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Tuesday, April 10
Overheating hands Skinner poor finish
By Royce McGee
Special to ESPN.com
Sunday's race at Martinsville Speedway was reflective of the season Mike Skinner and the No. 31 Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse team have had so far. In a nutshell, circumstances out of our control got us again.
Soon after we checked into Martinsville, we knew that Friday's qualifying was going to be tough for the Lowe's team. Out of the 46 cars that would attempt to make the field, we drew the second position in the qualifying order. The qualifying draw at Martinsville is as critical as the draw at Lowe's Motor Speedway, which is probably the most important on the circuit.
|  | | Royce McGee is the first-year crew chief for the No. 31 Lowe's Chevrolet driven by Mike Skinner. |
Even though the Truck Series qualified before we did, there was a 30-minute window between the two when the track just sat in the hot sun and baked. Last weekend was the hottest we've had so far this year and the temperatures broke records. The sun and heat always change the track conditions.
Going out second was a huge disadvantage because the Lowe's team had no time to evaluate the track conditions between the practice session that ended in early afternoon and the qualifying session that began at 3 p.m. If we had drawn a later number, we could have observed how the track behaved for the other drivers that went out early. Instead, we couldn't even really begin to guess what air pressure adjustments might be necessary and we couldn't really tell Mike what the track was like or how fast it was. Nothing can be gained from qualifying that early.
But there's 46 cars trying to fill 43 spots and someone has to go first and someone has to go last.
The Lowe's Chevy was pretty decent when we unloaded it Friday and we only had to make a few changes during practice. When it was time to qualify, Mike was pretty content with the car's handling. He said the car got loose on the first qualifying lap and he was expecting the track to be better than it was during practice. Mike thought he'd be able to get in the gas harder and gamble a bit on the first lap, but that wasn't the case. We never thought we'd come back and run a half-second faster on the second lap but Mike hit his marks and worked on his rhythm and got a pretty decent second lap.
Martinsville had a different look to it this time. President Clay Campbell and his staff did a terrific job of improving the facilities for the competitors. Martinsville never had an actual covered garage area, so they added a garage next to the old backstretch pit road. In order to do that, they took part of that pit road surface and cut the earth down about two-and-a-half feet and built a garage area. The frontstretch entering Turn 1 was also repaired. It used to have a big dip in it that upset the cars. They cut that out and repaved it to make it a lot smoother and a lot better.
Campbell and his whole group need to be greatly commended. The garage helps a lot for several reasons. For one, it allows NASCAR more time to focus on their job because they didn't have to be on us about where to park, where to set up our scales and other stuff. It's great for the crew members because we always had to take our tool box to pit road to work, then take it back to the Lowe's hauler during the truck race, then move it back again. Now we have a place to work, a bigger area than ever before, and we don't have to waste time moving back and forth. We actually had a place to live for three days.
We left the track Saturday night knowing we needed to be better. We changed five things Sunday morning and started the race hoping those changes would help out. They did make the Lowe's Chevy turn a lot better in the center, but we still had a little bit of a problem getting the tires to grip the track. We opted to give up some track position and pit under caution to make a chassis adjustment. Not all the teams pitted so we dropped back a few spots even though our pit stop was fast.
We made a second stop later and again lost track position for the same reason, but we were concentrating on getting our car better early in the race so we could outrun the other guys later on long runs. After that second pit stop, Mike said the Lowe's Chevy was the best it had been all weekend. Unfortunately, the car overheated soon thereafter.
I was hoping and praying that all we were fighting was a broken water temperature gauge. But the Lowe's Chevy was losing water every 30 or 40 laps because something had happened to the motor that was causing it to pump water out as fast as we could put it in. Richard Childress said it best -- our water mileage wasn't nearly as good as our fuel mileage Sunday.
Despite those terrible circumstances, we had a little bit of good news. I monitor other teams' radio channels and I heard a few of the other crew chiefs say that the No. 31 Lowe's car was the best on the track and they were trying to run with us. Those comments made me feel a lot better because the guys saying that were the ones who normally run very well at Martinsville. That was encouraging because I knew we'd built a strong car even though it overheated and we couldn't have the finish we wanted.
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I'm hoping that the break will give all of us a new perspective to reflect back on the season with. We are not a bad team -- we've just had some bad luck.” |
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—McGee |
If we hadn't had the overheating problem, I am pretty sure we could've finished in the top five. When Mike came on the radio and said the car was pretty good, we decided we weren't going to pit during the next few cautions. We were going to stay out to get track position and try to wear the other guys out on longer runs. But it didn't happen that way.
I've got to pat our guys on the back for keeping that car together through those remaining 350 laps. We had to pit every 30 or 40 laps to put water in it and keep the engine from blowing up. Yeah, we finished 32nd but the important thing is that we finished and didn't get a DNF. The guys worked on the Lowe's Chevy all day and tried to keep it running.
That was a pretty aggravating race because we had a good car and couldn't do anything with because we were pitting for water every 40 laps. You lose two laps every time you pit under green flag conditions at Martinsville. That doesn't happen at Talladega -- you don't lose a lap pitting under green. It was aggravating to know that we did our homework and I stayed up most of Saturday night thinking about our set-up and decided to make some changes. We all felt good about our decisions. Then something out of our control happened that we couldn't fix. All we could do was nurse the Lowe's Chevy around the track.
The Winston Cup teams have this weekend off for Easter and we couldn't ask for it to come at a better time. I'm giving the guys Thursday and Friday off in addition to the weekend. I'm having my family over this weekend and am really looking forward to spending some time together. It's not too often that these guys get to take their wives to dinner or play with their kids on Saturdays.
This season, especially the past two weeks, have been so agonizing for us. It'll be great for us to take a couple of days off, regroup and clear our heads. Even though we're working ahead on our cars for Talladega and Fontana, as well as the Sears Point test, we need to try to relax a bit. When we come back Monday after Easter, hopefully we'll be fresher and able to deal with everything a little better.
I'm hoping that the break will give all of us a new perspective to reflect back on the season with. We are not a bad team -- we've just had some bad luck. We're still doing the right things. We're not making terrible calls in the pits or having bad pit stops. Pieces haven't been falling off the Lowe's Chevy. We've just got to catch our breath and go at it again next week.
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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