| | Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. -- On some levels, night racing seems ideal
for NASCAR's Winston Cup series. The bright colored cars are easier
to pick out under the lights, and the temperatures are more
endurance friendly.
On another level, though, the idea of doing all prerace practice and qualifying on a track splashed with sunshine, then waiting until sundown to start the race leaves some drivers more than a little frustrated.
Yet that's the task before teams in stock car racing's premier series, as well as the Craftsman Truck and Busch Grand National circuits, during the annual tripleheader weekend at Richmond International Raceway.
"Richmond is like a practical joke on the Winston Cup teams," Winston Cup driver John Andretti said. "Sometimes the track will change a lot from the day to the night, but sometimes it won't change at all."
Richmond is one of only four tracks on the series to hold a night race, and the only one to run both of its Cup events under the lights.
"The track is something like Charlotte -- you think it is going to change when the sun falls, but sometimes it fools you and doesn't change a bit," Andretti said. "They laid down the sealer and it keeps getting worked off. When that happens, the track becomes really slick."
Andretti finished 18th here in the Pontiac 400 in May, and was 39th and ninth last season. His best career finish on the track, where team owner Richard Petty won 13 times, was fifth in this race in 1998.
"Little mistakes can cost you lots of spots," he said.
Others don't seem to mind the stab-in-the-dark quality of preparations for races on Richmond's three-quarter-mile, D-shaped oval. For some, like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Dale Jarrett, success seems to make it more bearable.
"I love racing under the lights," said Earnhardt Jr., who won here in the spring. "There's just something about it that gets your juices flowing."
Jarrett, a two-time winner here, credits his own patience behind the wheel and the work of crew chief Todd Parrott with his success here.
"We've run up front, it seems, before the night is over," Jarrett said. "A lot of times we don't seem to get there until just after halfway, but Todd makes the right adjustments and we just let the race track come to us."
Jarrett and other drivers also have suggested that Richmond could serve as a model venue for someone trying to build a new, exciting track. But it's an idea that would seem to leave Andretti shaking his head.
"Richmond is really slick, about the slickest place we run," he said. "Sometimes it seems like someone just laid a pile of grease on the track and said `Let's go racing.' It is hard to get grip, and the fact that the track is so fast makes it tough. ... Richmond is simply a tire track."
Or a tiring track, depending again on one's viewpoint. Chris "Spider" Gillin, a mechanic for Tony Stewart, said when work days begin early and end late like at Richmond, drivers aren't the only ones left exhausted.
And that's even more of a factor this late in the season.
"By the end of the night, you're worn slap out," Gillin said, recalling Stewart's victory last fall. "When we won last year, by the time 1 o'clock rolled around and we finally went home, we were all junk." | |
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