TEAM GOULDS PUMPS RACE REPORT: BRISTOL 1
Saturday, March 23, 2002

Improved Déjà Vu
Building on last week’s strong performance at Darlington, the team made another short trip up the road to Bristol. Once again, they had it all in one sock from the get go. Kenny was 4th fastest in the first practice and turned that into a 6th place qualifying run. Also like last week, they moved back a bit in the final practice, clocked at 14th fastest. However, this time it was because we were running on old tires. We were hiding it.

Dizzy & Pulling G’s
The crew had to find long johns for this one as it was cold. Kenny was sitting on the outside row for the start, but by the end of the first lap we were in single file and going round and round. You don’t have to wait long at Bristol for the action and sure enough, it began on lap seven. About four different cars were involved at different points around the track. The race restarted on lap 17 but didn’t get a clean lap in. Jason Keller ran into a slower moving #63 and the #2 car hit the #99 who hit the #59. It wasn’t the end for anyone, but it sure messed a few cars up and Keller had to head to the garage to change a radiator. The race restarted again on lap 27 with Kenny still in 4th. On lap forty-one, the caution was shown for a spinning #98. The action was pretty fast and furious and by lap seventy, we were going around in 5th place when the yellow came out again. The race restarted on lap seventy-four and the lapped traffic was a problem. There was a wild scramble around lap eighty-three when the yellow came out again. Kenny took advantage of it to move into 3rd. The caution was an opportunity to pit and we came in for four fresh ones and not much else. We lost one spot on the stop but came back out in 10th as a number of cars had stayed out. On lap eighty-nine, Kenny restarted in between Scott Riggs and Greg Biffle. He moved up to 9th, then back to 11th before reassuming 9th place over the next fifteen laps. There was another caution on lap one hundred eight, followed by another quick one on lap one hundred sixteen and still another one on lap one hundred thirty. Once again, Jimmy Spencer’s problem was our gain. We moved up to 8th when Spencer came to rest against the wall on the last caution. The yellow flag came out on lap one hundred forty-seven when Casey Mears hit the wall while trying to move under teammate Shane Hmiel and it was time to pit.

The Survivor Series
The crew let a pound of air out all the way around to improve the grip and sent Kenny back on the track in 13th place. He was actually sitting better than that as many cars were out of sequence. Kenny was lined up behind Scott Riggs for another wild restart. They went three wide on the small track passing a few lapped cars before Kenny started to rise in the standings again. We were 12th on lap one hundred sixty-nine, passing Todd Bodine for 11th on lap one hundred seventy-four. A few cautions came close to being called on the next few laps but the race stayed green until a back-stretch spin on lap one hundred eighty-one. A few cars pitted and we moved into 9th place for the restart. A few cautions later, Bodine passed us on lap two hundred, putting us back in 10th. That didn’t last long as a hard charging Kevin Grubb spun out while running in 2nd place a few laps later, putting us back in 9th. Kenny passed Bodine again on lap two hundred five to move into 8th place. We took advantage of a restart on lap two hundred thirteen to pass Scott Riggs for 7th, following Kevin Harvick. Harvick passed Greg Biffle on the next lap and it was Harvick, Biffle and Wallace nose to tail. Kenny had a feeling that three would be a crowd in that line-up and gave those boys a little room. The Hatfields and McCoys had nothing on these two and sure enough, Harvick went into the wall after some contact with Biffle on lap two hundred thirty-nine (The action continued off the track and after the race, stacking up well against the best of the WWF). It took a full red flag stop to clean up Harvick’s mess and the race restarted with five laps to go. The #38 spun on the white flag lap and that was the perfect end to the day as everyone scrambled for the finish. Jimmy Spencer wrecked Jack Sprague in the process (coming up off the apron to do it) and Sprague didn’t allow Harvick and Biffle to grab all the attention for themselves. We wound up in 6th place and a reasonably intact car. It was another solid run for the team, placing us 3rd in the Championship Points chase. We’re the only car in the Top Ten to finish all the laps to date.

RACE START: 6TH
RACE FINISH: 6TH
RACE POINTS: 150
RACE WINNINGS: $14,135
SERIES STANDINGS: 3RD
SERIES WINNINGS: $117,830

NEXT RACE: We’ve got a week off and then it’s on to Texas for the Saturday April 6th race. Watch it on Fox at 2:00 pm EST (check local listings).

ANSWER TO LAST WEEKS QUESTION: Just to clarify things, there are 2 major tracks in the Chicago area: Chicago Motor Speedway in Cicero, Ill and Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill. Chicago Motor Speedway hosts the CART and NASCAR Truck Series races. Chicagoland Speedway hosts the IRL and NASCAR Winston Cup/Busch Series races. Chicago Motor Speedway has been in the news lately with speculation that they would cancel their races due to financial problems. The track will be leased to CART in order to run the CART race there in June. Chicagoland Speedway seems to be OK.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: How long is a "stop and go" penalty?

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