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Brutal Bristol qualifying If you have to pit on the back, forget about winning
Man, it felt great to be back behind the wheel of that Mobil 1 Taurus again! Missing two weeks about drove me crazy. My whole life, all I have ever wanted to do was drive a Winston Cup stock car. I finally made it and then it was taken from me for two weeks. Believe me, that was a long two weeks. I still don’t disagree with what the doctors decided - in fact, I probably understand it more now than I did a week ago - but I was ready to race when we got to Michigan. It is the absolute truth - a bad day at the race track is always better than a good day at home. Now, we head to a track that is known for its beating and banging. Bristol is a little over half of a mile with big sweeping banked turns - steeper than anything else we run. It really is like racing inside a cereal bowl. There are two things you have to always remember about Bristol: 1. Things are going to happen there. 2. Things are going to happen really fast. In fact, a lot of things happen at Bristol. It’s just that not many of them are good things. Every race there you end up with one winner and a whole bunch of guys who are mad at each other. This is pretty much everything stock car racing is all about. Bristol is the reason race cars have fenders. This track is nothing but beating, banging and lots of speed. Bristol is The OK Corral with 43 gunslingers stomping in, every one of them trying to prove they are the biggest, baddest hombre in town. What you try to remember is it’s not the one who can knock the doors off the saloon or who has the biggest horse to ride in on - it’s the last man standing. You look at the cars of the winners over the years. They are beaten in, tire marks all over them. It’s kind of like the kid after a big fight in the school yard, and both of his eyes are black and his shirt is ripped and his nose is bleeding. The guys who wins Bristol is that kid - grinning and saying, “Hey, you should see the other guys!” It’s a fast track, really fast. You’re talking about a half-mile where you turn a lap every 15 seconds, but you’re leaning and getting leaned on - banging and getting banged on - beating and getting beat on. Things are going to happen in a hurry there. When bad things happen, they happen in a heartbeat. Whatever happens behind you is going to be happening in front of you pretty quickly. The car is usually going to take a beating. It’s funny, though, because a car without many marks on it means something either really good or really bad. You either ran away from everyone and won the race easy or you blew an engine really early. At most tracks, the crew guys will kid around and say something like, “Just bring back the steering wheel.” At Bristol? They don’t even bother mentioning the steering wheel. If you bring anything back at all, it’s usually been a pretty good night. You have to handle. That and acceleration is what gets your around the place. It’s like any short track, though. The first one back into the gas is the one who is going to be fastest. Good acceleration can help you overcome that some but good acceleration on top of that is going to make you really tough to beat at Bristol. The better you’re handling, the quicker you can get back into the gas after going into (turns) one and three. Every lap is SLAM! onto the gas, lift, lean left through the turns, get back on the gas, SLAM! down the backstretch, lift, lean left through the turns, get back on the gas, and start all over again. The trick is doing it 500 times with 42 other cars out there in front of you, behind you and around you. Race strategy starts Friday in qualifying. Qualifying is really crucial at Bristol. You want a good pit spot and you have to be on the frontstretch. I’ve run really well from the backstretch before and I’ve seen other guys run pretty well from back there, but you can pretty much kiss your chances of winning goodbye if you are pitting back there. It’s nearly impossible. We’ve had some good runs from back there - and some good finishes too - but it’s going to be a long, long night if you are pitting on the back. You have to have some really good pit stops too. If you have to pit under green, you are going to lose a minimum of two laps if you pit while you’re leading the race. If you’re close to a lap down, you’re going to lose three laps and maybe more. Every second counts at Bristol, especially during green flag pit stops. A caution coming out in the middle of a pit stop sequence is going to put a whole lot of cars way behind in a hurry. I’m fortunate that the pit stops for the Mobil 1 team have been really good all year long, so we ought to have something of an advantage there. We feel pretty good about our chances at Bristol. This Mobil 1 Taurus has had some pretty good runs there and we think we can continue what we’ve built there. It’s going to be a tough race and a tough night for everybody but we’re looking forward to it. Our whole deal right now is to win as many races as we can win. We want to end the season with the most wins. We’re working as hard as we can to keep this team on top. Jeremy Mayfield is the driver of the No. 12 Mobil One Ford on the Winston Cup circuit. The Kentucky native has won twice this year to doubr his career wins total to four. Mayfield’s column appears weekly on CNNSI.com.
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