North Carolina Speedway
RBC Insurance 200

North Carolina Speedway

Starting 42nd and running to the first top-10 of my Busch Series career at a tough track like "The Rock" AND locking down 10th place in the Busch Series points race; now THAT'S a birthday present -- but it sure didn't start out that way. When you're walking to the driver / crew chief meeting and you see your crew chief running in the other direction with a couple of mechanics, that's not a good sign. But just 90 minutes before driver introductions, there were Jon Wolfe and a couple other crew guys racing past me to the hauler -- and they weren't smiling. During the team's pre-race checklist, they noticed something wrong with the front drive system in the motor and made the quick call to swap it out for the back-up.

Just 58 minutes, and a lot of elbows and wrenches, later the Harrah's Chevrolet had a new engine, had made it through technical inspection and was sitting on the starting grid, 42 cars from the front. If a team makes an engine change for any reason, NASCAR voids your qualifying position and sends you to the rear of the field for the start of the race. We weren't there for long. This Harrah's crew gave me a great car and it ran laps within few tenths (of a second) off the leaders for most of the day. When the green dropped, we picked up six positions in the first 10 laps and kept coming. When I broke into the top-25 just 30 laps into the race we didn't stop there, prompting Jon to make a gutsy call just 57 laps into the race. With the leaders coming up on the bumper of the Harrah's Chevrolet, Jon called me in to short-pit (make a pit stop before the usual number of laps) with full confidence that we'd continue our run to the front on new tires and return to the lead lap during the "expected" green flag stops just after the 90-lap mark.

Wolfe made the call, the Harrah's crew got me in and out in a hurry, and we set about tracking down the tail end of the lead pack, now almost three laps ahead of me. New tires at Rockingham can turn any driver into Superman for about 30 laps and we made the most of the advantage; at times running laps over a second faster than the leaders. When the rest of the field did finally pit, around lap 90, we picked up 21 positions in 10 laps and were running in 9th place when Wolfe's strategy paid off and the caution came out just after green flag stops had been completed. As one of only 12 cars that succeeded in staying on the lead lap, I dove onto pit road with the rest of the leaders and got four more fresh tires.

It's great to be lucky, and the timing of the mid-race caution certainly was fortunate; however, it's what you do with an opportunity that shows what kind of team you have, and we made the most of ours. When a crew gives you a car like the Harrah's team gave me today, as a driver you want to reward them by squeezing every last second out of the car. As the laps ticked down I found myself in some pretty fast company; namely, Andy Houston, Johnny Sauter, Kenny Wallace, Jamie McMurray – but we were faster. Over the final 10 laps I battled 2001 Busch Series champion Jeff Green to get our first top-10. I don't think I've ever driven so hard in my life and I put the car on the edge more than once trying to get by him, finally driving under him as we came down to the white flag and holding him off on the final lap. What an awesome day for this team!

Looking back on the day, I think the key to our success came down to one thing – confidence – not once did anyone panic. I just can't say enough about the job the Harrah's Team did for me today – swapping engines before the race and giving me a car that could run like that after starting from the rear of the field. I don't think we made a change all day, and the car just kept getting better on the long runs.

All the laps we ran and lessons we learned last year are paying off and we've got some real momentum carrying this team into a very important weekend in Harrah's back yard. Next week in Las Vegas, I've got a really busy week scheduled and I'm looking forward to racing in front of all the Harrah's people that make it possible for me to race for a living.
 

Pre-Race Notes:

Larry Foyt returned to North Carolina Speedway looking to maintain his streak of top-20 qualifications at "The Rock."  Foyt posted qualifying efforts of 20^th and 17^th in his rookie campaign, and was shooting for a top-15 in his first of two Busch Series visits in 2002.  Unfortunately for Foyt, the Harrah's Racing Team struggled to find the right set-up during the two-hour practice session prior to qualifying which caused Foyt to run to a conservative 27^th on his two-lap qualification.

 What the second generation driver found out when he pushed the car during the two-lap run has him disappointed and hopeful, all at the same time.  "We just weren't all that good during practice," Foyt said after getting out of the car.  "I really believe there was quite a bit left in the Harrah's Chevrolet.  While I'm disappointed in my qualifying run, I'm pretty excited about our prospects of running well during the race.  We'll find out more later this afternoon during final practice after Winston Cup qualifying.