NASCAR WCUP: Kenny Wallace plans 'soft' way to the front at Michigan
16 August 2000
Posted By Terry
Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
|
"There's a new setup that teams have started using at Michigan," said Wallace. "Everyone is running around Michigan Speedway with real soft front springs, a stiff right rear spring and a soft left rear spring. That's something we're going to unload this weekend and work on right away."
Wallace is never too proud to learn new tricks, especially if it brings him his first ever top-10 performance at Michigan. Wallace can't take the credit for the idea. The St. Louis native confesses that the rear-split shock setup was given to the Square D Racing Team by an unusual source.
"We got that set up from the NASCAR Busch Series," continued Wallace. "Todd Berrier, the crew chief for the No. 2 race car driven by Kevin Harvick, thought it up. We heard about it before this year's first Michigan. The Busch teams have been using it for a while, and they passed it onto the Winston Cup teams. We can't run as stiff a right rear as they do, but we did adapt the principle to the heavier Winston Cup race cars."
It will take more than a trick setup for Wallace to bring success from up North, and his racing team knows that to be true. Andy Petree Racing (APR) has been working very hard to improve its performance at Michigan Speedway, as both Wallace and his APR teammate, Joe Nemechek, elected to use testing dates there this season.
"Michigan has been a sore point for the APR racing teams," said Wallace. "As a collective group, we're looking to find something better for that race track. Even though it rained last time out, we did learn a lot about Michigan Speedway toward the end of the race. The race car that we ran there never qualified well. It handled okay, but it seemed to lack the speed that we needed to compete. We gave that race car about two or three chances, and it just didn't work out, so we fired it. We will take a different race car this time.
"My team actually tricked me in the Brickyard 400," continued Wallace. "They didn't tell me that the race car we used at Michigan was the same race car that we had at Indy. I guess they wanted to see if it was something in my head. When Jimmy (Elledge, crew chief) asked me if I was mad that they had deceived me, I said, 'Well no. I'm actually kind of happy that I didn't know.' I felt that that race car could never qualify well, and I'm known to be a strong qualifier. So it put my mind at ease."
Text provided by Chris Hunt
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