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Tuesday, June 26
Skinner sabotaged by bad luck
By Royce McGee
Special to ESPN.com
I have to admit last weekend's trip to Northern California and Sears Point Raceway was not one of my favorites. Lowe's Racing always looks forward to the annual trip to the wine country and this time was no different. We tested at the road course in April and had high hopes of putting what we learned in that session to use Sunday. Everything started well but another driver's mistake put Mike Skinner and the No. 31 Lowe's Chevrolet off the track and out of contention Sunday.
When we unloaded the Lowe's Chevy off the truck Friday, things looked pretty good for us. Road courses are different than the ovals we've been at recently because they have 11 turns, 11 different spots to brake and two different directions to turn the car. Trying to piece all that together is no easy task for the Winston Cup drivers, who only run road courses twice a year. Despite all that, the Lowe's Chevy wasn't bad early in practice, so we re-configured the car into more of a race set-up for a few runs just to see how we'd be Sunday. That allowed Mike to get into a rhythm on the track and give us some great feedback about the Lowe's Chevrolet.
With about 45 minutes remaining in practice, we put the car back in qualifying trim and made a lap. The Lowe's machine ended up 11th fastest for the whole practice session. We felt pretty good about that because our lap times were a lot better than when we tested in April. We hardly touched the car between practice and qualifying, except for the little things we do prior to qualifying. We knew the Lowe's Chevrolet was good so we got it ready and headed for NASCAR inspection.
We had drawn 35th in the qualifying order but, unlike many oval tracks, I don't think there is a real advantage to going out early or late at a road course. I think the only effect a late draw has on the driver is psychological because he has to watch the other drivers qualify and see how well they run. That may cause some drivers to become anxious and overdrive their cars. We saw several drivers do that before we went out -- all that does is cause the car to slip on the track and post a slow lap. So, we told Mike just to go out and run his lap just like he did in practice and everything would be OK. But somehow or another, our qualifying lap was one second slower than it had been in practice -- we qualified 24th. We knew the Lowe's Chevrolet was a lot better than that, so we put qualifying behind us and decided to concentrate on the race.
The Lowe's car wasn't too bad in race trim Saturday morning, but we worked on making it better, still struggling with a lack of forward bite. I talked to a few teams and they all had the same problem. When the car doesn't have enough forward bite, the rear tires spin when the driver gets in the gas. We took lots of notes and talked about how to correct the problem.
When we got in the garage Sunday morning, we changed a shock and the rear sway bar. Fuel mileage is a big deal at Sears Point and it would have been great to make the race with just two pit stops. Unfortunately, our fuel mileage wasn't as good as it normally is, and we knew we had to make three stops, as did a lot of the competitors. We opted to play our fuel mileage strategy and pit a little early to get out of sequence with the other teams so we wouldn't have to come down pit road with 42 other cars. NASCAR changed the pit rule at Sears Point to allow all cars, whether they're on the lead lap or one lap down, to pit on the same lap. At the other tracks, only lead lap cars are allowed to pit on the first lap that NASCAR opens pit road. The lapped cars must wait until the following lap. But Sears Point is different and we wanted to avoid that clog on pit road and stop before the other guys did.
The pits are pretty small at Sears Point -- about as tight and congested as they are at Martinsville. You can make a much better pit stop and gain more track position at Sears Point if you don't have to pit with the other cars. Not only that, pitting out of sequence will put you out in a different section of the track and help protect your car. That keeps you from running it into the ground early in the race trying to pass other cars and bumping with them. When we pitted on lap 10 for chassis adjustments, Mike returned to the track all by himself with no other cars around him. We didn't have to worry about getting caught up in a wreck like the other guys who were running all together. There was no chance that we were going to get caught up in someone else's mistake. Our strategy had us planning to stop again on lap 46 and then on lap 70 -- but no more after that. But the caution flag came out on lap 31 and threw that whole idea out the window. The caution messed up our strategy and we had to re-group again.
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A lot of people don't realize you work harder when you're struggling than when you're running well. When you're having a tough time and trying to make the program better, you spend a lot of time analyzing everything and trying to improve all aspects of your team. You almost start beating yourself up ... ” |
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— McGee |
We got the Lowe's Chevy pretty hooked up and Mike was working his way through the crowded field when another car hit and turned the Lowe's Chevy. That punt sent Mike into the ditch off of the course. We tore reverse and first gears out of the Lowe's Chevy somehow in that spin. They're in the gearbox beside each other, so if one gets torn out, the shrapnel will often break the other gear. It took two laps for the track workers to push the Lowe's Chevy out of the ditch because the car was pointing downhill and was too heavy for just two guys to push. They had to wait for other help to get over there. By the time we got going again, there were only 42 laps remaining, so we decided not to pit. We were going to lose more time trying to fix the problems than we would have just riding around. Too much time would have been wasted if we pitted, so we decided to stay out on the track, ride around and see if we could make it the rest of the way without losing track position. Because there were so many cars still on the lead lap and it was nearly impossible to make up our lap, the Lowe's Chevy finished 34th.
But we're going to re-group in the next two weeks and come back strong at Daytona. But before we head to Daytona, we are really looking forward to our last off-weekend of the season and plan to rest up and get ready to go charging into the second half of the season. Most of the guys on the team have big plans this weekend. I'm going to spend some time with my wife and little boy and take him to the water park one afternoon. I'll also take care of some of the chores around the house we don't normally get to do because we're always on the road. Mike Scearce, the Lowe's jackman, is getting married Saturday and my wife and I are going to his wedding. So, we've got a pretty packed weekend coming up.
These Lowe's guys really need some time off. A lot of people don't realize you work harder when you're struggling than when you're running well. When you're having a tough time and trying to make the program better, you spend a lot of time analyzing everything and trying to improve all aspects of your team. You almost start beating yourself up some because you're trying so hard to improve the team you wear yourselves out even faster. I see a little bit of that going on here in the shop, but sometimes there's not much you can do to change it.
We're getting ready to head into the final 20-race stretch of the season and we need to be in top form to do well during that time. The positive thing about the 20-race schedule is that two of those events are Saturday night races and we'll have Sunday off to spend at home. Some of the guys go to the lake, swim in their pools, attend church, golf or just sleep. We try to give them as much time as possible to themselves because it's so important to have a little time away from work. We don't get that luxury very often, but if we see a way to give these guys an extra day off, we always try to do that. These guys deserve it. They've worked their guts out this year, although it doesn't always show up in the stats. We've got the right pieces and parts, everything from cars to personnel, but sometimes it just takes a little click for everything to fall in place. Hopefully that click will come at Daytona and we'll put the Lowe's Chevrolet in Victory Lane there -- again.
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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