Ford 400 - Ken Schrader Notes

Ken Schrader Notes, Quotes: Miami 400
With reflections on the 2004 season

Ken Schrader and the #49 Schwan’s Home Service Dodge team head to the 1.5-mile Homestead/Miami (Fla.) Speedway this week for Sunday’s Miami 400, the season finale of the 2004 NASCAR Nextel Cup season.

Driver of the #49 Schwan’s Home Service Dodge, Schrader is a native of Fenton, Mo. The busiest driver in major league motorsports, Schrader has raced on virtually every type of speedway in virtually every type of race car, and continues a winning career with BAM Racing, which fields the Schwan’s Home Service team.

The team is owned by Beth Ann and Tony Morgenthau, investors from Coral Gables, Fla. Ms. Morgenthau, whose initials make up the name of the team – BAM Racing – is the only female car owner in motorsports to become involved without prior family connections. General manager Eddie Jones is a veteran of the NASCAR Nextel Cup wars, enjoying a championship career as a crew chief, mechanic and team leader. Crew chief David Hyder has over 20 years of racing experience both driving and as a chief mechanic. Business manager Gus Larkin is a successful veteran motorsports marketer, and leads the corporate sponsorship activities.

The Schwan Food Company is a privately held manufacturer and marketer of fine frozen foods through its nationwide Schwan’s Home Service home-delivery service, its Schwan’s Consumer Brands North America retail grocery business, and its Schwan’s Food Service Group foodservice unit. Headquartered in Marshall, Minn., Schwan’s production and distribution activities in the United States and Europe employ 24,000 people. Among its well-known brands are Schwan’s®, Tony’s®, Red Baron®, Freschetta®, Pagoda®, Mrs. Smith’s®, and Edwards®.

The thoughts of Schwan’s Home Service Dodge driver Ken Schrader heading into Homestead:

“In terms of being competitive, we’ve come a long way from where we were last season going in to Homestead. There are a lot of reasons for that improvement. For one: last season, at this time, we didn’t have a full-time primary sponsor. Thankfully, Schwan’s Home Service came on board back in February and with their backing we’ve been able to do so much more as an organization, which has started to show on the track.

“Also, we’ve been able to do more testing this season and that has helped grow our whole research and development program. We’ve run a second car at couple tracks. Klaus Graf came in and helped our road course program among other things. We’ve made several additions to the team during the season including Tony (Cardamone, jack-man/mechanic), Tom (Colley, engineer), Dean (Johnson, shock specialist), and of course our crew chief David (Hyder). It’s an exciting time to be a part of what we have going on here at BAM (Racing), I’m looking forward to next season, and I know Beth Ann and Tony are as well.

“BAM Racing is diligently working to secure sponsorship for a second car next season. I know that’s something the Morgenthaus want to do on some level next year. We’re going to be better suited, financially, with the 49 than ever before and you should be able to see the support of Schwan’s continue to pay off. We’ve certainly seen a great deal of improvement directly from the support they’ve given us, and that should continue as well.

“We’re looking forward to Homestead. Of course, this is one of those ‘internal pressure’ races for this organization with Beth Ann living in Coral Gables. She loves the track and expects us to do well there. We’re going to be looking for a little redemption from last year’s trip to Homestead. We should be OK there; the track is fairly wide and even with the new surface last season, it wasn’t impossible to pass. The new configuration has really added a lot of speed to the corners and that helps make it more exciting for the fans.

“NASCAR appears to have given the fans what they wanted going into the new format, with the 10-race ‘chase’. It’s going to come down to the final race to decide from a few drivers who’s going to be the first Nextel Cup champion. That’s going to make things extremely interesting out there. Everyone’s going to be racing hard as usual, but the guys second in points and on back are going to race as if there’s no tomorrow. They’re going to be looking at it as a nothing-to-lose type of deal, where they either win or go home on a rollback. That’s not saying they’re going to be driving dangerous, they’re just going to be willing to take a lot more chances.

“For me, there is no such thing as an off season… thankfully. We’ll continue to run the dirt car whenever we get the chance, and the thing about it is: once the Nextel Cup season is over, it kind of frees up your weekends. So, that’ll give us even more time to race at some of these quarter-mile and half-mile dirt tracks around the country. There’s not really an off season for me and quite frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Before you know it, January will be here and we’ll be getting ready to test at Daytona in preparation for the start of the 2005 season and do it all over again.”