Auto Club 500 - Ricky Rudd Notes

McSwain: "... any time the templates change, basically you have to come up with a new balance for the aero package."

The restrictor plates will be gone this week, but new NASCAR rules will determine the type of car and set-up for the race in Auto Club 500 in California on Sunday. Motorcraft Genuine Parts Racing driver Ricky Rudd and crew chief Michael "Fatback" McSwain discuss the rules and testing in California and Las Vegas.

Ricky Rudd: HOW DID THE TESTS GO, AND HOW DID THE CAR FEEL? "The tests out there went really good. They were really important tests. I think the entire garage area was there.

"Those cars are the most aero sensitive as far as how they drive on the tracks where they run. They were a weakness of ours, but since Fatback came on board they are among our best. The Kansas run was so good. We nearly won, ran second.

"We were just trying to get a handle on it to find out if we had problems or didn't have problems. We went out there with three cars that we tested between the two tracks. They were purposefully built different from one another to let them know which way they needed to go. We wanted to see if one car would shine over the others, and I think it did, then they would know how to build the fleet of cars for those type of tracks.

"As far as the new spoiler goes, it looks pretty scary. I think it just goes to show how well the Motorcraft team did over the winter. If you put the small spoiler on the car and didn't do anything else but change the spoiler, you probably would have your hands full because it takes off rear downforce. Everyone gave up rear downforce but, they went back and rebalanced the cars. And, I imagine there was a lot of bodywork done over the winter. Everyone is trying to get back what they had before. I don't think anyone has done that. But, for sure, if you can't get any more on the rear then you have to take some off the front. Our guys were able to come up with a combination that ran pretty good. I think that what happened was that when we all gave up down force Goodyear came with a softer, more aggressive tire. You lost aerodynamic downforce, but Goodyear gave you more grip with the stickier tires. They kind of wash each other out, really.

"Even with this new rule package the cars don't drive much differently than they did before because Goodyear came out with the stickier tire so what you lost in aero you got back with some mechanical grip in the tires. What no one has done yet, and we'll have to see it plays out; no one has been in a pack of cars racing together side by side to see the effects of the new rules. Spoilers can get pretty sensitive when you have a smaller spoiler and get in a pack of cars. We know we've got enough downforce, but sometimes that gets real noticeable when you get in a pack of cars and nobody has done that yet. I guess we won't know the answer to that until we get out in California and get in race trim this week."

Michael "Fatback" McSwain: GENERALLY, HOW DID THE TESTS OUT WEST GO FOR YOUR TEAM? "All of the guys worked hard all winter building up a lot of options for the Vegas-California test from an aero standpoint and from a chassis standpoint so we had several big-package differences we could try. We got about two-thirds of it done in Vegas and then we went to California and we backed up some of that stuff and finished up some of the things that we had been working on. We had three cars that were very different. Two were kind of similar, but one was extremely different. In doing that, we were trying to figure out how to build the rest of our high downforce cars for the continuation of the season. We were real happy with what we saw out there in the two tests. I think it gave us direction for the first half of the year."

WOULD YOU EXPLAIN WHAT IS DIFFERENT IN THE RULES THIS YEAR? "They changed a couple tail templates. Really, that's the big hitters - the tail templates. The way the templates are put on the car in today's world, when you change one template you change the whole car so any time the templates change, basically you have to come up with a new balance for the aero package. And, in trying all these different things on the three cars we just tried to adjust back to something that was comfortable for Ricky."

HOW MUCH INFORMATION DO YOU GET FROM THE WIND TUNNEL VERSUS TESTING? "What we try to do is we have a model program, the big wind tunnel and track testing. And, we try to take a big list to the model program and narrow it down to a smaller list. We take the smaller list to the wind tunnel, and narrow it down to an even smaller list. And, then we can take that smallest list to the track. And then if we have some big hitters in one of the two wind tunnels, we'll try to back it up, and prove it at the track."

WHAT ABOUT THE CARS YOU TOOK OUT WEST? ARE THEY GOING BACK? "One will go to California and one will go to Vegas and the other one will be the back-up, so actually all three are going out there."

WILL THE SET-UPS HAVE TO BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WITH THE NEW RULES THIS YEAR? "I think it's changed everything when you speak of set-up from the aero part and the chassis part. The changes NASCAR made in the rules package and the changes Goodyear make in the tires have pretty much washed away everything we did before. And the change in the spoiler has taken away the downforce and that is always bad."