RICKY RUDD, SNICKERS® RACING
POCONO RACEWAY
JUNE 10, 2007
#88 SNICKERS RACING TEAM SET TO VISIT MASTERFOODS USA HEADQUARTERS
CHARLOTTE, NC (June 5, 2007) – The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series travels to Pocono Raceway this weekend for the Pocono 500. The #88 and #38 teams will visit Hackettstown, NJ on Thursday to visit the headquarters of Masterfoods USA for a plant tour and a meet and greet with employees at the plant. The Hackettstown plant is where M&M’s® are produced and the team plans to get an inside look at the facility before heading to Pocono Raceway for the weekend. The Pocono 500 also marks the return to the standard car design as the Car of Tomorrow chassis takes a two week hiatus.
Quoting Snickers Driver, Ricky Rudd:
The team is going to test at Virginia International Raceway this week, how important is the testing process?
“Testing is very important, especially for our teams in regards to the Car of Tomorrow. The guys back at the shop have gone back and built a bunch of new race cars for us this year. They’ve cut bodies up and it’s not so much a trial and error process because they know what they need to do, but then you’re trying to get the changes made and then go to a test session and get it worked out – and that’s why we were good at Charlotte. In Charlotte we had two days of testing and then came back for another two days because you had the Nextel Open and all of that, so we were probably better prepared for that race. We had track time, and it showed up in our results. At Dover this past weekend, we came in feeling a little blind since the test sessions here had been cancelled. There’s no question that if we had two days of testing I think these guys would’ve had it worked out, but we just weren’t able to figure it out as best as we had hoped to.”
Looking ahead to Pocono this weekend, what are you looking forward to?
“I’ve always liked Pocono. It’s a really fun track and we’ve had a lot of good races there over the years. We’ll see what happens this weekend for qualifying and the race, but we’re returning to the standard car design and our guys are actually running a brand new chassis this weekend. I’m not really sure what to expect, but I’m very encouraged going into Pocono this weekend since it’s a track that we are returning back to the standard car. My goal is to get us a good clean finish to help get us gain some positions in the driver point standings, and I think that we can have a great run this weekend.”
NOTES OF INTEREST:
On Thursday, June 7th, Rudd and David Gilliland will visit the Masterfoods USA headquarters in Hackettstown, NJ where M&M’s® are produced. They will be joined by the crew members of both teams and will tour the facility as well as meet with associates at the plant.
Chris Hill, shock and spring specialist on the #88 crew, is a graduate of Wyomissing High School in Reading, PA where he played football and was a member of the county championship team in 1985
Rudd has an average starting position of 12.8, and an average finish of 17.2 at Pocono
Rudd has 53 starts at Pocono, which is the most all-time starts of all NEXTEL Cup Series drivers
Rudd has completed 9191 of 10508 laps at Pocono (87.5 percent) and has led 203 laps
Rudd’s best start at Pocono has been from the pole position which he accomplished in June of 2001
Rudd has one victory at Pocono and it occurred in the same race that he started from the pole (June 2001)
CHASSIS #77
Chassis #77 is the car the #88 Snickers Racing team will be running this weekend for the Pocono 500. This is a brand new chassis for the team.
