COT is the right horse for the road course
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When we talk about the balance on a road course car, you want the weight on all four wheels to be pretty similar. A little bit over 800 pounds on each wheel gives you a pretty well-balanced car to race. Remember, on road courses you make left and right hand turns, so balance is key. So I think this car is more suited for road racing than it is oval track racing. The chassis is square, the body is square and that makes an ideal road racing car. So from a design standpoint, this car should be a fun car to drive on a road course the way it is built.
There are so many aspects that go into having a successful run on a road course. You must have the right shock package. It is unbelievably important. Having someone like Ronnie Crooks on your side is such a positive. His nickname in the garage area is "Dr. Who" for all the magical things he can do with shocks. Not only does he work for the Gibbs bunch, but he also helps all the Toyota teams with chassis design, chassis set-up, chassis engineering and shock package. He is one of the best I have ever seen and he definitely is one of the best in the garage area.
The driver has to do his job. Certainly road racing is not like oval track racing. There is a real technique to road racing. You have to heel-toe the pedals. Yes, you have to have happy feet and quick hands. You have to be smooth on the gear shift. Gear boxes are a little more forgiving than they were back in the day. Nonetheless, you have to be smooth in everything you do from working the gas to using the brake to going through the gears.
That's where road racers have such an advantage. They just have so much experience and know how to slow a car down with the brakes. That may not make sense, but if you watch a Boris Said or a Ron Fellows, they can drive a car down into the corner a little deeper and a little harder because they have so much experience of how and to what extent to use the brakes and how to catch a gear at the right time. That's the technique for being a good road racer and its hard for us oval guys to get a handle on that because we slow a car down by shifting.
We've seen the road race ringers, as we call them, come in and be successful. They haven't come in and dominated though. Our guys are good enough and the equipment is good enough now that they have learned to be better at it despite the fact we only race on a road course twice a year. Some of these guys that drove the Montreal Nationwide race are going to be on their game this weekend. I guess you might say they got a tune-up before Sunday's race. You will also see a number of Cup guys in this Saturday's Nationwide race. It's just more seat time and more practice time to work on your rhythm and hitting your marks.
Strategy has become a huge part of the success on a road course for these teams. Back in the day, we would run until a caution came out, come in to fill it up with fuel, put on four tires and go run some more. We really never broke the race down into segments like they do today. Now teams run to their fuel window because they have broken the race down into segments. With the race being 90 laps long, you really have to discipline yourself now and say "OK, we are going to go 30 laps, 30 laps and 30 laps."
Most teams do that now. We saw Kyle Busch do that at Sonoma back in June. He and his teammate Tony Stewart hit their fuel window and hit pit road at 28 laps and lo and behold the caution flag came out on lap 31 and they were able to assume the lead since they had already made their pit stops. That's what you hope for, the best case scenario. We compare Pocono to a road course because you can do the same thing there. At most tracks you will go a lap down and can't use that kind of strategy but on a road course you can. So the guy that can catch that just right this weekend will be in the catbird's seat.
Every week pit strategy is important. Every week track position is important. Nowhere is track position more important than on a road course. Why? Well remember that on a road course, when they restart from a caution the field is lined up single file.
Jeff Gordon is a great road racer. Tony Stewart is too. Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson also fall into that category. Mark Martin is a great road racer along with Kyle Busch. Kyle already won a Nationwide road course race in Mexico plus like I mentioned previously, he also won the Cup race at Sonoma.
I love road racing. It is about as much fun as you can have in a race car. It is really challenging. You race the track and yourself. You don't race your competitors. You try and hit your marks each lap and improve each lap. At Watkins Glen you have 11 chances each lap so you just keep trying to improve.
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Oh by the way
I have never raced in the rain. I was at Watkins Glen a few years ago when we were going to go out on rain tires. By the time they had got the rain tires mounted and on the cars, the track had dried enough that we didn't need them and didn't get to try the rain tires. It certainly looked like fun. With it being the first time they ever did this, I thought everyone in the Nationwide race did an incredible job and I thought it was the right thing to do. It was funny to me that some of even the good teams weren't exactly prepared to run in the rain. They didn't have windshield wipers and defoggers which you have to have all that stuff. Overall, it was a good effort and fun to watch. I would have loved to try that. I was also happy to see Ron Fellows win. Ron is one of the nicest men in racing. It was big deal to win a NASCAR race for Ron. He will be tough this weekend at Watkins Glen too. You can count on that.
Oh by the way too
If you read my Pocono story last week going into the weekend, I had mentioned the keys would be pit strategy and fuel mileage would be the determining factors and darn it, they weren't! Naturally the rain became the third leg of that triangle at Pocono. The bottom line is pit strategy and fuel mileage is always key at Pocono and you saw it happen again this past weekend.
One final 'Oh by the way'
Congratulations to my buddy Carl Edwards for his win at Pocono. I have always said if I was starting a team again and had to pick a driver I would pick Carl. I like his attitude and I like the way he goes about his business. He is dedicated, committed and just a really really good guy. I also have to say, being a former driver, how tickled I was to hear how Carl straightened his crew chief, Bob Osborne out during that red flag. A driver just has to get up in the crew chief's face every now and then and 'splain things to him. So it tickled me to see Carl get Bob's attention and they both had to love the end result.
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