Gordon

When we unloaded the Lowe's machine off of the hauler Friday and started practice, it was extremely tight and didn't feel good to Robby. He struggled with the brakes a bit, which is uncharacteristic for us, because Robby has usually liked everything we've built in the car in the past. We made a couple of changes to the car Robby liked, but he still complained about the brakes. So, we opted to change several things at once and were pretty pleased with the results.

We put new tires on the car with about 20 minutes remaining in practice and picked up some speed, so we thought we'd probably qualify in the top 20. Qualifying position is very important at Phoenix because track position and the location of your pit box are fairly crucial.

Qualifying was an unpleasant surprise for the Lowe's team because we ended up taking a provisional starting position, despite how fast we expected our lap to be. Robby said the car got tight and the track traditionally gets much tighter during qualifying, so we probably should have adjusted the air pressure a bit.

I think Robby still struggles with qualifying in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, because it's different than what he's used to in Indy cars and road racing. For the Indy 500, a team's qualifying speed is based on an average of four laps. In the road racing series, which Robby also has raced in, they usually run 20 minutes of practice and use their best practice lap to set the qualifying order. There are usually three sessions and the officials take the fastest cars out of the first practice and group them together for the next practice. If there are 30 cars, they'll take the 10 slowest cars and put them out on the track together. Out of the 15 minutes those cars practice together, their fastest lap becomes their qualifying lap. Then they put the next group of 10 cars on the track for 15 minutes and take their fastest lap as their qualifying lap, and so forth.

In the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, each driver gets two laps on the track by himself and the fastest lap is selected to set the starting field. We qualify on fairly cold tires, whereas the road racing guys are "qualifying" on tires that have been run already for several laps. So, the qualifying sessions that Robby currently finds himself in are totally unlike the ones he's used to, and he still has some things to learn because experience plays such a large role in this series.

Saturday wasn't much better for the Lowe's team and we struggled constantly in the morning practice -- it didn't matter what we changed. We talked and jotted down 15 items we wanted to change and worked on them after the morning practice -- Happy Hour followed the Busch race.

The changes we made were so severe we almost rebuilt the car between the first practice and Happy Hour. But it was worth it when Robby said the Lowe's machine drove a lot better for him and felt like it was staying underneath him much better. It was more responsive to him, although our lap times weren't dramatically better. We started making more chassis adjustments and seemed to improve with each change. With 15 minutes remaining in practice, we bolted on a set of sticker tires and ran some pretty respectable lap times.

We talked Saturday night and Sunday morning about what else the Lowe's Chevy needed to run up front in the race. We put our heads together, compromised and ended up shining pretty well on the track once the green flag waved. The car was a little tight at the beginning, but it was a world different than it was Saturday. We were actually better than Robby thought we were. As he was radioing in early that the Lowe's Chevy was tight, he was passing other cars on the track. So, we were like, "Robby, it can't be that bad. We just need to work on it a bit."

We made an air pressure adjustment and moved the track bar slightly on the first pit stop and he said it was better. On the second pit stop, Robby said the car was still too tight, so we made a dramatic air pressure change that helped a tremendous amount. After that, we made a few more adjustments and kept picking at the car the whole race until we had a very competitive car.

I was worried about Robby racing Jeff Gordon too hard at the end of the race and letting a couple of other cars get around him at the same time. We always try not to shoot ourselves in the foot to save one spot if it will cost us three or four positions in the end. We had a real good day going, running sixth on the track, and we all knew Jeff was coming up behind us at the end. There were also two other guys nearby that Robby was holding off, so we decided to play it smart. We definitely didn't want to accidentally wreck Gordon, the guy who is running for a championship for Chevrolet.

Robby came on the radio and said he thought he could win the race and was going to try. I told him yes, we could, but we've also got a good day going and if we run up front long enough, we'll eventually win races. We've been making huge strides lately. We showed that we could run well on a short track with Robby at Martinsville, although he doesn't have much short-track experience. He ran well until he had an altercation and got wrecked.

Yeah, we struggled in qualifying at Phoenix, but we turned our weekend around and logged our best finish of the season. I think it was a boost for all these guys who have been here all year and have questioned what's wrong with this team. For the guys who work on the road crew and those at the shop, it was a way for us to say that we do know how to race and we haven't forgotten anything. It's just been a difficult year for Lowe's Racing.

Robby has shown recently that he is learning to be patient and take care of his car. He's learning that every run is a separate entity and you have to anticipate how the track is changing and how your car will respond on the next run. That's what's going to make the Lowe's team and Robby better. He's getting there fast.

We're putting the finishing touches on our Rockingham car this week and leaving for the track Thursday evening. It's pretty nice that we're going to a track that's close to home after returning from Phoenix. We didn't get back Monday morning until 4 o'clock and everyone is pretty beat now, despite our good finish. But we'll be back at it Friday morning at Rockingham and hopefully start building on the momentum we gained last week in Phoenix. If Robby can learn a little bit each weekend and improve just a bit each race, we'll have some great races before this season is finished.