Race 2 Win: Funai 250 - Dave Blaney Notes

Busch Series

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Funai 250 - Dave Blaney Notes

Dave Blaney
No. 31 Whelen Chevrolet
Event Preview Fact Sheet

Event/Date: FUNAI 250 – May 13, 2005 Venue: Richmond (Va.) International Raceway

NOTES:

This Week’s Race Car at Richmond International Raceway … Dave Blaney will pilot chassis No. 026 from the Marsh Racing stable. This is the same car Todd Bodine raced to a 32nd-place finish last fall at Darlington Raceway.

Testing 1,2,3, Testing … Blaney and the Marsh Racing Team tested at Richmond on Tuesday, May 3 in preparation for the FUNAI 250.

RCR Chips In ... Blaney’s NEXTEL Cup Series crew chief Philippe Lopez and team engineer Brian Bass accompanied Marsh Racing to the Richmond test to begin preparation for the Chevy American Revolution 400 at RIR Saturday night.

David vs. Goliath … In 55 Busch Series starts, Marsh Racing, headquartered in Old Lyme, Conn., has earned three top-five and 14 top-10 finishes. In 2003, Blaney recorded three top 10s for Marsh Racing at Michigan (8/16), Richmond (9/5) and Atlanta (10/25).

Blaney’s Best … Blaney’s best finish for Marsh Racing is a ninth-place effort at Richmond in September 2003. All totaled, the Hartford, Ohio, native owns seven top-five and 22 top-10 finishes in the NASCAR Busch Series with a pair of career-best runner-up efforts coming at Atlanta (3/13) and Darlington (9/4) in 1999.

Not Just NASCAR … In addition to its Busch Series efforts, Marsh Racing fields a C5 Corvette for Whelen Engineering owner Sonny Whelen in the SCCA SPEED World Challenge. Following the Busch race at Richmond, Marsh Racing will compete with Whelen at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course next weekend.

And Away We Go … After a two month hiatus, Marsh Racing and Dave Blaney will run the next three consecutive Busch races including Richmond, Charlotte and Dover.

Whelen’s Way … For more than 50 years, Whelen and its 800 fulltime employees have provided innovative emergency lighting and siren products in the automotive, aviation, industrial, emergency management and traffic management markets. Whelen is also a household name to race fans across America. Whelen is the title sponsor of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and the Official Licensed Warning Lights of NASCAR. The company also provides emergency lights for safety vehicles, tracks and pace cars for ASA, ARCA, IRL, CART, IROC, SCCA, and The World of Outlaws. All Whelen products are made in America.

Up to Speed… The FUNAI 250 NASCAR Busch Series race will be televised live Friday, May 13 beginning at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on FX and broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and XM Satellite Radio. Qualifying for the FUNAI 250 will air live on SPEED Friday, May 13 at 4:30 p.m. EDT.

DAVE BLANEY QUOTES:
What are the differences between the Cup and Busch car setups?
“The main difference this year is that the Cup cars have such a small rear spoiler, so they always tend to be looser than the Busch car because the Busch car has a lot more rear down force. Spring-wise and shock-wise, both cars are pretty darn close. It’s not a huge difference, but it’s big enough.”

TED MARSH QUOTES:
How did the test go at Richmond?
“We tested and so did a lot of other teams. I think there were 15 or 16 cars there so it was a good opportunity to see where we stacked up against a lot of different teams. We tried a few things in the morning that didn’t work – they were the kind of things you would try with a Cup car – so we steered away from that back to more of a conventional set up and wound up getting the car going pretty good.”

You struggled a little bit the last time out at Las Vegas, but the car got a lot better as the day went on. When the team finds itself it that situation, how do you go about making the right calls to get the car better?
“We had a little bit of a shock problem at Las Vegas and didn’t realize it so we chased the chassis trying to correct the problem. When we got it as far as we could go with the chassis we decided to try some shock stuff. After the first adjustment we made with the shock, Dave told us to go the opposite way. So we did that and the car was a rocket after that. Sometimes it just becomes a process of elimination. Hopefully that doesn’t happen this time. RCR built the shocks for our car for Richmond so we should be in good shape.”

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