Subway Fresh 500 - Ken Schrader Notes

Ken Schrader Notes, Quotes: Subway Fresh 500
PIR's career leader in wins: "This is great!"

Ken Schrader and the #49 Schwan's Home Service Dodge team head to the one-mile Phoenix International Raceway, located in Avondale, Arizona, for Saturday night's Subway Fresh 500; the eighth race of the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup season.

No stranger to victory lane at PIR, Schrader is the all-time leader in victories at the one-mile track, with 14 in four different series.

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 and continues to race on virtually every type of speedway in virtually every type of race car. Schrader 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.

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 Phoenix:

"This is great! Hey, for the first time ever, the Cup series will be racing Phoenix twice. Of course, I normally run it several times a year anyway, but you'll never hear me argue against an additional Phoenix race date. If it were up to me, we'd race out there four or five times a year.

"I can still remember back in 1979, we towed out there to run midget races, and it was like, 'I can't believe we're towing to Phoenix, Ariz., to run a race.' Back then, we figured since we had towed our car all the way out to Phoenix, we'd better run well, and luckily, for the most part, we have. We went out there in '79, ran well, and it just instantly became one of my favorite places. It's a place I look forward to going to.

"To be fast at Phoenix you have to be able to handle, like pretty much every other track we race. The times we've run well out there, we've been able to keep it on the bottom and pick up the throttle early. It seems like a no brainer, but most tracks where you're good; you probably have those factors working in your favor.

"This particular race should be as challenging as ever considering the twilight conditions we'll be racing in. Anytime you race in twilight you can count on fighting track conditions; even more so than at a race run completely at night or a day race. At either a night or day race, you can pretty much count on the track temperature staying relatively the same throughout the race.

"But, at twilight- first off the track, if it's a sunny day, has been sitting out under the sun all day and you can bet it'll be slick in the early going. Then as the sun sets, one side of the track will be a good bit hotter than the other; which ever side of the track that is suddenly in the shadows, that turn is going to have more grip than the side still sitting in the sun. But, once the sun sets the track will really begin to cool. So, as a team you have to be ready for anything the track may throw at you during a twilight race. One thing you can count on is that nothing will stay the same.

"We had a decent run out there last November and would like nothing more than to improve on that finish. For whatever reason, we've had reasonable success on one mile and under (distance) tracks. Phoenix has been good to us in the past and hopefully it'll be good to this Schwan's Home Service Dodge team this weekend."