Dollar General 300 - Kelly Bires Notes

BIRES AND TEAM OPTIMISTIC GOING TO CHARLOTTE

KELLY BIRES, No. 47 ARMOR ALL/CLOROX BACKED FORD ON THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW FOR LOWE’S

The straight and narrow has a different kind of meaning for Kelly Bires and the No. 47 Armor All/Clorox Backed race team. To them, that translates to a fast race car. It’s taken months, but Wood Brothers/JTG Racing has revamped their entire fleet of race cars. During that process, they realized most of their cars had minor flaws.

Bires will have one of the new and improved cars at this Friday night’s Dollar General 300 at the Lowe’s Motor Speedway. While the changes aren’t recognizable by fans – especially at 190 mph along the frontstretch – they should make a difference in the way the car responds to the 1.5-mile speedway that’s located five minutes from the team’s shops.

According to Bires, the new cars feature straighter lines and cleaner bodies. It’s a simpler approach that helps Bires and crew chief Scott Zipadelli make profound and lasting adjustments during the main event.

With five races remaining, Bires said the new car will accelerate the team’s momentum for the 2008 season. Starting with Friday’s race, the team can use the final five races to get a baseline for next year without sacrificing the team’s competitive edge for this season.

WHAT THE TEAM HAS TO SAY
Kelly Bires, Driver of the No. 47 Armor All/Clorox Backed Ford Fusion:
““We found a lot of things wrong with the cars chassis-wise,” he said. “It’s not one person’s doing, but just over a matter of time. Nothing was a standard car. We didn’t have a Ground Zero car where we knew, if we build eight of these, we’ll be fine for next year. We’ve been building cars all over the map, trying to figure out what we need. And that’s what we’ve been really working hard on. Both the (No.) 59 and the 47 is trying to find a standard car that we know is good, we can take this car to any race track and make it handle. It’s got the right things to it. Then build eight of them, four for the each team, or whatever we need to do. Right now all the cars are so drastically different that it’s hard to compare information or tell if you’re getting an accurate reading on what the car is doing.

“The first time we used the car at Dover, for instance, when we made adjustments, the car actually reacted to the adjustments. Whereas in some of the other races this year, it seems like you could make 1,000 adjustments and it wouldn’t help it. It wouldn’t change the handling of the race car. A lot of stuff was discovered after we looked into it, cars weren’t quite driving right and that’s where we had a question there. You always know you can make your body program better, that’s an ever-changing thing, to try to have the best body. You can find something really good, then two weeks later find something better.”

Scott Zipadelli, Crew Chief of the No. 47 Armor All/Clorox Backed Ford Fusion:
“But we still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We at least know that we’ve got something we can run top-15, top-10 every week. Realistically, it will probably take the off-season for us to catch up to get everything that way. We’ll try to get a couple of cars built-up so we can run them this year. You’d like to have it all happen overnight. We’ve made significant gains, but we have a lot left to do. But we’ll get there.”

FAST & FUN FACTS:
What – Dollar General 300 NASCAR Busch Series race
When – Friday, Oct. 12, 8 p.m. ET
Where – Lowe’s Motor Speedway
Networks – ESPN2, Sirius Satellite Channel 128