CORNELIUS, N.C. — No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota crew chief Rodney Childers says times have changed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Deciding which car to take to the track is much easier. Before the introduction of the new car in 2008, crew chiefs spent days mulling which of their fleet of cars would run best at that weekend’s races. Now all cars in a team’s shop must fit a common template leaving little difference among them making life back at the shop a little easier. Childers and his driver David Reutimann take on Kansas Speedway this weekend. The Michael Waltrip Racing duo won on a similar track at Chicagoland in July.
2010 NSCS David Reutimann - Sam Greenwood/Getty Images for NASCAR
CREW CHIEF RODNEY CHILDERS QUOTES
WHAT GOES INTO CHOOSING A CAR FOR A CERTAIN TRACK?: “We’ve gotten to the point now where we can’t really tell any difference between the cars. We just kind of keep the car schedule where it’s easy on the fab shop and easy on the guys in the shop. It seems like these days that the cars are so close that we’re better off spending more time on details than thrashing to get a car back together and pushing it through the body shop too quick so then the templates don’t fit exactly right or whatever. Now we’re just better off keeping to our schedule and running the cars that you think have been good, but really all of our intermediate cars have been good.”
ON KANSAS: “Kansas is a little bit different than most of the intermediate tracks. It’s really tight in turns 3 and 4 and you really have to get the car turned quick and make it to where it will drive straight off the corner. You have to look at it a little bit different then you would say Charlotte or Fontana or really any of the other intermediate tracks. It kind of stands out. A lot of people compare it to Chicago, and there are some similarities there, but you can’t take exactly what you take to Chicago and run it at Kansas. I’ve always had pretty good luck there, and I think I’ve just been more fortunate than anything there. The biggest thing is have your car where it’ll turn really quick in turns 3 and 4 and get back to the gas.”
DAVID REUTIMANN QUOTE
ON THE DEVELOPMENT AROUND KANSAS SPEEDWAY: “Anything that brings the possibility of people coming in and spending time around the racetrack, or having more things to do around the racetrack is great. Kansas is pretty cool because there is a lot of things to do right around the racetrack, which is not the norm for most of the racetracks that we go to that are set apart from everything else. In Kansas it seems like they built the racetrack and everything else was built right around it. Anything that can bring people close to a racetrack and hopefully make them come buy a ticket to experience and watch a race is a positive.”
ADDITIONAL NOTES OF INTEREST
- Michael Waltrip Racing, Press Release
