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Tuesday, May 15
Money makes The Winston very big
By Royce McGee
Special to ESPN.com
NASCAR Winston Cup Series teams talk about it all year and it's finally here -- The Winston weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Even though it's a non-points event, this is one of the biggest events of the season for the Lowe's team and the entire NASCAR community. When more than a million dollars is up for grabs, it definitely becomes an important weekend.
|  | | Mike Skinner and the Lowe's Chevrolet team are ready to make a run at some big money in The Winston. |
Last weekend was an important one, too. It was important to the families of all the guys on the Lowe's team because we had one of our three off weekends of the season. We gave the crew members last Friday off, as well, so everyone had a nice, long mini-vacation. I was able to break away from work and play with my little boy the entire weekend and help my wife update our house. We went out to dinner with some friends that we haven't seen much of lately and just enjoyed catching up. It's those small things most people take for granted that we aren't able to do very often in this industry because of our schedules.
Mike Skinner and the No. 31 Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse team are not qualified for The Winston yet, but we're running The Winston Open. The Winston Open will feature probably the 30 wildest laps you'll see on the track all year. The winner of The Winston Open will transfer to The Winston. The No Bull Sprint, a 16-lap race, is the last chance to get into The Winston, and it will be run immediately following The Winston Open.
Mike and the Lowe's team historically have been very successful in these short, sprint races. The Lowe's team won the No Bull Sprint, a 25-lap qualifying event for The Winston Open, in 1999. Now the rules have changed back to a two-lap qualifying event, just as it is for a regular race. Prior to this year, we've run two 25-lap races to determine our starting position in The Winston Open. Mike also drove the Lowe's Chevy to victory this year in the Gatorade 125 race at Daytona, which put us fourth on the starting grid for the Daytona 500. He also won the Bud Shootout qualifier event at Daytona in 1999. The Lowe's team thinks its chances of winning The Winston Open and moving into The Winston are pretty good. We can accomplish a lot this weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
Lowe's Racing is taking the same car to The Winston Open we took to California Speedway three weeks ago. Well, sort of. We brought that car back from Fontana and cut the entire body off and re-built it. The fabrication shop worked their tails off and got the car to our paint and body shop last Wednesday afternoon and those guys strapped themselves to it for three days and got it turned around. A couple of our guys came in for a few hours Saturday and worked on it.
I'm really impressed with how this team pulled together and transformed the California car into the Winston Open car so fast. There was nothing really "wrong" with the car at California, but a few people here at Richard Childress Racing thought the body was off a bit. So, we tried to make it better aerodynamically and changed the body a bit. We'll try this out and see if maybe we've been fighting something on the body of our cars lately. So, it's the same car but on the other hand, it is not the same car.
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But not only does The Winston provide a huge financial incentive to win, it's also a good practice for the Coca Cola 600, especially if you're doing what the Lowe's team is doing. We are taking a car to Lowe's Motor Speedway that we have no history with, aerodynamic-wise, since we cut the body off of it.” |
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—McGee |
The Winston, NASCAR's all-star event, has been around for quite some time, and I think it has changed some in the past few years. The Winston was designed to show the fans what the best car was that night. It was open to the guys who had won races and made themselves contenders every week. The organizers put the race winners in a "no holds barred" contest and let them go. It used to be that only one car would transfer from The Winston Open to The Winston. Now, two cars transfer to The Winston, which I think is great. If a team has a little bad luck in The Winston Open or a driver shoves another out of the way, there's going to be a second shot at the transfer spot in the 16-lap No Bull Sprint.
Nowadays, the Winston Cup schedule is so darn crazy and packed that The Winston just makes it more packed and stirs up emotions more. Look at what happened to Joe Nemechek and Steve Park last year. Both are good drivers, but any time you throw a lot of money in the air and tell the drivers to go for it, they ended up tearing up more sheet metal than they can afford to tear up. Not to mention they feel the need to exchange words afterward. Those two teams probably raced one of their better cars in The Winston in order to learn something for the Coca Cola 600. You'll also see guys wrecking in the Winston Open, and it's not even for much money. It's not even The Winston yet. In one respect, teams want to race as hard as they can and show everyone they belong in the next event, but in the same regard, there is a good chance they can tear up $80,000 worth of race car with one move.
But not only does The Winston provide a huge financial incentive to win, it's also a good practice for the Coca Cola 600, especially if you're doing what the Lowe's team is doing. We are taking a car to Lowe's Motor Speedway that we have no history with, aerodynamic-wise, since we cut the body off of it. So, The Winston is good for obtaining a baseline for your car, but it can also be quite detrimental to a team. I've seen many teams take a brand-new car to The Winston that they planned on running in the 600 and bring it back to the shop on a rollback. We're hoping and praying that the Lowe's Chevy doesn't get added to that list this weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
Royce McGee is the crew chief for Mike Skinner and the No. 31 Lowe's Chevrolet on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. He is providing a weekly diary to ESPN.com throughout the season. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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