Tropicana 400 - Ricky Rudd Notes

Ricky Rudd: "You come up off of turn four and you sort of take a swipe at the fence. You come off and you make the car use up all the race track that you can."

Ricky Rudd, driver of the #21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus, will be making his third start at Chicagoland Speedway this weekend. In NASCAR's first race at this venue, in 2001, Ricky started third and finished third. This event marks Rudd's 698th consecutive start in the countdown to 700 at the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono at the end of the month. Here is a description of a lap around the Joliet, Ill., 1.5-mile tri-oval.

"Starting the lap, leaving the pits, you pull out on the race track and go through the gearbox. Just assume you're up to speed when you get to the start/finish line to take the green for qualifying.

"It is a fairly fast race track. It compares to Kansas, very similar; almost a carbon copy of Kansas, but also some similarities to Las Vegas, with a little bit of Fontana and Michigan in it.

"In turn one it is a pretty fast entry into the corner. You are out wide against the wall, and you drop down to the bottom of the race track. You drive the car all the way down into the corner itself before you lift the throttle. And when you lift the throttle, you are maybe out of the throttle a second, maybe two seconds max, and it's right back in the throttle, again wide open.

"The part that is a little tricky is the exit to turn two. The car has a tendency to want to shove the front end. It wants to push, and the trick in race setup is to not have to lift the throttle once you get in the throttle. You don't want to have to lift the throttle again. If you do, it kills your straightaway speed.

"You try to keep the car low on the bottom of the race track when you get back in the throttle and not lift the throttle again until you get down into turn three. Cars that are able to do that will run up front and the ones that don't will run near the back.

"Getting into three is a pretty fast entrance. The backstretch is straighter; it is not arced like the front straightaway and gives you a good approach into turn three. When you enter the corner you can steer in with pretty good speed and get the car turned pretty quickly. You are back in the throttle. The exit of that corner is a larger version of Richmond, Virginia, and you end up having a tendency to shove the front end. It is a different type of push than you have at the exit of turn two, but you pretty much fight a push on the exit of both corners.

"So, again, during the race you want to keep the momentum going without having to lift the accelerator. If you can do that without having to fight that front end push you will do well.

"You come up off of turn four and you sort of take a swipe at the fence. You come off and you make the car use up all the race track that you can. You miss the fence by, I don't know, six to eight inches, a foot maybe.

"And then you are down the front straightaway. It is one of the tracks where you dive to the bottom around the start/finish line. As a matter of fact, a lot of passing will go on on the flat of the race track itself. It is a very wide race track. You will actually see a lot of passing go on after you get down to the dogleg. You will see some cars actually drive down on the flat Stay on the flat, pick up positions and swoop back up in front of the guys you are trying to pass.

"What makes it most unusual is where you are passing at. You go on the flat to do it. As a matter of fact, at one of the driver's meetings they tried to make it where you couldn't go below the bottom line of the race track, very similar to Daytona and Talladega, but everyone sort of felt that it wasn't necessary to make that rule at that track. So there is a lot of excitement that goes on there on the flat of the race track. There is more passing on the flat than what happens on the back."

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