NASCAR-WCUP: Martinsville Test - Bodine, Andretti, Cope

4 April 1999

Testing at Martinsville Speedway for the Goodys Body Pain 500 on Sunday, April 18

Testing today were: John Andretti, 43 STP Pontiac; Geoffrey Bodine, 60 Power Team Chevrolet; Derrike Cope, 30 Jimmy Dean\State Fair\Bryan\Rudys Farm Pontiac. It was about 10 degrees warmer (81 degrees) today than when they tested on Wednesday. Testing was rained out on Thursday. Joe Gibbs has the track on Tuesday and Wednesday and we are expecting several more teams to test next week.

John Andretti- Are you better today and you were on Wednesday? "Its business as usual today. Being here today helps a bunch. We are trying different things. Things you cant try on race weekend because its time consuming to make the change. We are even trying stuff to learn for Bristol, so we are just trying a variety of things."

So things you learn here can also be used at Bristol? "Well we are trying some different shock combinations. When we unloaded we were good enough to probably qualify decent and race pretty good. But you know we still want to get better. Until you are perfect, you are not done."

Have you tried any qualifying runs today? "We did a couple. We havent done a full out qualifying run. We have done mostly race runs. We taped up and had mainly our race stuff on it and did some runs to see what the tires would do and how the car felt. We tried a couple different combinations and we ran pretty quick actually without trying real hard at it. We ran a 20.35 (seconds) and we are pretty happy with that. Thats not a land speed record, but we are not tuning the motor up and for being in race trim thats pretty good."

Does todays temperatures make a lot of difference from Wednesday? Its really hot out today. The tracks not really slower, but the car runs slower because it doesnt have all that cold air going in the motor. If it was cool and the sun was beating down that would be ideal conditions at Martinsville. Because you want the sun to be beating on those corners to keep that concrete and rubber warm, when it cools down at all the track slows down. Being one of the first five to qualify at Martinsville is not ideal."

Derrike Cope- How are you running today? "We were a little better the first day. The weather at the track was a little better the first day. Today we came out here and tried a bunch of different things this morning and the car didnt respond to those changes. Right now to quantify what the car really wants. We are changing a motor and then we are going to do a qualifying scenario, a few two lap runs."

Do you think you have found what you need after some changes this morning? "In a long run scenario, the car ran decent laps. Now we want to try simulate qualifying this afternoon and run through all our sticker tires, and then run through scuffed tires. Then we will probably go back out, untape the car and run long runs on the tires we have used." "It looks like you have sticker tires and scuffs you are planning to try? "We are going to use three sets of stickers and three sets of scuffs all taped up in the front end and simulate qualifying both on stickers and scuffs and change air pressures. We will get a feel for what we want and like and then open the car up and do some long runs."

Geoffrey Bodine- Hows your car running today? "Help! Help! We need help! Send help! Testing is a time you try things. We are trying some things, and we decided they werent the right things to be trying so we are trying some different things and it is taking us a while to change all that. A test is an opportunity to go wild and crazy and a lot of times be stupid. We try some things we had and they dont work. Nah, we just had some things we wanted to try with this car. This is a new car. We wish we had a three day test. We may have to go somewhere else and try some things. We really dont have an engine that is going to get us around here fast. Its a test engine that is not suited for this track, but we will do the best we can and see what weve got."

...and later after the final run...

Did you pick it up some this afternoon? Well we learned a lot. We didnt run real fast, but we didnt expect too. Easy to say that now, after you dont run fast you always say that, Hey we didnt expect to . But no we learned a lot. We made a lot of changes since we came here. I think its a good thing we came here. It was a worthwhile test. Even though it took three days. One day of rain. I am pretty happy. We will go back and analyze all our data and try to make some sense out of it to see if we can make the car better. We know the horsepower will be better when we come back. We will work on everything and expect to do well when we get back here.

Editors Note: For hundreds of hot racing photos and racing art, be sure to visit The Racing ImageGalleries and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.