Skinner

Last Tuesday, the United States experienced the most horrific thing that has ever happened to this country -- worse than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result, NASCAR opted to postpone last Sunday's race at New Hampshire International Speedway until the Friday following Thanksgiving.

I completely agreed with their decision not to race at Loudon last weekend. We needed the time to grieve as a country and to show our respect to the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The nation needed the time to mourn and to get back on track and put together a plan to stop the senseless violence against America.

We didn't need to worry about racing cars that week. Plus, if you looked at the logistics of getting all the NASCAR teams, drivers and officials up to Loudon, it was a nightmare. Loudon isn't too far from Boston and the situation with the air travel would have made the trip very difficult.

So, we gave the Lowe's team Saturday and Sunday off -- the only off-weekend they have had since the July Daytona race -- and probably the only one they will get. We're right in the middle of a back-to-back, 20-race schedule that began with the July 7 Pepsi 400 at Daytona, and the schedule that NASCAR just released for 2002 shows the same 20-race stretch.

I think that NASCAR needs to take a hard look at the plan for next year. If last weekend had been a scheduled off-weekend, we probably would have taken Mike and tested the Lowe's Chevy somewhere Thursday and Friday last week, but the guys still would have had the weekend off.

During a normal week when we race on Sunday afternoon, the Lowe's road crew flies back Sunday night, comes into the shop and works on Monday, and then takes Tuesday off. But you have to mow the grass, go to the dentist, paint the garage, and change the oil in your wife's car or whatever else is on your to-do list that week in that one day.

There are things that these guys still have to do on their day off that most people get done on Saturday and Sunday. They still have to mow their yard or service their vehicles -- no one does it for them. You spend your whole day running and doing stuff just to keep up. It's a day off but it's not really a day off. Having Saturday and Sunday off last weekend allowed the guys to take care of their business and relax a bit. They didn't spend their only day off in a complete panic trying to get everything done like they normally do.

Lowe's Racing is in a bit of a crunch preparing for Dover. We're taking the same car that Mike wrecked hard in at Bristol last month. It has undergone some major reconstruction since that wreck because even after we repaired it and got it back out on the track at Bristol, it still was a pretty ugly sight. The Lowe's car needed a front and rear clip and a whole round of sheet metal -- a whole new body.

We replaced all the sheet metal except for the roof. We completely stripped the car and re-painted it so it looks like a brand-new car. Even if it's not physically a new car, logistically it is. Although we're under the gun to get the Lowe's Chevrolet ready for Dover, we still let the guys take Saturday and Sunday off. They came back into the shop Monday morning with a whole new mind set.

We are pretty behind right now with our race cars in the Lowe's shop for the simple fact that so many of them were wrecked in such a short period of time. Mike got wrecked at Daytona, then he wrecked in practice in Chicago. Then he blew a tire and wrecked at Chicago, which forced him to sit out for four weeks with a broken ankle and injured knee. Like I talked about, he got wrecked in Bristol in August and then he blew a right-front tire two weeks ago at Richmond and crashed hard into the wall. Needless to say, we're hurting in the car department right now.

While we're putting the Lowe's machine together for Dover, we've got a few key issues in mind about the chassis. Trying to get the car to grip the concrete track is one of the biggest challenges at Dover. Drivers always comment that their tires feel like basketballs bouncing on the track instead of tires. Dover is a concrete track so it's somewhat like Bristol with its own challenges that some asphalt tracks don't present.

It's also important to produce a good shock ride that gives good grip and allows the tires to stay under the car the whole time. With the concrete surface at Dover, the tires often chatter. The rubber from the tires doesn't lie down as well on the concrete as it does on the asphalt tracks, either.

All those issues are things we dealt with at Bristol recently because of the surface similarities. Lowe's Racing learned a few things at Bristol that we can hopefully apply to Dover -- except for how to get caught up in someone else's wreck, which is something we've learned too much about this season. We're looking to learn something more positive at Dover -- perhaps what the inside of Victory Lane looks like.