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NASCAR BGN: Tony Roper Fast Facts, Myrtle Beach

14 July 1999

No. 61 IWX Motor Freight Pontiac
Driver:  Tony Roper
Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Preview

Race:  Myrtle Beach 250 
Track: .538-mile Myrtle Beach Speedway
Time: July 17, 9:00 p.m. EDT 
Purse: $515,641
Television:  TNN - Live 
Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN)
Degree of Banking - Corners: 13 degrees 
   Straights: 5 degrees
Length of Frontstretch: 775 feet 
Length of Backstretch: 725 feet
Qualifing: One Round (positions 1-28): July 17, 6:00 p.m.

The Myrtle Beach 250 race is similar to the event recently held at South Boston (Va.) Speedway. Because of the size of the facility, the race will have the following characteristics that vary from most NASCAR Busch Series races:

The normal 43-car starting field will be shrunk to a line-up of 35 cars. The first 28 positions will be based on time-trials with spots 29 through 35 going to provisional starters.

Qualifying will be contested 3 hours before the start of the race. NASCAR will impound the qualified cars allowing only minor adjustments prior to the start of the race.

The 250 laps at Myrtle Beach will be punctuated by two "competition caution" periods at the completion of laps 85 and 170. The yellow-flag period will last for five laps that will not be counted towards the advertised 250 laps. Teams will be allowed to pit during these periods and will restart the event, after the five laps, in the position they were in when the yellow-flag was displayed.

Tony's Thoughts on Myrtle Beach:

"We tested for two days last week at Myrtle Beach. It's going to be a challenge for us to figure out what to do. Being a short track, we need to get great track position and try to stay at the front of the field. That means that we need to qualify well.

"But, with NASCAR impounding the cars following qualifying, we can't jeopardize our race setup for a good qualifying run. There will be a big difference between what we need for a good qualifying lap and what we'd like to have for the race. We're going to have to find that compromise that will get us qualified well and yet allow us to race competitively."

Roper and team are optimistic with good reason. The team has three top-10 finishes thus far in 1999. Two of those were at tracks of .533-mile (Bristol) and .4-mile (South Boston) in length.

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