Focus gets back to racing this weekend at Bristol
Rowdy in Daytona
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Can you dig it?
The .533-mile short track has always been a place where you better run around the bottom of the racetrack, and the only way you could pass someone was by doing the bump-and-run or laying the bumper on them outright. But what I saw during the August race weekend in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, the Nationwide Series race and the Sprint Cup races is that you can pass there with the new surface. There is definitely a selection of grooves there now and we tend to get long green flag runs now.
At the same time, when the hourglass sands start to run out at the end of the day, people start stepping it up and we start seeing a little more bumping and running.
Don't call it a comeback
While everybody will be focused on the battles up front, there will also be a lot of attention on two drivers whether they are up front or toward the rear.
Kurt Busch, whose team simply cannot get their arms around this new car like their teammate Ryan Newman's No. 12 seems to have. But we know the track record Busch has at Bristol, which includes five career victories, so this weekend will be a tell-tale sign for that crew.
Hopefully in the minds of that group, even though they ran second in the Daytona 500, this weekend will be a turning point of this season.
The other car everybody will be watching is Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet. That group has struggled so much this year with this new car to the point that this is probably the worst start they've ever had to a season. Add to it the fact that Bristol has not been one of Jimmie Johnson's better racetracks — he and his team have run well there, they just have been unable to seal the deal.
It's kind of ironic, when you look at the four Hendrick Motorsports cars, two are running good (Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon) and two that are struggling (Johnson and Casey Mears). Ironically, that makes one good and one bad at each of the team's two shops.
You get the feeling that with the track record the No. 48 team has that they will figure out their problems and be OK. But, I know from talking to No. 48 crew chief Chad Knaus week in and week out that he's very concerned. Knaus feels like their focus on trying to win the championship last year kept them from working hard enough or testing hard enough with the new car at the 1.5- and 2-mile tracks. He'll even tell you, "We are way behind with this race car and we are struggling." I'm sure that crew will be glad to return to some of those tracks where they were so good at last year like Martinsville, Richmond and Phoenix.
It'll be interesting to see if Johnson and Busch can get their whole programs turned around this weekend.
Decisions to make
This weekend, crew chiefs up and down pit road will have to weigh out just how many positions they can make up on pit road — even though now it looks like you can pass a lot more than you use to be able.
All day long, especially early, you will see guys trying to get off pit sequence from one another. In a perfect world, you run 30 laps and then you pit while a bunch of guys stay out. Then you run another 20 laps and voila, those other guys are forced to pit and you've got your track position.
We'll see off-sequence stuff all day long.
Can you dig it?
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Also, as the day gets older and older, you'll see more guys opting for that track position over fresh tires because once we get some guys a lap or more down and we have the double file restarts, if you restart the race 10th — it's almost like restarting the race 20th.
Pit road is tricky at Bristol. It's a wide pit road, but the pit boxes are some of the smallest on the Sprint Cup circuit. You'll see guys battling all day long as they try to avoid getting blocked in their pit stalls.
I always remember something Dale Earnhardt used to tell me, "It's a lot easier to pass them on pit road than it is out on the racetrack." Remember, it can take teams 12 seconds to pass them on pit road with a good pit stop, but it can take 30 laps to pass them on the racetrack.
Back to normal?
I'm hoping that we can get back to really good and normal racing this weekend — not that we haven't had good racing, we have, even if Atlanta was a little weak ... but I'd be willing to bet that when we return in the fall we'll have our typical good, close racing once again.
But I am ready for some of this extra-curricular stuff to dissipate and the focus to get back solely on the racing.
Daytona was Daytona, we had an awesome race and everything was great. We get to Fontana, Calif., and we fight weather and a weeping race track, but we had a good race. We get to Las Vegas and we have the oil tank lid situation, but we had a good race. Then this past week we had the real moaning, groaning, complaining about the tires, but we had a decent race.
| Speed Mail Larry McReynolds |
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I guess the moral of my story is that I hope all these sidebar stories can dissipate and we can really step up and realize that we have some dadgum good racing. We have two short tracks coming up in Bristol and Martinsville Speedway, three of the next four races are at tracks 1-mile or shorter — where we always have great racing — and I hope that we can keep moving forward while all the other side stories just fall by the wayside and everybody starts talking about the racing again.
Who to watch this weekend
Denny Hamlin — The Joe Gibbs Racing brigade will be just as tough there as they've been everywhere else, and I think certainly Denny Hamlin can break his string of bad luck.
Jeff Gordon — With five career Cup victories at the track, we know he will be tough there.
Roush Fenway Racing — The way Greg Biffle is running right now and the way his teammate Carl Edwards is running — and has run at Bristol, remember, he won the race last August at Bristol — we feel like that group will be awfully good this weekend.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. — Junior loves Bristol, and besides Jeff Gordon, may have the best package right now at Hendrick Motorsports. He will be one to watch this weekend.
FOX race analyst Larry McReynolds has more than 25 years of NASCAR experience as a mechanic, crew chief and broadcaster. He and his fellow Crew Chief Club members take you behind the wall at www.crewchiefclub.com.
"How to Become a Winning Crew Chief" is on bookstore shelves, or you may order your own autographed copy from www.DWStore.com.
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