Maneuverability called key to success at RIR

By RALPH N. PAULK
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
Published: May 2, 2008

Rusty Wallace, perhaps more than any other driver, knows what it takes to claim a checkered flag at Richmond International Raceway.

After all, he won six times at RIR. Few drivers could better negotiate the .75-mile short track than the 1989 Cup champion.

Wallace didn’t always have the fastest car. And he often started near the back of the field, surrendering critical track position before mounting a furious charge in the final laps.

“There is no magic formula to winning in Richmond,” Wallace said. “If there’s any magic, it’s getting the car to go where you want it to—when you need it to.

“It was always important to me that my car handled good so I can make a pass late in the race. You can have a car fast on the stopwatch, but you can’t get it to change lanes fast enough if it’s not maneuvering properly.”

Wallace, an ESPN analyst, predicts the driver who can best navigate his car from the top and bottom of the racetrack will be the likely winner of the Dan Lowry 400 tomorrow night.

Right now, says Wallace, the drivers who appear best equipped to win the 300-mile race are two-time defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson and all three Richard Childress Racing drivers—South Boston’s Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer.

“On a track like [RIR], these guys can run better than most people,” Wallace said. “I’ll be paying attention to what Jimmie Johnson does. He started slow, but went to Phoenix—which is similar to Richmond in chassis setup and tire pressures—and ran better than he has all season.”

Johnson, whose only victory this season came at Phoenix, swept both races at RIR last season. In the fall, he became one of 21 drivers to win from the pole at RIR.

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Wallace and Burton agree Phoenix is a good indicator of what might happen at RIR. The teams are likely to use similar, if not the same, chassis setups and tires for the spring and fall races here.

“I guess it’s not that much different, because I’ve won at [RIR] using the exact same setup for both races,” Wallace said. “There might be more grip in the fall, but there’s only a slight difference.”

Burton disagrees with Wallace on the importance of having a fast car, saying consistency and speed are needed to challenge at the end.

“The track is demanding, and consistency matters,” said Burton, who won the 1998 fall race after Wallace took the pole. “Laying down good lap times is important, but it’s hard to do [at RIR]. The faster your car is, the easier it is to do that.”

Wallace enjoyed success at RIR because of near-flawless work by his pit crew. His team’s performance on pit road sometimes helped overcome poor qualifying efforts or an engine short on horsepower.

“A bad pit stop at RIR, you might run 50 or 60 laps before you get to the front to pass somebody,” Wallace said. “The key is to have a great handling car early in the run that will run . . . with a lot of grip.

“As the race gets 20 or 25 laps, the track gets real smooth and the groove moves all the way to the top of the wall in turns 3 and 4 because the bottom is too slick. Getting a car to maneuver at the top and bottom is the key to winning.”

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That maneuverability, says Wallace, is essential to making late passes, particularly in turns 1 and 2. He said the lead pack isn’t likely to concede an inch in the tight corners, partly because it will be difficult to regain any momentum down the short straightaways.

Wallace, Johnson and Manchester High graduate Denny Hamlin agree the path to victory could be decided on who best negotiates Turn 4 down the stretch. It’s the one corner in which the pursuer can aggressively take the bottom groove if the leader makes the slightest error.

“I always wanted to set up a pass on Turn 1 or Turn 2, but sometimes the car just doesn’t want to handle like that,” Wallace said. “ So, in order to win this race, you need a car that’s going to maneuver good, especially in Turn 4.

“I see some guys who can’t get to the top because their cars won’t handle it. The track is so wide, it’s one of the few tracks where all the teams do all their testing and qualifying at the bottom of the track. Then, in the race, they all are against the wall.”

Hamlin, a former Chesterfield resident, said another key will be getting through the corners. But many of Hamlin’s problems last year, particularly in the fall race, came from mishaps on pit road.

“The speeds are slow through the corners, so you really have to get off the corners,” said Hamlin, who finished third last spring behind Johnson and Kyle Busch. “It seems like that’s where [Johnson] has been better than us, and it’s something we concentrated on in Phoenix.

“We faltered a bit on our pit stops, especially last year. We were on the lead [last spring] on the last pit stop. Then we came out third or fourth. That’s really hard to overcome unless you have a far superior car. You really can not make mistakes at the wrong time.”
Contact Ralph N. Paulk at (804) 649-6851 or .