Checker Auto Parts 500 - Ricky Rudd Notes

Ricky Rudd: "If you don't enter the corner with a late turn-in you'll have a problem."

NASCAR Winston Cup has made 15 appearances at Phoenix International Raceway since 1988, and Ricky Rudd has been there for every event. The #21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus driver won the 1995 race and has five top-10's and three top-5's at the oddly shaped one-mile oval. Below he describes a qualifying run at Phoenix.

"Phoenix is kind of an unusual racetrack. It is a triangular shape with a dogleg on the backstretch.

"Coming to the green flag, typical of any racetrack, you stay up against the fence and go down the front straight away through the start/finish line. You go pretty deep down that front straight-away into turn one. And you brake really hard to turn into the corner. You want to stay out long and square the corner as much as you can. If you don't square the corner correctly, if you don't wait and make a late entrance the front end gets to pushing. And you want to be able to go down there, hug the bottom of the racetrack with your left front tire. If you don't enter the corner with a late turn-in you'll have a problem. You can drive across the bottom and the front end won't stick and you push up to the second or third groove. In the race a lot of times the preferred groove becomes the middle of the racetrack.

"What's unusual about Phoenix is that the corner keeps going on and on. It's very simple, but on a much smaller scale to turn one at Pocono, where you drive into the corner and its not your typical corner. It's more of a triangle shape of corner. It has an odd exit. When you exit that corner you play tag with the wall with the back end banging on the fence right there. I think they might have changed that from what I'm understanding.

"But the trick is to exit that corner with as much momentum as possible. You've got a dogleg in the middle of that straightaway. You have to exit that corner, straight line the car for a second and clip the inside of the dogleg with your left front tire. And then as soon as you exit you drift against the wall. Now you are looking right at the next corner.

"That is a corner that gets very greasy. This track gets very greasy as you run so tires have meant a pretty good amount in the past. So as you get three-quarters of the way on a tire run the tires get to slipping and sliding pretty bad.

"Anyway, getting into that corner after you exit the dogleg you are up against the fence. You brake hard, out of the throttle obviously, turn in and try to clip the inside of that corner. There's a couple different lines there you'll see during the race. You'll see guys go in and try to hug the bottom all the way, and you'll see guys go in and clip the bottom of the corner with the left front tire.

"There is a little rumble strip, clip it with your left front tire and then you drift out and make a diamond out of the racetrack. You'll drift out to the middle of the racetrack. It's real hard to get the car to turn. You finally get it to turn and get it to where the front end is aimed back down toward the infield and you accelerate hard off the corner. And you want to almost clip the inside of the corner as you exit because you are going to use up every inch of race track and drift right up against the wall on the front straightaway.

"Now, you're headed down the front straight away again to the start/finish line and back into turn one."

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