Adapting to this track

• Homestead used to be a flat oval with only about 6 degrees of banking in the corners, but now they have put in some progressive banking that resembles the grade you'll find at Michigan, Chicago or Kansas. Progressive banking means the track gains more banking as you go from the bottom to the top. We don't race on any other track that has progressive banking in the NASCAR Cup series. The Irwindale (Calif.) Speedway, which played host to the Toyota All-Star Showdown late in 2003, has it. The idea is to promote side-by-side racing. Instead of drivers just taking the bottom groove, a second groove is possible.

Plotting strategy

• The engine guy is one of your most important players. These cars will be in the throttle a lot, and the rpms won't fall very low. They will run high, hanging rpms most of the lap. Your engine guy is constantly tuning the engine through the weekend to get good bottom torque, good top-end power and the best fuel mileage possible.
• You need to factor in some long green runs, and cars get strung out around the track. That makes track position important and puts emphasis on pit strategy. Homestead's pit road is very long, and the pit boxes are a fairly good size so getting blocked in your pit is not usually an issue. Being fast, just changing two tires or doing whatever you have to do, you need good strategy to keep good track position.

Where the action is

• The new asphalt has a tremendous amount of grip, and teams fought problems with blistered tires last year, with blowouts bringing out several of the 10 cautions. And some drivers said that the hot weather made the oil come up through the asphalt, and that made the track slick.
• The variable banking is designed to allow three-wide racing in some spots, but we saw that three-wide didn't work early in the race. Kevin Harvick got loose as he tried to make a three-wide pass inside of Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch in Turn 2, and the three cars got together.