Catchfence

Raybestos - The Best in Brakes

Denny Hamlin scored his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory of the 2009 season Monday afternoon at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway and logged the second-best overall speed in today’s practice session. Mike Ford, Hamlin’s crew chief, discussed the importance of brakes at the 2.45-mile road course following practice. The team uses the Raybestos Sprint Cup braking system on their No. 11 Toyotas.

MIKE FORD, CREW CHIEF, No. 11 FED EX TOYOTA: HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO KEEP BRAKES ON A CAR HERE AT WATKINS GLEN? “Watkins is one of the more difficult places that we go for braking from the aspect of Turn 1 is very difficult. Now with the double-file restart it’s going to be even more difficult so it’s something that you need to pay attention to because you want to guard the inside getting into that corner so you have drive way off in the corner. What makes it very difficult here is you’re going downhill when you have to be under hard braking so the back of the car is light and you continually try to get that balance and as your tires go away that brake balance changes so you have to have a package that you’re very adjustable with. And the driver has to know his bias adjustment front to rear in the car. He has to be very, very disciplined with those adjustments. Turn 1 is very difficult braking then you go down to Turn 2, no real issues and you up through the esses, no braking there, but then you’re running down the backstraightaway and you’ve got to brake to get into the bus stop and again another passing opportunity if you can out-brake a guy getting into the bus stop. A couple of really hard braking corners there, you come through the bus stop and go around a long sweeper to the right. When you come out of it you drag race to the next corner, which is a left hander. Again another pa ssing opportunity there. You have two quick corners, a left and then a right to negotiate and both of those are braking corners. If you can out-brake your competitor you usually get a position there. Watkins Glen, if you’ve got a car that you can brake hard with you can race. It’s very difficult to pass here. The best way to pass is by out-braking your competitor.”

HOW DOES DENNY’S DRIVING STYLE HELP THE BRAKE PACKAGE AND HOW YOU PREPARE THE CAR? “The biggest thing is in practice he’s very, very thorough with his comments about what he needs for a brake package. Some of the things we’ll be able to accomplish and some are just the physics of stopping weight with the amount of rubber you have on the racetrack. He’s very thorough with his explanation of what he needs and he knows what he needs. That makes it a little bit easier to accomplish the goal. But having the best equipment on the car is what you want come Sunday.”

A FEW DRIVERS HAD BRAKE PROBLEMS IN PRACTICE EARLIER TODAY. IS THAT UNUSUAL HERE? “No, that’s very common here because everyone realizes that that’s a very important part of racing this racetrack and people will come very aggressive with packages they may not have tested thoroughly that off the truck they know they’re going to have to work on a little bit. We call ‘em issues but you have ‘em on Friday instead of Saturday. I think during the course of the weekend you’ll see fewer and fewer issues. I think you see guys continually working on that package and I think for a lot of people to listen in and hear these things they think they’re problems but they’re not necessarily problems. Everyone will continue to work on it all the way up ’til Saturday and you’ll see the fruits of that come Sunday of how far everyone gets. We’re confident with our Raybestos brake package that we have on the car. We’ve raced it successfully and felt like it was a good package and we haven’t had any issues.

Raybestos® brand brake and chassis parts are produced by affiliated companies in Affinia’s Global Brake and Chassis Group, the leading manufacturer of braking systems and chassis parts in the transportation industry. The brake line includes everything from brake drums to rotors, pads, shoes and hydraulic parts, while the chassis line features tie rods, ball points, idler arms and sway bar links. Raybestos brand braking and chassis systems are also the only systems used by NASCAR’s Joe Gibbs Racing in competition. For more information about Raybestos brakes, visit Raybestos.com. For more information on Raybestos Chassis visit RaybestosChassis.com

Affinia Group Inc. is a global leader in the on and off-highway replacement products and service industry. In North America the Affinia family of brands includes WIX® Filters, Raybestos®, AIMCO® and BrakePro® brake products, and McQuay-Norris® and Raybestos™ Chassis parts. South American and European brands include Nakata®, Filtron®, Urba® and Quinton Hazell®. For more information, visit affiniagroup.com.

* Affinia Group Inc.’s affiliated companies include Brake Parts Inc. WIX Filtration Corp LLC, Affinia Products Corp LLC and other high quality manufacturers of the Affinia family of brands.

- Camp & Associates, Inc., for Raybestos, Press Release