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| | Thursday, May 4 Pole was nice, but winning would be better | |||||
| By Larry McReynolds Special to ESPN.com Editor's note: Veteran crew chief Larry McReynolds will provide a weekly column on ESPN.com, taking you inside the garage for Mike Skinner and the Lowe's No. 31 Chevrolet team. Our trip to California receives high marks -- some of the highest we've had so far. I know we ran second at Talladega, so obviously it gets a high mark. But when you sit back and reflect on the three days at Fontana, it was a good three days there. We didn't win the race, but it was still a really positive three days. First and foremost, sitting on the pole was a little unexpected. Mike, myself and the 31 group put a lot of emphasis on qualifying. You hear teams talk about not being worried about where they start or qualifying. Well, they're lying through their teeth. Everyone is worried about it. We all want to start up front. But there's nothing you can do on Friday except do your best to qualify as good as you can. And that's something we pride ourselves on. I'm hesitant to mention it, because as sure as the world when I do, it will be the very next race where something happens where we can't, but one of the goals that we've set this year is to make first-round qualifying at every single event. We came close last year. I think we only missed it two or three times and twice were because of engine problems. But it's something we'd really like to accomplish. Sitting on the pole at Fontana was pretty big for Mike and this whole team. It's behind us now, but that doesn't mean we're not going to go to Richmond and try to sit on a second straight pole. But we're now in the 2001 Bud Shootoutat Daytona -- so we're glad to get that done. But, qualifying on the pole does so much for you. Sure, it gets you premium pit selection, and you're normally in a position to lead a lap early. I know we didn't lead the first couple of laps, but it wasn't long until we were back to the point leading the race. Winning the pole just builds the momentum and confidence of everybody. You could see the look on everybody's face Friday evening and Saturday morning. You could see confidence on your weekend guys that come in on Saturday afternoon. So it just does a lot for everybody. I'm also pretty excited about Mike getting back into a competitive Busch car. I think it helps him. I think it helped us on Friday. It took out some of the growing time of getting used to the race track. I think it was another small part of why we were able to go out and sit on the pole on Friday. A good Busch car helps build Mike's confidence level. When he can be competitive, whether it's a pickup truck or a Busch car or a sprint car, when he runs good, it boosts his confidence level and he's a confidence-level type of race car driver. If you keep his confidence level up, he's going to do good for you. I talked to my wife Saturday night and told her that it had been a long, long time since I had this feeling about our race car. I've never had that at RCR. I've never had that much confidence about what I saw, especially in Happy Hour, going into a race on Sunday since probably going back to a race with Ernie Irvan and the 28 car where I felt that confident. In the first 100 to 125 laps, it appeared my gut feeling was right. At one point we had a five- or six-second lead. But, as the race unfolded, I could see that some cars that started in the back of the field were awfully good, that their qualifying efforts weren't indicative of their performance on race day at all. In particular, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth, especially Matt Kenseth. I could see Kenseth coming from starting pretty far back. Hhe was one of the quicker cars. When we were out there leading by six seconds, he was beating us by one- to two-tenths a lap coming through the field, so I knew it wasn't going to be long before he was going to be a definite force to reckon with. It just appears that somewhere around the mid-point of the race, the race track conditions moved on us and it kinda outran us. We could never get a grip back on it the rest of the day. There were some inconsistencies in the runs the last part of the race. Competition is so close and everything is running on such a fine line that I think we're very hesitant to underadjust, but we're also hesitant to overadjust. It's a fine, fine line. We did OK on our adjustments, but we didn't hit on that fine line. It's like the adjustments we made when the caution came out with 30 to go, I was pretty pleased with the car's response to those changes. Maybe the fan that wasn't there listening to us and watching us would say, "Why weren't you not one of the race cars to change two tires with 30 to go?" Well, we were in big trouble when that caution came out. We needed that caution. We definitely needed four tires. We were hurting bad right there -- the car was pushing terrible. I think the only way a car could take a chance and change two tires there was if it was balanced pretty good prior to the caution. There wasn't even a second-guessing on my part, Mike's part or anybody's part -- four tires were what we needed to get on that race car with some pretty major adjustments, and that's what we did. If I had to do it all over again, we'd do the same thing because of knowing how bad we were from lap 200 to 220. It was pretty bad so I felt like we had used all four tires up. We're real close to a third of the way through this season. Probably one of the biggest things to come out of Fontana was the leap in the points. We leaped to 10th, just handfuls out of sixth and seventh. We need to get solid in that top 10 by the midway point of the season, which is only five or six races away. The biggest thing on my mind going to Richmond, maybe something a lot of people aren't thinking about, is that it's the last chance to win a race to qualify for The Winston the easy way. No way is easy, but it's easier than having to run The Winston Open. So it's our last chance, and we've had some pretty good runs at Richmond. One year ago, with 60 laps to go, it was kinda like same song, second dance, third dance, fourth dance. We were in position to win that race. Our toughest competition, the 99 car, had fell by the wayside with transmission problems. But, kinda like the rod bolt at Atlanta, unexpectedly, a lapped car got us and knocked us out of contention. We had gotten two laps down and had made those laps up and were back leading the race again. So Richmond has obviously been a good race track for us. We just need to go up there, try to qualify on the pole on Friday evening, get that thing ready to race and get this thing to victory lane. It's so close. We have knocked, pecked, and hammered on that door but it's time to rear back and just kick it slam off the hinges. We're there. We've done everything we can do but win a race. One reason we're so competitive is that we're close to having every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed. The pit crew is awesome -- lots of 15-second stops last Sunday. The motors are awesome. Mike is on top of his game. Communication, fellowship and working relationships between the whole package are just as good as they've been. We've just got to keep going each week and try to turn bad days into good days and good days into great days. Hopefully, that will be a win for this thing. | ALSO SEE McReynolds: Report card time McReynolds: Still optimistic | |||||
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