Subway 400 - John Andretti Notes

John Andretti Notes, Quotes: Rockingham 400
‘Rockingham…a fuel mileage race?’

John Andretti

This weekend John Andretti and the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team head to the 1.017-mile North Carolina Speedway located in Rockingham. After spending countless hours preparing for, and running, the Daytona 500, Rockingham will be the first non-restrictor plate race of the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup season. Teams will be more focused on handling issues and tire wear on the gritty banked oval. Rockingham is a track known for severe tire wear, and drivers who have “fresh” tires at the end of the race usually have a good finish. Andretti will be making his 300th career NASCAR Winston Cup start this weekend.

Andretti is in his sixth consecutive season with Petty Enterprises with over half of his NASCAR Winston Cup starts coming for the legendary organization. Andretti’s vast racing experience ranks him as one of the most versatile and talented drivers on the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit. He is one of only two drivers to win in two different major racing series and also win two or more major NASCAR Winston Cup oval races. Winner of the 1991 Gold Coast Grand Prix in Australia, one of CART’s premier events, Andretti was also a winning driver in the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1989 in the series then known as IMSA.

The thoughts of Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge driver John Andretti heading into Rockingham:

“Rockingham has always had a couple of different strategies. You can either short pit or pit when you need fuel, but pitting anywhere in between can kind of hurt you. If you pit somewhere in between you are not getting the full use of your tires, and it also means that you didn’t run as far as the leaders. You have to look at your race car, look at where you are on the race track, and then make a decision on what you are going to do.

“Sometimes you can get aggressive, and it pays off in a big way, and other times it can really handicap you and put you laps down. Rockingham is a tough track like that. The good thing about Rockingham is that we can get two or three or sometimes more grooves worked in. There is no reason to go out and spin someone out at Rockingham if you are on new tires. You can pass anyone quickly and cleanly because guys on old tires are going considerably slower than anyone on new tires. The worst car in the race can easily pass the best car in the race in one corner if the best car has old tires on.

“On old tires at Rockingham you are driving just as hard, and you are just as much out of control as you’ve ever been. You are just even more out of control than what you are flying around with new tires. The new tires give the car grip, and the car turns and it doesn’t break loose. On old tires, it’s like driving on a hard, slick, dirt track. You have to be a little bit gentler getting on the throttle to keep the tires underneath you.

“Goodyear has made tires that you can lean on a lot harder than ever before and the performance doesn’t change as much. I think that has helped some of the newer guys. Tire management is not as big as a deal because if you slide the back end of the car in one corner its usually right back with you in the next. It wasn’t like that before.

“I think a lot of guys got caught with the new tires. The new guys came in, leave black marks on the walls, and just keep going and going while you’re just sitting there trying to manage your tires. The new guys come and would outrun you because you thought you had to worry about tire management. Other things have changed as well, like spring rates, because of the tires. It’s just a tire that you can beat on a lot harder, and that you have to beat on a lot harder, just to get it to do what it’s supposed to do.

“I would never have thought that Rockingham would have come down to a fuel mileage race, but it came to that last year. I think that we are seeing more of Winston Cup races coming to that because guys are driving smarter. You could have put the Daytona fuel cell in my car at Rockingham last year, and I would have said that that would have been plenty of fuel, but we ended up having to pit at the end of the race last year. It’s a tough call at Rockingham, but hopefully this Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team will have everything we need to have a good finish this weekend.”

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