Stater Bros. 300 - Derrike Cope Notes

Cope, Advil Ford Feel ‘Strongly’ About California
Engine work has team excited with possibilities

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – For Advil Ford driver Derrike Cope and owner Jay Robinson, the two-mile California Speedway ranks as a tremendous opportunity. That’s the site of Saturday’s 1-800-PITSHOP.COM 300 NASCAR Busch Series race.

“We feel we can run pretty well there, for one thing,” said Cope, a winning veteran who is one of a handful of drivers running the full NASCAR Busch Series schedule as well as the full Cup schedule.

“We have a good motor for this Advil Ford, and that always makes a big difference at California,” Cope said. “You have to have a good handling car and a good aero package but, by and large, it comes down to how much horsepower you can produce. And we think we can do pretty well in that category this week.

“There has been a lot of work going on with our engines. They were pretty good engines to begin with but those guys have gone back and found even more horsepower. That area has really been a positive for us, and that makes running California this week even more of an exciting thought.”

The #49 Advil Ford was strong for awhile at Talladega, Ala., last week but running out of fuel early in the race and ensuing damage because of that cost the team the bulk of the race. At the series’ other restrictor-plate track, Cope ran in the lead pack much of the race. The team was also strong at Texas Motor Speedway, one of the series’ fastest tracks.

“Running well at Texas makes us feel pretty good about California,” Cope said. “Being successful with our engines and setups there just gives us a good feeling about repeating that success with the car at California.

“There are more similarities than difference between Texas and California, so we can carry some of that over to this week’s race. And California is a whole lot like Michigan, which is a track where I’ve run really well. So yeah,” he added, “we feel awfully good about our potential at California.”

The Advil Ford, one of two cars fielded by Robinson on the NASCAR Busch Series, is not among the “high-buck” operations but you would never know by watching the team, on and off the track. Its cars and haulers are as high-quality as anything in the series, and both teams carry themselves as well as any on the circuit.

“You make do with what you have, sure, but we’ve based our team on giving the sponsors as much as we possibly can,” said Robinson, who is in his fourth year as a Busch Series owner after four years as owner-driver of a Late Model car.

“If I have one dollar, we make it look like we are getting two dollars. If I have a million dollars (in sponsorship), we make it look like we’re getting two million,” he said. “We’re in this to compete, to do the best we can week in and week out. We want to run well and we want to win.

“But we know our sponsors like Advil and Yahoo! (which sponsors Robinson’s #39 Ford on the Busch Series) are looking for a solid return too, so we do everything we can to make it a great experience for them. We’ve been able to develop a giant sampling program for Advil at some race tracks, and they are getting some good positive exposure here too,” he added.

One thing that would help that exposure, of course, is a solid run at California.

“The best way to get good positive exposure is to run up front. Pretty simple stuff,” Robinson said. “We’ve had some good time in the sun, and we’re working each week to make that more and more consistent. But coupling the on-track things with some good off-track things, like the sampling program, has worked well for our race team and for Advil.”

Cope, a native of Spanaway, Wash., is a former winner of the Daytona 500 and a two-time NASCAR Nextel Cup race winner. A top athlete whose professional baseball career was cut short by a knee injury in college, he has become one of the top athletes in NASCAR racing, and has become one of the top public spokesmen for the sport.

Jay Robinson Racing, in its fourth season of operation, is one of the fastest-growing teams in NASCAR. Robinson, a Charlotte, N.C., native who is a successful businessman, founded the team as a high-value endeavor that offers high-end equipment and efforts, while proving to be one of the most cost-efficient teams in the sport. Robinson fields two sponsored cars fulltime on the Busch Series: Cope’s #49 Advil Ford and the #39 Yahoo! Ford, which Cope is helping mentor.