R. Gordon and Kimmel crash

Elwood · April 6, 2002

Robby Gordon crashed his No. 31 Chevrolet during Bud Pole Qualifying on Friday. Credit: AP

Stress getting spread around at Texas

By Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactive

April 5, 2002

7:31 PM EST (0031 GMT)

FORT WORTH, Texas -- The question of speed at Texas Motor Speedway has been answered. Where that will lead is the unknown quantity.

After Bud Pole Qualifying sessions for Saturday’s NASCAR Busch Series O’Reilly 300 and Sunday’s Winston Cup Samsung/RadioShack 500, a total of 31 drivers broke the respective qualifying records for the Busch Series (19) and Winston Cup (12).

And even though there have been only three serious accidents in two days of practice and qualifying that could be ascribed to high speeds, several Winston Cup drivers said they hope Thursday and Friday have not been the calm before a stormy weekend.

Ricky Rudd, who tested here last week with his No. 28 Havoline Ford, said he felt the paving and the current configuration of the track had combined to create a daunting environment.

“As a matter of fact it’s so good. . . that I don’t think there’s any race track on the circuit that we go to that we pull as much g’s in the race car -- the g-meter on the data acquisition shows close to three g’s in the corner, which is unheard of.

“That’s a lot more than we normally pull, so they’ve done an excellent job with the race track. Now we just have to wait and see if we can race on it.”

Busch Series driver Shane Hall lost control of his No. 63 Greased Lightning Chevrolet near the end of practice, then did not finish his qualifying lap before taking a provisional to make Saturday’s race. His was the only Busch accident, other than David Starr’s crash that occurred when his engine locked-up the rear-end.

There were no serious accidents in Winston Cup practice Friday, but Robby Gordon scuffed the wall in his No. 31 Cingular Chevrolet. But Gordon and Frank Kimmel each shortened their cars by a good bit when they crashed in opposite ends of the race track on their qualifying laps.

They were caused by high speed, but Rudd said his concerns were deeper.

“The big question is, can these race cars sustain this amount of stress for 500 miles here?” Rudd said. “There's as much stress on these race cars and these tires that I have ever felt since I’ve been racing. When you go in the corner, if you didn’t have your seat fixed up with the right side head rest, I mean, it would probably snap your neck -- I mean it would stick that good.

“We were out here testing the other day and I'm not sure who it was, I think it was Jerry Nadeau, but we went out and ran about five laps and he was winded. At Bristol, you go out there and usually go out there for a couple of laps and you're huffing and puffing, and then you come to this place and you're not used to it -- it's a tremendous amount of load.

“I know the Indy car guys wouldn't race here because the g-load was so high that they were blacking out. We're nowhere near that extreme, but it's very, very physical inside the race car. When you have a car that sticks that good in the corner, the first thing that comes to mind is, 'What's gonna break' because the thing sticks so unbelievably good.”

Gordon and Kimmel found out.

"I don't have a smile on my face, but unfortunately at times like this you have to smile a little bit and look on the bright side,” Gordon said, surveying his team preparing his back-up car. “We just struggled today. At these mile and a half high-speed race tracks, your qualifying position is so important. We were trying to get in the same position we had at Bristol (front row) and we gave that one away. We went for it and it just didn't stick."

“I guess I got in a little bit high, I don't know,” the three-time ARCA champion said. “That was very surprising. The car has been very stable all day and we had run faster than that in practice, so I don't know -- maybe I jerked on the wheel a little too much or something -- but it surprised me a lot.”

So there’s a lot of nerves going around.

“It’s going to be very fast, it’s going to have a lot of grip, and it is only going to have one groove,” No. 99 CITGO Ford driver Jeff Burton said. “Tires will be a huge issue for us this weekend -- that’s what we are going to be watching closely.

“Someone will experience a problem, I just hope it stays to a minimum and it doesn’t include us.”