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NASCAR WCUP: Dallenbach: 'Earnhardt got a little bit of his own medicine'

21 June 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
Note: Wally Dallenbach is a friend of Dale Earnhardt, but he didn't have a problem with Jeremy Mayfield's passing tactics in Monday's Pocono 500. Mayfield nudged Earnhardt aside in the final turn on the last lap to win the race. Dallenbach, one of NASCAR Winston Cup most-accomplished road racers, talks about Mayfield's bold move and Sunday's upcoming road race at Sears Point:

WALLY DALLENBACH (No. 75 TBS Superstation Dinner & A Movie/Imodium AD Ford Taurus): "I would have done the same thing Jeremy did and probably everybody else would have done the same thing, including Dale Earnhardt if he had been in Jeremy's position. I can't say anything more than that. It's the last lap, last corner and all bets are off. Earnhardt got a little bit of his own medicine and everybody knows it. I don't think anyone is feeling sorry for him this morning. Jeremy definitely got into him. It didn't take much, but he definitely laid into him. He didn't lay into him hard, didn't wreck him. Really a lot of it comes down to who you're racing. If I were racing Mark Martin for the lead on the last lap, I wouldn't have done that. You race people the way they race you and Earnhardt has done that to everybody. I think people are standing in line to do it back. I wasn't surprised with Earnhardt's reaction (pulling up beside Mayfield and gesturing to him) because I would have done the same thing. We can all relate to that. Heck no, that didn't surprise me. That's what Dale was feeling and that's what I would feel if the same thing was done to me, so no, I don't blame Dale for doing that, either. It doesn't change how I feel about Jeremy any. Everybody that straps into one of these cars on Sunday is a damn good driver. Cheers to Jeremy, but that doesn't change my opinion on anybody."

HAS THE COMPETITION CAUGHT UP TO YOU IN ROAD RACING? "When I started in Winston Cup, there were probably only two or three teams that were putting any effort into a road course. The road course was a race they went to to get through and move on. Now everybody is building road course cars and everybody goes to the road course races as if it were any other race, Daytona or anywhere else. There are a lot of different things you have to do to the cars with the brakes and things like that. But I tell you what, these guys caught on fast. All the teams are pretty good on a road course now."

IS IT TOUGHER TO PASS ON A ROAD COURSE? "Especially a place like Sears Point, now that they've changed the race course. There are only two places you can pass, maybe three. Even once you get the line down, and you think, 'OK, I've got the line down this is where I need to be,' but that's where everybody else is, so you've got to make the car work at different places on the racetrack to make a pass. It's hard and it's getting harder. That's because so many drivers now run well on road courses. It's probably harder to pass on a road course than any track we run on."

DOES IT TAKE FINESSE TO PASS ON A ROAD COURSE? "You can't really beat and bang to pass someone like you can at say like Bristol. Our cars are so much on the edge anyway. If you barely touch somebody you can spin them out. At Sears Point you're never going straight. You're always turning. If you just touch anybody, you're probably going to run them off the track. You have to be aggressive and yeah, there's a lot of rubbing. I'm not saying no one gets physical. But if you get into the back of someone normally you're going to break their car loose and they're going to wreck. You have to pretty much insinuate yourself as far as showing them where you're at, like going down into the last corner. You've got to present yourself and if you're there then they're not going to turn down on you or they're going to take themselves out. It's tricky. Real tricky."

WHAT PROBLEMS DOES TURN 11 POSE AT SEARS POINT? "Turn 11 is one of your classic road racing corners as far as you're carrying a lot of speed in and you're hard on the brakes. You go down through all the gears. Some guys take it in first gear, some guys take it in second gear. It's a very difficult corner to get hooked up in a Winston Cup car. It's real wide on the entrance, so you can actually blow the corner and save the car without wrecking. Once you get through three-fourths of the corner, you've got the wall there on your exit. The hardest thing about it in a Cup car is getting grip getting off the corner when you're going through the gears. Our tires are so narrow and the cars are so heavy when you're going from first gear to second gear. When you're going from a low gear and you start shifting it's real easy to wheel spin coming off the corner. You start wheel spinning you kill your tires and you don't go anywhere. It's a hard corner."

SO IT'S A MATTER OF BEING SMOOTH THROUGH TURN 11? "You've got to be real smooth and you've got to have your braking and your down-shifting down. That's where the road racing guys shine because you've got to go down there and work your throttle and your brake and downshift all at the same time. You don't want to over brake the car. You've got to really use the downshift in the motor to slow the car down as well as the brake to keep the car settled when you're out-braking somebody. If you use too much brake you'll normally lock up normally either the inside tire or the right-front tire and you'll see a lot of guys come down there and you'll see the right-front tire smoke going in or you'll see guys get down in there and wheel hop. It's probably one of the easiest corners to screw up on the racetrack because you're going from fast to the slowest point on the racetrack. You've got this 3,400-pound racecar and you're trying to wrestle through a first-gear turn and accelerate off. A lot of times can be made up or lost just in that corner."

IS YOUR JOB MADE EVEN TOUGHER BECAUSE THAT CORNER IS PERHAPS THE BEST PLACE TO PASS ON THE TRACK? "It's about the only place to pass now. As far as I'm concerned they've ruined the track by changing it. They've taken away at least two or three passing zones. The way it was you had more places to pass. Now you don't. You've basically got a whole lap to figure out how you're going to out-brake someone going into turn 11."

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO RUN A GOOD QUALIFYING LAP AT SEARS POINT? "When you go to qualify you've got to run a pretty aggressive lap. You can get away with your car being all over the racetrack and looking like it's out of control, but you can only do that one lap and then your tires are gone. In the race, you've got to be smooth. You've got to not abuse your tires, not abuse your brakes, not abuse your cars. That's the key to going fast at Sears Point on a long run. You've just got to be smooth and take care of your equipment. If you're hard on your brakes and your tires, in a matter of seven, eight or 10 laps you're going to be out of tires and brakes and guys are going to start blowing by you. Being smooth is probably 90 percent of being successful at somewhere like Sears Point."

YOU'RE A GUN ENTHUSIAST. LET'S PUT A GUN SIMILE ON ROAD RACING. WHAT TYPE OF WEAPON WOULD YOU TAKE TO COMPETE AT SEARS POINT? "You'd want it to be something precise, so I'd say take a .280 or .300 Winchester Magnum. You need something that is a little bit more precise. I would say a .300 mag would be a nice choice."

Text provided by Brian Hoagland

Editors Note: To view hundreds of hot racing photos and art, visit The Racing Photo Museum and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.