Dodge/Save Mart 350 - Ricky Rudd Notes

Ricky Rudd - #21 Ford Parts and Service Taurus: "It will definitely be a different race than we've seen there in the past."

This week the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series makes its annual trip to Infineon Raceway in the California wine country. Ricky Rudd, driver of the No. 21 Genuine Ford Parts and Service Taurus, addresses his fans' questions regarding Infineon, in particular, and road racing, in general.

What are the major differences between Infineon and Watkins Glen, and which road course do you like better? "It used to be a night and day difference between one another. Infineon was a track that was sort of a driver's track back when they had the boot and all that. It took a lot more driver skill to get around Infineon than Watkins Glen. And, if you made mistakes, usually you paid a more severe price. Usually you would do car damage if you got off the road there. So, the level of difficulty was much higher at Infineon. Over the years they continued to change that track to make it more driver friendly where more drivers could run closer together. And the skill level that it took on a scale with 10 being the most difficult, it used to be an 8 or 9 level of difficulty. Now it is down to about a 3 or 4, and I'd put Watkins Glen in the same category. The difference in the two tracks is that Watkins Glen is a much faster track, longer straightaways and sweeping corners. I'd say Infineon is still a little more difficult than Watkins Glen, but not like the big spread it used to be. I really don't have a super preference of one over the other."

Do you think that there should be more road-course and short-track racing, where drafting and 1.5 mile-track setups are not an advantage to certain teams? "What I see happening is the technology is showing up more so on the mile-and-a-half tracks because it is all about aerodynamics. When you get into the smaller tracks, aero is important but it is not as important. At the medium-size tracks it is probably 75 percent aero and at the smaller tracks it is probably 20 percent. It's kind of getting to be the haves and have-nots. The ones who have the support and the financial dollars to go after it are the ones having the success. I like it where you don't have to depend on aerodynamics. I guess it is because of the way I came up -- your shorter tracks, the Richmond's, Martinsville's, tracks like that where handling is really the issue, not aerodynamics. You've got to be in the ballpark, but you could be off quite a bit and still run very well there. It is just a personal preference. Every driver is going to have a different opinion. I like racing where you don't have to get out of the car and talk about aero push. Places like Bristol, you don't have to use the air to push the car. I just personally enjoy those tracks. I'd like to see more of the added."

Are the constant change of direction and the bumpiness of a road track like Infineon Raceway harder on your back than a short track? "My back has never really bothered me in a car. I ended up with a back problem, I guess a couple of years ago, but my back never had been like, "Oh, man, that hurts." I will say that everybody experienced pain when they started running these cars three or four years ago with what they called the bump-stop package at the speedways because it was so violent. It was like driving a go-kart down a set of railroad tracks. It was just very, very violent, very bumpy. But, that is long gone now. These cars soak up the suspension pretty good. It is not as rough a ride as you might think it is. As far as being bumpy, a road course is full of compromises. That is what it is all about. It's not going to be perfect everywhere. Sometimes if you work to get the car perfect over the bumps it doesn't handle anywhere else. But, that is not an issue at Infineon since it has been resurfaced. So bumpiness does not apply at that track. And Watkins Glen is a pretty smooth track also. But at other tracks the bumps present problems to the teams, especially when they are right in the middle of a corner or in the entry to a corner because the bumps can pitch and throw the car. But from the driver's standpoint it is not a violent ride, it's just an aggravation that you have to deal with. Sometimes you prefer to work with bumps because having a great shock guy like we've got in the business then they can dial those bumps right out and you don't feel it."

Since you are one of the best road-course drivers in the series, have you ever thought of racing in an open-wheel series? "When I was a kid growing up, that is where I thought I would be headed. And when I was in my early teens all the guys in racing, that is where they set their sights, going to that from go-karts. At that time it was open wheel go-karts into some type of formula cars - Formula Fords into Supervees, then some type of an Indy car. And that was what my dreams were at the time because I never was exposed to stock cars. Some of the guys I grew up with and raced with went on in that direction. No regrets. I would not have had a career as long as I have had today. That was back at a time when Indy cars were not as safe as they are today. They could be quite treacherous. Back then guys got banged up pretty bad. My career just sort of fell into it, but I wasn't smart enough to plan it. Anyway, that's sort of what I thought I'd be doing. I never really ran oval tracks. I ran all road courses when I was a kid. I just ended up going oval track racing."

Do you think this years rules changes will help or hurt you at Infineon? Are the engines de-tuned in any way to reduce wheel spin? "I don't know about the rules being different. I know it is going to be awfully fast. We tested out there, and usually cars would run pretty good for a couple of laps when the tires were fresh. Then there would be a two-second fall off when the tires went away. What we saw with the asphalt is it gave the tires so much grip and bite or forward traction off the corners that wheel spin is not an issue any more. At the end of a gas stop run, you were running about as fast as you were on laps one or two. So tire give-up is not an issue either. It will definitely be a different race than we've seen there in the past. We'll wait and see how it goes, but no one was complaining of grip issues. Grip was what you always looked for, especially under acceleration there. And that is not an issue this time."

Can you describe a heel/toe down shift in detail please? "It's hard. There is a textbook form of heel/toe down shifting that they teach you in road-racing school, but it really doesn't apply to the NEXTEL Cup cars. It doesn't apply because the cars are much heavier. But I will say that the brakes have gotten much better on these cars. The heel/toe downshift, the way they teach you at school applies a lot better than it used to. The proper technique is to use your right toe on brake and rotate your heel to match revs. I never could get the car to slow down because I didn't have enough strength in my legs because you were pushing on the pedal much harder than you are in a sports cars. So I always used my heel and rotated the top of my foot over. The principle is to match the revs. If you are in a gear and say you're turning 9,000 rpms and you let your foot off the gas when you go to make your down shift. You have to time it so that you match your revs. It's almost like sitting there with the car in neutral with the revs sitting there at four or five thousand rpms so that when you drop it into the next gear and the car loses rpm the motor should match the wheel speed. In other words, if you used the clutch and didn't match the revs when you let the clutch out, it would be idling and all of a sudden it would zing up to 5,000 rpm. It's hard on equipment, but the worst thing it does is start the car to wheel hop. These motors have so much compression. It's based on the action of the revs so that when you go to downshift into the next gear you match the revs to the rear wheel. There's a hundred different ways to do it. Back in the early '80s you had to brake with the right (foot) and use the clutch with your left. The transmissions today do not require you to use the clutch, but you still have to do some rev matching. So a lot of guys brake with their left foot, pull it out of gear and pause momentarily, just a spit second in neutral, as they rev the gas with their right foot and then drop it into that next gear. With the heel/toe the right foot does it all."

Last year you broke a shifter knob. What happened? "There was defective part. I'm not really sure what happened. Some kind of heat-treating wasn't done correctly. Or the bolt that goes into the ball of the shifter was smaller than it needed to be. I'm not sure what really happened. Somebody else broke a shifter out there, which I'd never heard of. I've heard of the shifter ball vibrating loose because they see a lot of vibration, but this wasn't a vibration issue. It just broke. It didn't really change the outcome of the race or where we ran. It just made it difficult. It was just an aggravation that we had to deal with and it hurt a lot. You anticipated every shift and you gritted your teeth a lot. At the end of the day I had a pretty good size hole in my hand."