Samsung/Radio Shack 500 - John Andretti Notes

John Andretti Notes, Quotes: Samsung/RadioShack 500

‘Looking for a well-rounded schedule’

For the only time this season – just the seventh time in history - John Andretti and the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team head to the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway for Sunday’s Samsung/RadioShack 500. The track, located in the city of Ft. Worth, is in the midst of attempting to secure another Winston Cup date in the proposed 2004 schedule realignment. Andretti, who has participated with more than three different motorsports organizations across the globe, talks about the challenges that both tracks and NASCAR face with a possible schedule change, the different sizes of tracks, and the possibility of NASCAR ever expanding outside of the United States.

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 Texas:

“You look at the schedule, and if it’s going to keep on being expanded or changed, you have to ask, ‘What’s going to happen, how are you going to do that, and what are you going to do it with?’ I think that there are a lot of areas where we can still go where there are a lot of NASCAR fans. There are a lot of geographically empty spaces that we can go to.

“Do we start taking races away from other tracks and start doubling up somewhere else? To me, that might be a short-term solution, but longer term maybe every track gets only one race. I think that is conceivable. You look in certain areas and we have a saturation of race tracks. That is probably the area that NASCAR is going to pull from the first. People just can’t drive from Montana or places like that to get to the Carolinas easily. I think NASCAR will look at that. You have to be careful too, because race tracks like Rockingham and Darlington are so unique to what they build today that it makes for a better championship in my opinion.

“To go and give races to mile-and-a-half tri-ovals, to me, makes it seem that the teams with the best aero programs, and the guys who like driving the mile-and-a-half tracks the best, have a better shot at the championship. The champion might not necessarily be the guy who is the most rounded, which is the way it is now.

“I think Charlotte built this really great facility and now people want to duplicate it in a lot of different places. It’s not only Texas, but it’s also tracks like Kansas and Chicago. Each of these tracks is a little bit unique, but are more similar to each other. You’ve got Atlanta, Charlotte, Texas, that drive a bit different, sure, and the pavement is a bit different, but if you took an aerial shot of them they would all look pretty similar.

“I don’t think we will ever see another two-and-a-half mile track built. California, being a two-mile track, is the maximum. We’re not going to run quarter-milers either, so I think that Bristol and Martinsville are the minimums. The mile-and-a-half tracks such as a Texas are probably good for seating and good sizes for an infield. I don’t think the track itself is the priority. I think it’s looking at the fans, the infield, and other things first. Sometimes I think that doing the same thing everywhere doesn’t create any uniqueness or anything that creates something special to the place. Sure, I would like to win the Coca-Cola 600, but they could run that race at Texas the way that both tracks (Charlotte and Texas) are so alike.

“I think that our fan base is here in North America. I don’t know if NASCAR would expand the schedule outside North America to race. Maybe in Canada or Mexico, but I see them as our outer boundaries. The way our schedule is, that would mean taking away two or three races away from someone in order to make one event. I don’t see that happening. I don’t see it being good for what we do. You have to remember the people who got you to where you are, and I think NASCAR does a really good job of that.”

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