NASCAR WCUP: Crew Chief Club at the MBNA Platinum 400
3 June 1999
Event: MBNA Platinum 400 When: Sun., June 6 at 12:30 p.m. EDT on TNNWhere: Dover (Del.) Downs International Speedway (1-mile oval)
Together, Jimmy Makar, Larry McReynolds, Todd Parrott and Robin Pemberton have led their drivers to 67 wins, 373 top-five finishes, 593 top-10 finishes and 69 poles prior to this Sunday's MBNA Platinum 400 at Dover Downs International Speedway.
Parrott and driver Dale Jarrett are the defending champions of the MBNA Platinum 400. They finished the race in 3 hours, 20 minutes and 48 seconds at an average speed of 119.522 mph en route to the checkered flag. Their margin of victory was 13.117 seconds over Jeff Burton.
Pemberton and Rusty Wallace are the defending Bud Pole winners of the MBNA Platinum 400. Wallace toured the 1-mile oval in 23.092 seconds at a speed of 155.898 mph setting an event record for qualifying.
The Crew Chief Club members have earned four poles and one win in the spring Dover event. The poles were provided by Pemberton and Wallace in 1998, Makar and Bobby Labonte in 1997, McReynolds and Ernie Irvan in 1994 and Pemberton and Mark Martin in 1989. The win was provided by Parrott and Jarrett in 1998.
In last year's MBNA Platinum 400, the Crew Chief Club finished in the following order:
Parrott/Jarrett Start: 4th Finish: 1st
Status: Running
Makar/Labonte Start: 36th Finish: 4th
Status: Running
Pemberton/Wallace Start: 1st Finish: 18th
Status: Running
McReynolds/Earnhardt Start: 34th Finish: 25th
Status: Running
Crew Chief Club souvenirs are available on the Chevrolet and Ford merchandise trailers. Fans can also log-on to the Crew Chief Club at their official website, www.crewchiefclub.com.
WHAT ARE SOME KEY THINGS INVOLVED IN YOUR DOVER SETUP?
Jimmy Makar - Interstate Batteries Pontiac of Bobby Labonte - "One of the biggest things at Dover is not abusing your tires. It seems like you can go fast with almost any setup, but some setups abuse the tires more than others. So, you have to work hard with your setup to be sure that you'll be able to conserve the tires. It's a real balancing act. Dover is a place where you can get swept up into trouble easily. It's a narrow, fast race track.
There's not a lot of room to manuever around trouble in front of you. You have to be able to race the race track and not other cars all day long. As far as handling characteristics of the car, the car needs to turn well in the center of the corner and not be loose coming off the corner. That's typically what people fight there."
Larry McReynolds - Lowe's Home Improvement Chevrolet of Mike Skinner - "When I look at the (No.) 31 team and even the history of the (No.) 3 team over the last few years at Dover, the biggest preparation that we are going to make is to try and keep four wheels and four fenders on that thing. That is a big key at Dover. When you look at the race results, the cars that have all four fenders, quarter panels, tires and wheels on them are the ones that normally run well. Getting the car to run well on the long runs, going through the middle of the turns and staying on the bottom of the track are key to running well at Dover. But one of the biggest keys to a good run are good pit stops on that narrow pit road."
Todd Parrott - Ford Quality Care Service/Ford Credit Ford of Dale Jarrett - "At Dover, you have to have a race car that has good fuel mileage. I know that because we won this race last year on fuel mileage. You have to have a good handling car, one that doesn't get tight at the end of a long run and that takes care of the tires."
Robin Pemberton - Miller Lite Ford of Rusty Wallace - "Dover is one of those race tracks where we run a lot of laps. A mile race track is always hard on equipment. We're going to run our Bristol car. A lot of things that go into our preparation for Bristol apply to Dover because it's a concrete race track as well."
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