Funai 250 - Stanton Barrett Notes

STANTON BARRETT NOTES, QUOTES: Richmond 250
‘Fast track – speed and time’

Stanton Barrett and the #36 DCT Motorsports Chevrolet team head to the .750-mile Richmond (Va.) International Raceway this week for Friday night’s 250-lap NASCAR Busch Series race.

Besides being one of the top younger drivers in the Busch Series, Barrett is well known in other areas. An award-winning stunt man from Hollywood, Barrett has appeared in well over 100 movies – including the soon-to-be-released Dukes Of Hazzard, Spiderman II and others – as well as hundreds of television shows and commercials. The 32-year-old Barrett, who is also running some NASCAR Nextel Cup Series events again this season, has been driving since he was 16 years old, and has competed on the highest levels of NASCAR racing. He is a native of Bishop, Calif.

DCT Motorsports is owned by Nancy and John McGill, the only Cleveland, Ohio, residents to have owned a team full time in any of NASCAR’s top three series. McGill has developed sponsorship packages that could incorporate the full remainder of the season or blocks of races. Utilizing his own business and marketing acumen, he brings creative and fresh approaches not just to team sponsorship itself but areas such as hospitality, cross-promotions and business-to-business possibilities.

The thoughts of #36 DCT Motorsports Chevrolet driver Stanton Barrett heading into Richmond:

“Two things you have to keep in mind in the Busch race at Richmond. First, it is a really fast track and you get around the place quickly. Secondly, it’s not a long race. Two-hundred fifty laps doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to get the things done you need to get done – so you had better go into the race knowing what you need.

“Everything about Richmond is quick. You get through the turns quickly. You get down the straightaways quickly. You can get into trouble quickly. Everything is over quickly.

“First of all, that makes qualifying pretty important. Typically, qualifying at Richmond – whether it is for the Busch race or the Cup race – is really close. A few tenths can separate the pole winner from the guy going home. When the blink of an eye can determine your fate like that, you know it’s some pretty serious stuff.

“Qualifying gives you the initial track position. You can pass at Richmond but, since the race is just 250 laps, it automatically becomes a ‘track position’ track. The closer you can start towards the front on Friday night, most likely the better your night is going to be all of the way around. You don’t see too much ‘last-to-first’ type of stuff in the Busch race at Richmond. There just isn’t the time to get it done, and the cars are too close together in speeds anyway.

“You make your own luck at Richmond, plain and simple. And that starts with that qualifying session. A good qualifying run gives you a better starting spot, puts more cars behind you and fewer cars in front of you, gives you a better pit position . . . it’s just a better deal all of the way around. Some tracks you can kind of blow off qualifying, take what you get and concentrate on the race. At Richmond, everybody pays a lot of attention to qualifying because so much is riding on it. Let’s face it – qualifying doesn’t win the race for you but it can sure lose it for you.

“The track itself is really racey. It’s pretty smooth with good turns. The second turn can be a little tricky with that hard left-hand turn but if you enter Turn One pretty well, the second corner shouldn’t be that big of a problem.

“Most of the problems tend to come with people being over-anxious in the race. And it’s a tough track, and a tough race to be patient. You know you don’t have much time to move up and if the guy ahead of you is slow but holding the groove, it’s easy to lose your patience and nudge him up out of the groove. The deal is, if you are nudging him up and maybe the guy behind you decides to nudge you up at the same time, you can get nudged into a wad of sheet metal. So you have to really be aware of who you are racing, in front of and behind you, all of the time.

“It’s usually a pretty good race at Richmond, the Busch race and the Cup race. If we can lay down a pretty decent qualifying lap, it might end up being a pretty good night for this DCT Motorsports team.”