Food City 250 - Tony Raines Notes

GOING FOR FIVE STRAIGHT…
Raines Shoots for his Fifth Consecutive Top-10 at Bristol Busch Race

Mooresville, NC (August 24, 2004) – Tony Raines’ record at Bristol Motor Speedway mirrors a typical race at the .533-mile facility – either feast or famine. For Raines, it was a rocky introduction to Thunder Valley posting finishes outside of the top-20 in his first three attempts. The next eight starts tell a different story with only one finish outside of the top-11, including one top-five and five top-10s.

Raines returns this weekend with the BACE Motorsports Team looking to place the No. 74 Outdoor Channel entry into the top-10 for a fifth consecutive time. Coming off of disappointing finishes at Pikes Peak and Michigan, the BACE crew looks to repeat their success Friday night under the lights.

Tony Raines on Bristol… “At Bristol, you run an entire lap in around 16 seconds and have 42 other drivers doing the exact same thing. It is nothing short of controlled mayhem. Things happen fast. You go there and run as hard as you can, get your car to drive comfortable and hope for a little luck.”

“Getting into the turns is the trick. To me, everything takes place right in the center of the corner. Once you have gotten into the corner, you’ve gotten the car to turn and you pull the trigger; it’s gone. The middle third of the corner, which is only about 50 to 75 feet, is where everything happens. Unlike some other racetracks, you don’t have time to move the car around and wait for it to catch up. Everything happens right in the middle of the corner, if it’s good, you run good laps. If it is not, you are struggling and you are going to be worn out by the time the race is over.”

On the fans at Bristol Motor Speedway… “The neatest thing about Bristol is that the bleachers are almost stadium like. I think it is probably the happiest 100,000 race fans because they are all in a good seat and they can see everything that takes place on the track. They are pretty vocal. They enjoy their racing and we enjoy putting on a good show for them.”

On his most memorable moment at Bristol… “My most memorable moment at Bristol is probably one of my most embarrassing. I hit the wall and knocked the steering out of the car. I was just going to turn and come down pit road, but instead the car kept on turning and I had no brakes so I just ran slap into the side of the Bristol Fire Department truck. We had Alka-Seltzer on the car for the race. The announcer said ‘What a headache, plop, plop, fizz, fizz, ‘ole what a relief it is.’ It was headlined on ESPN, so it was definitely not one of my better moments, but nothing I could do about it.”

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