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What Do NASCAR Nextel Cup Drivers Do When it Rains?
CASEY MEARS (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger)
WHAT DO DRIVERS DO ON A RAINY SUNDAY AT THE TRACK? “We get dressed for driver introductions and then come back dress in our street clothes to watch it rain some more.”
WILL YOU WATCH SOME NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT GAMES? “No, I don’t care too much for basketball. I respect the sport, but I’m not a big basketball fan. I had a live interview on TV last week and somebody asked me who I had my money on for March Madness. I’m like, ‘What is March Madness?’ I felt pretty bad because it was a sports station, but I’m, not a big basketball fan. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I guess I’ll go back and watch TV and spend some time with my family and hang out with some friends. I just got finished talking to Jimmie Johnson. He’s got a new X-Box, so I might go hang out over there and play a little X-Box 360 and kill some time. Whatever sounds good. We’ll wait out the rain as best we can.”
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DOES THE RAIN DAMPEN MOMENTUM? “I don’t know. My first year when stuff like this happened, yeah. You get delayed and it might mess things up, but these days whenever the race starts it starts. It doesn’t really change our outlook on the event. I’d like to get it in sometime today or tonight. If it starts dragging out to Monday or Tuesday it gets kind of wearing, but right now everything is cool. We haven’t waited any more than scheduled so far, but it looks like we’re going to.”
DO YOU HAVE ANOTHER TEST SCHEDULED AT CARAWAY? “We were going to try to get back up there Wednesday. We went last week, and it was a good place to go to get back into driving the rhythm of driving a short track. We actually learned a few things we’ll apply to Martinsville. We’ve got some more ideas we want to try and try to learn some more. Short tracks have traditionally been my weaker tracks and we just want to get some more time in on those tracks and try to learn what works good for us.”
ARE YOU WEAK ON SHORT TRACKS OR HAVE YOU JUST HAD BACK LUCK? “It’s been both. At Bristol the speed has been there to run good. We’ve never had a problem of being competitive time wise in race trim. My problem has been qualifying at Bristol, and that’s kind of weird because qualifying is a lot of fun there. There’s a way of getting around Bristol that I’ve always struggled a little bit with as far as getting in an ultimate lap time. It gets me back in the pack and we get caught up in things that really aren’t our fault. We’d like to qualify in the top 10 and that way I think we’d be better. Martinsville has just been a tough track for me. I didn’t grow up racing on short tracks. The shortest track I drove before I came to race stock cars four years ago was a mile. A lot of these guys grew up racing quarter miles and half miles and things like that. I just need more time and experience on ‘em and I think that’s what we’re trying to accomplish at Caraway.”
IS BRISTOL MORE SURVIVAL THAN RACING? “Yes. You talk to a lot of people and everybody loves going to Bristol. It’s such a big event. It’s fun and exciting and the track is fun to drive, but the race itself has a lot more to do with survival and staying out of trouble than anything else.”
PaddockTalk Perspective
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