Crew chief Todd Parrott discusses the challenges of preparing a car for the brutal braking conditions at Martinsville. Parrott is the crew chief for the No. 38 M&M’s Fords driven by David Gilliland. Raybestos® Brand Brakes has been an associate sponsor with Robert Yates Racing for each of the past 13 seasons.

TODD PARROTT, CREW CHIEF, No. 38 M&M’s FORD: “The biggest thing is keep your driver informed and let him know what lap he’s on and how hard he’s running. Obviously with the brakes and the way technology has come in recent years, you could almost run as hard as you want to all day long with the amount of pad and stuff that we have now and the job that Raybestos and everybody has done on the brakes. It’s not as big of an issue now as it was, say, three or four years ago, but you still have to take care of ‘em because if you’re running too hard or if your car is not handling right you’ll use a lot more brake to try to get the car to turn with brakes. Just try to stay after ‘em and have brakes at the end of the race.”

IF THERE IS NO PRACTICE TODAY, WILL THAT AFFECT YOUR BRAKE PREPERATION? “Not really because normally what we would do anyway is Saturday after the final practice session we’d put our race rotors, pads and all that stuff on there for the race so they are all burned in and ready to go. There’s really not a whole lot of issue there.”

CAN THE WAY YOU TUNE THE ENGINE HELP YOU SAVE YOUR BRAKES? “You can a little bit. You know, we’re regulated to a 650 gear. That’s a little less gear that what we’ve ran here in the past with the other cars. I think we were up to like a 667 or something like that, which was really good on the brakes. We are a little bit harder on ‘em now. The COT is a heavier car so with that being the issue you have slow the car down going the same speed so you use a little more but all in all, the brake package is really good.”

HAS THE COT THROWN A CURVE A YOU IN THIS AREA? “Not really. It’s really not a whole lot different than the other car, just heavier.”