Southern 500 - Christian Fittipaldi Notes

Christian Fittipaldi Notes, Quotes: Southern 500

‘Doing Everything Opposite at Darlington’

One of the busiest teams in NASCAR, Christian Fittipaldi and the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team head to the 1.366-mile egg-shaped Darlington (S.C.) Raceway for Sunday’s Southern 500. This will be the last Southern 500, a crown jewel of NASCAR events, to be held on Labor Day weekend at Darlington. Fittipaldi enters Darlington after completing an extensive two-day test at the track last week. The team then raced at Bristol this past Saturday night before heading to Talladega, Ala., for another team test.

The Southern 500 is the second of three straight Heart Health races for the Cheerios car, promoting healthy hearts and a consumer promotion that has excited race fans. The winner of the promotion will have his or her name emblazoned on the car at a future NASCAR Winston Cup race. Details are available on specially-marked packages of Cheerios.

In the summer of 2002 Fittipaldi signed on to drive for the legendary Petty Enterprises. An open-wheel star, Fittipaldi, 33, is a former two-time CART winner (California Speedway and Road America) and Formula One World Championship driver. Fittipaldi is the first-ever Brazilian native to run full time in NASCAR’s top series and is the only full-time NASCAR driver to have raced full-time in Formula One and CART.

The thoughts of #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge driver Christian Fittipaldi heading into Darlington:

“Darlington is one of the most unique tracks that I’ve ever driven on in a stock car. The shape of the track, the surface and all the history make the track very different from others. I’ve raced many tracks around the world. Venues such as Indianapolis, Long Beach and Monaco each bring their own history and prestige to open wheel racing. It’s special to race at those places, and now being in NASCAR, it’s just as special to be able to race at Daytona or Darlington. This is a special race, and as a driver and a team, you don’t take it lightly. You take time to prepare for races like these.

“We came to the track last week and had two very full days of testing. As a driver, one of the challenges is to be able to adapt to different tracks as quickly as possible. Darlington almost defines the word ‘different.’ Because of the shape of the track, you have to do everything opposite of what you are taught and told to do in a stock car. Every track we go to, we set the car up to race around the bottom and into the apex of the turns. You come to Darlington and you’re told to get as close to the wall as possible without hitting it. Going fast at Darlington is doing everything you’re not supposed to do at any other track.

“You are running so high and so close to the wall that you carry a lot of momentum around the track. The track is very fast coming off of Turn Two. The other side of the track is fast too, but the wall comes up very quickly. You can’t let the track intimidate you. It has a lot of nicknames – some you are better off not to repeat - and a reputation for beating up cars like a bad bully in school, but you just need to race the track. We need to let the track and car come to us as the race progresses.

“It’s a fast track, but it’s bumpy down the straights. The car moves around a lot. You go over all those bumps and the car feels like it’s on a pogo stick jumping up and down. It’s a feeling that I’ve had to get used to coming from open wheel cars. Open wheel cars are very rigid and they don’t bounce or move around a lot. Stock cars bump, slide and bounce around all the time. It’s just another part of the transition process.

“Darlington has very fast corners and they are much smoother than the rest of the track. The corners have new patches on them and you can’t even tell that you’re going over a patch. The corners are as smooth as they can be for the surface of the track. It’s going to make for exciting racing.

“I think everyone on this Cheerios team is excited to get back to Darlington and race. You test and learn so much that you want to come back and actually apply it during qualifying and on race day. We’ve been a busy team and this Cheerios team is pushing on into Darlington with high hopes.”

©Copyright 2003 Race 2 Win