Start your engines!
Play RPM.ESPN Stock Car Challenge!
Win a Honda S2000!
Play The CART Challenge powered by Honda!
|
|
Tuesday, August 21
Skinner struggled in return at MIS
By Royce McGee
Special to ESPN.com
| |  | | | Skinner |
The NASCAR Winston Cup Series teams make a big transition this week -- from the two-mile Michigan International Speedway last weekend to the short but high-banked Bristol Motor Speedway for Saturday evening. The two tracks are completely different and we focus on different characteristics of the Lowe's Chevrolet to run well at each venue.
Mike Skinner made his return from injury at Michigan for both the Busch and Winston Cup races. Mike fractured his left ankle and re-injured his left knee in an accident at Chicagoland Speedway on July 15. He underwent surgery the following week for his ankle, sat out four races and is continuing to recover. He's still pretty sore and a little swollen, but he was raring to get back in the Lowe's Chevy.
Mike didn't exactly have a great re-entrance into the car during Friday's practice, and we never got a real chance to figure out what was wrong with the Lowe's Chevy. It was a new car and we had only raced it once -- at Indianapolis with Robby Gordon. So, it was basically a new car for Mike and until he drives the car the first time, he can't really tell if it's comfortable for him. That's when we find out that the headrest isn't exactly right and the steering wheel needs to be moved a bit. On the first run, he said he didn't feel comfortable because the headrest wasn't positioned correctly and the steering wheel was out a bit. So we called him back into the garage and adjusted everything and cooled the tires and the motor off.
Mike went back out for his first real run and ran two laps and then he said the motor felt flat and the Lowe's Chevrolet was very tight. We brought him in and the right-rear tire was flat and darn it if the motor wasn't blowing up. It all happened on the same run. We didn't get the opportunity to find out anything about the car and didn't have any indication of how it handled. When a tire goes down, it makes the car handle completely different, and when a motor is blowing up and the car isn't fast, the car drives differently. Mike had run over a three-inch pop rivot on the track that stuck right in the tire. A pop rivot had fallen out of another car's duct work or something. By the time we changed the motor, we didn't get back out on the track in practice. On top of all that, we had drawn first in the qualifying order. We couldn't get a read on what the track was like before we went out. We qualified 20th after making only six practice laps, so that wasn't all that bad in light of what we had been through.
We absolutely struggled Saturday in practice and Mike struggled during Friday night's Busch Happy Hour in the Rockwell Automation Chevy. I sat down with Gil Martin (Skinner's Busch crew chief) on Saturday morning and we talked about the set-up we wanted to begin the race with. The Lowe's car drove decently but had no speed. It didn't matter what we did, we just could not produce any speed. So, we sat down and talked to Kevin Harvick and Kevin Hamlin and decided to put their exact set-up in the Lowe's Chevy for Happy Hour. We struck out there, too.
We changed about 10 things during Happy Hour, but it didn't get any better. It didn't matter what we did to alter the balance of the car -- it still didn't have any speed. We could make it loose or tight but neither affected the speed. We finally cried uncle Saturday night and said we'd think about it during the night. I went to dinner with Gil and Todd Berrier (Harvick's Busch Series crew chief) and discussed it again. We made two small changes Sunday morning and put the race motor in.
The car seemed OK and we worked on it throughout the race. The Lowe's team had a bit of a flashback to the first Michigan race -- we fought the same handling problems. It was loose entering the corners and very tight off the corners. We were able to get the tight condition fixed much easier than we were able to correct the loose condition. We lost a lap within the first 100 laps of the race before the red flag came out for rain at lap 101.
On the last restart, we started as the third car on the inside line but Mike was able to pass all those guys and position himself as the second car on the track behind the leader. He outran all the other guys, even though he was a lap down. If we had had some track position at the end, I think we had a car capable of running in the top five.
We're packing up and heading for the hills of Tennessee this weekend to race at Bristol, one of the most exciting events of the year. Ask any of the guys on the Lowe's team and they'll tell you that there's nothing like running under the lights at Bristol -- unless someone wrecks you early. Survival is definitely the name of the game at Bristol. Heck, you can whack the whole front-end off the car and still run well at Bristol. I saw the late, great Dale Earnhardt do it. You can't give up at Bristol just because you get in a wreck. It's one of the few tracks that bent sheet metal doesn't mean your day is done.
Bristol is all about how well your car handles. Unlike Michigan where horsepower is crucial, motors play a very small role in success at Bristol because it's such a high-banked track and those banks carry the cars. You don't want to go there 100 horsepower less than the next guy, but being 20 horsepower down won't hurt you that much.
The most important thing at Bristol is qualifying well so you can select a pit stall on the fronstretch. Even if your car is bad and you pit on the frontstretch, you have a pretty good chance of running well. Track position was a lot more important than tires at the first Bristol race, just like it's been at a lot of places we've been this year.
We're taking the same car to Bristol we did in March. It's the same car we ran Dover and Rockingham with. All we did was change a few things underneath the car to keep it from dragging and bottoming out, something we sometimes fight in race trim but not necessarily in qualifying mode.
Bristol is also going to be the place that really puts Mike's recovering ankle to the test because there's so much braking involved. But Mike said he's up to the task and feels good and no one wants to win a race this year worse than Mike and the Lowe's team.
Royce McGee is the crew chief for 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
|
|
|
|
