Bill Elliott -- Charlotte Preview
NO. 9 DODGE DEALERS INTREPID R/T CHARLOTTE PREVIEW RACING AT CHARLOTTE "It'll be a little different than earlier in the year. The 600 is one of our longest races and we were racing at night. This time we're qualifying at night, but we're racing during the day. Charlotte is always one of the big races. A lot of the drivers live around Charlotte so it's kind of a home track for a lot of them." RUNNING WELL AT CHARLOTTE "You just need to do the same things - be consistent. You need to start up front and stay out of trouble. Like I've said before, you need the whole package to do well here." POINTS RACE "Well it's certainly anyone's race right now. A lot can happen like you saw last weekend. No one seems to be able to hold on to the lead. There's not a lot separating everyone right now, so if you have a bad run, it can really affect you. Someone asked me the other day if we still had a shot. I think it's anyone's to win, but I think we're probably a long shot. We're just keeping to our plan, not getting ahead of ourselves. If we concentrate on the task at hand, we should be fine." RACE NOTES * Elliott will bring the same Dodge Intrepid R/T that he ran to a top-five and top-10 finish at California and Chicago, respectively. The Dodge Squad also tested this weekend's Dodge at Atlanta last week. * The No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge features a special Dodge Viper SRT-10 paint scheme for this weekend's race. STATS & FACTS This will be Elliott's 52nd start at Lowe's Motor Speedway. He has two wins, four poles, 10 top-fives and 21 top-10s at the track. His most recent pole-position at the track came in the Coca-Cola 600 in 1992. Elliott's two wins at the track came in the fall races of 1984 and 1987. He has earned over $1.6 million in winnings in points races at Charlotte. * Elliott celebrated his 47th birthday on Tuesday, October 8. He has been racing in the Winston Cup series since 1976. * In May's Coca-Cola 600, Elliott notched his fifth top-10 of the season, finishing ninth at Lowe's Motor Speedway in the No. 9 Dodge Dealers Dodge. Starting in the fifth position, he managed to keep his Dodge Intrepid R/T on the lead lap all evening and maintained track position through the changing conditions. Elliott opted not to make any major adjustments until the sun went down and the track conditions leveled off. On lap 270 Elliott came in to top off on gas during the eighth of nine cautions. Elliott would have been able to stay out for the remainder of the race, while most of the top 10 would have had to make a final pit stop. Caution on lap 360 negated that strategy and forced Elliott to pit with the rest of the leaders. He restarted in eighth place and finished ninth. * * In last week's race at Talladega, the smaller fuel cell rule kept the Dodge Squad on their toes during the race and a caution-free race forced the team to pit under green throughout the 188-lap event. The rule reduced the amount of fuel that could be added to a car during each pit stop, and with no cautions the Dodge Squad elected to take two sets of tires, loading up on fuel with each stop. Midway through the race, Elliott sat in the 30th spot but moved up quickly and remained in the top-20 throughout the closing laps of the race. Elliott finished in 19th place and on the lead lap. Currently, Elliott sits in eighth place in the Winston Cup points race, 28 points out of seventh and 82 points out of fifth. He needs 229 points to take over the points lead. * * Elliott has excelled on NASCAR's speedways this year. Each of his 12 top-10 finishes in 2002 have come on tracks at least one mile in length. Nine of those top-10 finishes were earned on racetracks 1.5 miles or greater. Elliott's two victories have come on two of the circuit's 2.5-mile tracks. * * Elliott's No. 9 Dodge Dealers Intrepid R/T has led laps in six of the last 11 races (35 at Pocono, 93 at Indianapolis, six at Michigan, 43 at Darlington, one at New Hampshire and three at Kansas). He has led in 12 races this year for a total of 275 laps. Elliott led nine races in 2001 for a total of 171 laps. * * Elliott looks even better in his No. 9 Dodge Dealers Intrepid R/T than he did at this point last year. Elliott ranks six spots higher, is finishing five and a half spots better in each race, is starting more than two spots higher, and has two more wins, three more poles, two more top-fives and four more top-10s than he did after 30 races in 2001. * * Elliott earned his fourth pole position of 2002 (Atlanta, Texas, New Hampshire) at Pocono in August. It was Elliott's 55th career Bud Pole in his 679th Winston Cup race, placing him third behind David Pearson (57) and Darrell Waltrip (59) in Modern-era Winston Cup career poles (Elliott ranks first among active drivers and sixth all-time).