dodge nascar winston cup notes from saturday at martinsville

Saturday, April 13, 2002				               	Ray
Cooper
Virginia 500 Advance
Golin/Harris International
Dodge notes and quotes. 		803-466-9085

	TONY GLOVER (Team Manager Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates)
	NOTE : Glover is a NASCAR Winston Cup veteran. He's been coming to
Martinsville Speedway since 1969, and has eaten his share of Martinsville
hot dogs along the way.  Glover ate two hot dogs before 9 a.m. Saturday
after downing six dogs on Friday.
		"I'm going to eat eight today," Glover said. "I know it's
going to be a short day, but I'm going to eat eight. I've been eating 'em
for a long time. I used to buy one at a time when I was a kid, and I
couldn't afford many although they were only a quarter back then. That's
about all I had."
		Marlin doesn't eat as many Martinsville dogs as his team
manager, but he'll down four or five a weekend. "I'm not much in standing in
line for food, but there's a hot dog stand in Wrightsville Beach that's so
good I waited 45 minutes in line one time for hot dogs," Marlin said. "I
bought about 12 I think. A friend of mine ate six of them."
		When told that Glover ate six hot dogs Friday and plans to
eat eight today, Marlin said. "I'd hate to be around him tonight."

	STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
		"We didn't qualify real good yesterday, but here you either
qualify good or qualify bad. Yesterday was a bad day again. We started way
back last year and led some and finished fifth. We've got a good race
package and we think we'll be OK.
		"A lot can happen here with strategy, two tires, four tires,
stay out or whatever. A lot comes into play. We'll just try to get the car
driving as good as we can and get track position early and get up there in
the top five or top 10 and play the rest of the race out as it goes.
		"I think (son) Steadman is going to run at Nashville this
weekend and then he'll probably run eight more Busch races with Keystone
Light. The main thing is for him to get some seat time at different tracks.
I'm not up there as much as I need to be because I'm gone so much, but I try
to help out as much as I can. 
		"It's no different. We just go in week in and week out and
try to win the race. Last week we probably had a 15th or 20th-place car from
the start. We never gave up on it and finished seventh and had a little
better car than that. We ran with Matt and Gordon all day and just got
separated on some pit stops. We had a good car for here. We'll keep working
on the car here Sunday, and we won't give up. It's too early, but if we come
back here in September leading, we'll still have a shot at it. It's just way
too early now to be worried about it.
		"Day-to-day, Lee (crew chief McCall) pretty much gets the
cars straightened out and Tony does the motor stuff and all the organizing
stuff at the shop. Me, Lee and Tony 
pretty much put our heads together and come up with the setups. It's worked
out good. I've worked with Tony a long, long time. We were real fortunate to
get a guy of Lee McCall's caliber.
		"It's kind of aggravating knowing you've got a good car.
It's just like last week at Texas. We'd start 12th or 14th, we'd actually
start 28th.  By the time you got clear of traffic, the leader is coming off
four and you're coming off two. It's just a hard pass. I'd like to see 'em
do a deal where there's no changing tires under caution. Just have all green
flag stops and it'd probably cut the tire bill in half. And the deal staying
out or stopping for two tires or four tires would cut all that stuff out,
too.
		"We were way behind two or three years ago. We were behind
in a lot of areas. Chip comes in and buys the team and Dodge comes in and
that was a big plus for us. We hire Tony and Andy to be team managers, and
they've just totally redone the thing. We have a new fab shop, and basically
it's a new race team. Chip is a guy who likes to win and likes to run good.
He gives us everything we need. Ernie Elliott and his guys do the motors and
me that's a big plus for us. Everything just fell into place for us. We all
enjoy racing. We came close to winning here two or three years ago and an
alternator went out. Rudd ended up winning the race and me and him had the
class cars of the field that day. We had a couple of other chances to win
the race here, but something always happened to us.
		"I think it's pretty neat (Darrell Waltrip competing in
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville). He used to be the king
of Martinsville so it would be good to see him win today.
		"Sometimes you're nose to tail and a guy checks up in front
of you. You check up and the guy behind you doesn't see you get popped and
turned sideways. It's Martinsville, and I love racing here. You can kind of
run side by side pretty good, and it's neat for the fans. They can look
right in the cars. They're on top of it and see how they're manhandling and
driving the cars. Smoke is coming off when they start running sheet metal.
It's a neat track for the fans.
		"Chip has been to about every race this year. I think he's
missed one. He's in constant contact with Glover and Andy on a daily basis,
checking on how things are going. He calls me once a week and his favorite
saying is "What else?" He wants to know what can be better. Since I started
driving for him, we've had first-class equipment and first-class people
working for him. That's what it takes.
		"We've been together eight years. It's got a lot more
technical now from what it used to be. You've got a couple of engineers on
the team now. The fastest I run here is when I'm passing somebody. I
probably need somebody to follow here. I usually run too hard or not hard
enough. I may be in the top four or 25th on back, nowhere in between. I
thought we were going to be in pretty good shape yesterday. I thought it was
a good lap, but it wasn't. All we did was change tires.
The air pressure is critical here.
"Goodyear has got such a good tire now, a lot of variables can go into it.
If you're leading lap 400 and they dive in the pits, do you dive in the pits
and put two on. What do you do? Slow cars are good cars. Once they lose a
lap, it's hard to pass them guys. It's really hard to get back and get where
you need to be. I'd love to see them go a deal where you could just change
tires under green.
"Matt Kenseth is running really good. He went though a little slump last
year, but the whole Roush team has gained. Busch is running good, and Mark
is running good. Burton is running pretty good at times. Jimmie Johnson has
surprised me. I thought Ryan Newman would be good, and he is. We've got two
real good rookies running good right now."


		 


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