Stacker 200 presented by YJ Stinger - Derrike Cope Notes

‘Like old home week’ for Cope, Advil Ford Team
Dover race is closest to #49 Busch team’s sponsor

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Every race is important, any NASCAR competitor will tell you. But the hidden secret is some tend to be more important than others.

At least, that’s the way owner Jay Robinson and driver Derrike Cope, who wheels Robinson’s #49 Advil Ford on NASCAR’s Busch Series, are looking at Saturday’s 200-mile race at the one-mile, high-banked Dover (Del.) International Speedway.

“A lot of people don’t realize it but Delaware is a major corporate center, at least as far as the United States is concerned,” said Robinson, a native of Charlotte, N.C., who fields as many as three teams in the series, two full-time.

“Dover is a really good place to shine from that standpoint. You get attention anytime you run well but showing well at Dover gives you a chance to stand out in the backyard of a lot of major American corporations,” he said.

One of those corporations, though it’s not based in Delaware, is still pretty close this weekend as well, Robinson noted. Wyeth, which markets Advil products, is headquartered in Madison, N.J., not far from the Dover speedway. The proximity of the sponsor and the fact Dover is the final 2004 race close to their headquarters, increases the value.

“From a marketing standpoint, Dover is pretty critical,” said Cope, known as one of the top business minds behind the wheel of any NASCAR stock car. “The corporations based there are obvious. Then you start looking at the major markets nearby – Washington, D.C. . . . Baltimore . . . Philadelphia . . . the Tidewater area of Virginia . . . that enhances the importance.

“Then, from our standpoint, you throw in the fact Advil and Wyeth are so close to the speedway, well, this is just a big, big weekend for me, Jay and this whole Advil Ford team,” Cope added.

“A lot of folks from Wyeth and affiliated with Advil will be at Dover this week, and you always want to perform well in your sponsor’s backyard,” Cope said. “Getting off to a good start, in front of the Advil people and in the first race of this stretch of ‘travel races,’ will be really important for our race team.”

Getting off to a good start will play a large role in bringing that needed success to the forefront, Cope said, whether it is his team or any other.

“Every track is pretty much a ‘track position’ track. You want to be as close to the front as you can get all the time,” Cope said. “But as the cars have gotten more and more equal, and with the aerodynamics of the bodies the way they are now, it’s a lot harder to pass. You can catch a guy, you can run somebody down, but it’s difficult to pass even a car that is slower than you are.

“That makes everything that goes on Friday really important. You need to qualify well,” Cope continued. “The further you start towards the front on Saturday, the fewer cars you have to pass once the green flag drops. Two-hundred miles isn’t a particularly long race, so you have to do whatever you are going to do pretty quickly. The less you have to do, the better off you are going to be.”

Cope, a native of Spanaway, Wash., is 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: the #49 Advil Ford and the #39 Yahoo! Ford, and runs a third car in most Busch Series events.