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Tuesday, March 13
Not as planned, but top-10 works
By Royce McGee
Special to ESPN.com
We're four races into the season and things appear to be coming together a little better for the Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse team. Mike (Skinner) drove his tail off last weekend at Atlanta and we picked up 10 positions in the points. Our biggest goal now is to keep that momentum going in our favor -- especially as we head for the track "Too Tough To Tame."
The Lowe's Chevy was better in practice Friday at Atlanta than our qualifying effort showed. We're not really sure what happened during qualifying, but a 30th-place starting spot for Mike in Atlanta was not at all what we wanted or expected.
We had one-and-a-half hours in Happy Hour on Saturday to work on our race setup. We've run really well at Atlanta in the past and we knew we could be strong Sunday. NASCAR has shuffled the schedule around this season, and we're trying to get used to having one practice Friday, qualifying that afternoon, and running only Happy Hour on Saturday.
In the past, we got an additional Saturday morning practice, but it's nice now because the garage closes a little earlier and the guys get to head back to the hotel for a good night's rest. It just takes some getting used to.
For the first Sunday in a couple of weeks, the weather was gorgeous and conditions couldn't have been better. When the green flag waved, our first couple of laps looked pretty good until Mike had to drive through the grass to avoid a wreck after someone spun Jerry Nadeau out.
We immediately called Mike into the pits for some quick but important work on the Lowe's Chevy. The guys worked on the fenders and got them pretty much where they needed to be and we sent Mike back out. He proceeded to move his way through the field the rest of the race, and he drove a really strong race.
Mike used his head a lot and made moves when they counted and took care of his car when he needed to. We almost went one lap down and had to race Jeff Gordon pretty hard for several laps to stay on the lead lap. Luckily, the caution came out, so we were able to stay on the lead lap. That period where Mike fought off Jeff really showed how solid our car was. Jeff finished runner-up to our teammate, Kevin Harvick, and the Lowe's Chevy was able to hold Jeff off for several laps.
Things took a negative turn for us when the race car got away from Mike and slid into the wall with 30 laps remaining. I believe that brush with the wall was the difference between a ninth-place finish and a fourth- or fifth-place finish for the Lowe's Chevy. The car had been getting progressively better with each lap around the track.
Mike hit the wall just after another car had dropped oil all over the track. The safety and clean-up crew had laid down oil-dry on the top of the turn. Mike got up a little higher on the track than he wanted and the race car got away from him a bit because it was a little loose. That impact wasn't dramatically damaging for the car, but it was just enough to mess up the aerodynamic balance and knock the toe out.
We made a pit stop and worked on the damage a bit. When NASCAR gave the restart, we had 30 laps left to make our way toward the front. At that time, there were only 10 cars on the lead lap and the Lowe's Chevy was 10th. Unfortunate for Dale Earnhardt Jr., his Chevy got a flat tire, which enabled us to move into ninth. A lot of people have made gains on our misfortune the past few races and I guess it was our turn to capitalize on someone else's.
When we had our team meeting in the Lowe's hauler Sunday morning, we set goals of staying on the lead lap, being competitive and finishing in the top 10. We accomplished all of them. We didn't have the stellar showing we had wanted, but we had a good enough car to be competitive all day.
The pit crew was awesome and constantly helped Mike in his effort to pick up spots. The race showed us that we still are competitive although we're having some growing pains this year. We can have another race like Atlanta, but hopefully better, because we're basically the same team we were last year and the year before.
It was definitely good for me to finish in the top 10 -- I needed that mental boost. But more importantly than our good run and increased confidence, we moved up 10 spots in the standings to 15th. We're only 33 points out of the top-10 now.
We head to Darlington on Friday afternoon. It's a huge relief to arrive at Darlington sitting 15th instead of 25th in the points because it's very possible to run into problems there. With this year's one-round qualifying sessions, even a slight hiccup in the wrong direction can ruin a team's qualifying effort and send it packing for home early.
Mike has qualified pretty well at Darlington before and we've raced decent there. The fall race last year was the big kick in the stomach for the Lowe's team because we had a real good car but our day ended with a motor failure. But we're going to put the same setup in the car this week and hope it works with this new tire.
Darlington is kind of like Rockingham. When you walk into Darlington and look at the track, you can just see it gobbling up tires. Sometimes you want to put fresh tires on the car just after pushing it from the fuel pumps to pit road for a practice run. Our tire specialist is very important this weekend and will work his tail off.
If they'd sell us 20 sets of tires for a 400-mile race, we'd buy that and more -- and use them. Goodyear will only sell, on average, 13 sets to start the race. That doesn't count the tires we go through during practice and qualifying. We'll use two sets in practice, plus the three sets we get before qualifying. As the race goes on and teams fall out, it's like vultures or a pack of wolves attacking the next team.
When you see a car with a problem, you immediately send a guy to their pit stall to ask for their tires. When we blew a motor in the fall race last year, we hadn't even gotten off pit road and were turning the corner pushing the car into the garage, and guys were waiting to ask for our tires.
There are certain teams you look after first with your tires, though. Obviously, we look after the No. 29 team first.
Mike has never really considered Darlington one of his favorite tracks, but the other day I heard him say he's actually looking forward to it for the first time ever. I hope that's a sign of good things to come for the Lowe's team this weekend.
Royce McGee is the crew chief for Mike Skinner and the No. 31 Lowe's Chevrolet on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. He will be providing a weekly diary to ESPN.com throughout the season. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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