis adjustment. And it's better to make that adjustment and lose the lap early if you're going to lose one pretty quickly anyway. All of that makes pit strategy really crucial. Track position is important early in the race in how it relates to you holding on to the lead lap. It's important late in the race in how it relates to you winning the thing. Pit strategy goes further than just making good calls early and late, it also gets into knowing when the difference between the two is going to be the most important. Honestly, just about every track is a track-position track. As close as these cars are to each other and as close as the times are lap after lap, there is a definite advantage to being in front of somebody. Everybody works hard to avoid mistakes because those are the things that can really hurt you. You work hard and it might take you 50 laps to gain 10 positions sometimes, but you can lose 10 spots in the blink of an eye if you make a big enough mistake. Miss on an adjustment [chassis], and it can hurt you bad if you don't get a caution pretty quick. Still, hit on the right setup for awhile, and you can usually feel pretty good about life until your next pit stop. We've had some pretty good runs through the years at New Hampshire. Things haven't always worked out at the end for us the way we would have liked, but we've almost always had good cars and pretty decent days. We just needed to work on our "luck skills." With a little bit of luck, it might end up being a really good day for this Mobil 1 bunch. Maybe we can do something with that "cat" up there. 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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