Cingular Wireless Racing
Event Preview Fact Sheet

Event/Date:       Ford 400/Nov. 16, 2003
Venue:  Homestead-Miami Speedway

Robby Gordon’s NASCAR Winston Cup Performance History at Homestead-Miami Speedway

NASCAR Winston Cup Points Position:  16th

NOTES:

• This Week’s Race Car (chassis No. 103) has run in seven races this year, finishing sixth at Michigan and Indianapolis in August.  Gordon also raced it at Vegas, Martinsville (April), Kansas, Atlanta (Oct.) and Michigan (June).
• Gordon started seventh and finished third in the March 1996 CART race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.  He finished 19th in the March 1999 CART race at Homestead.
• Cingular Wireless front-tire changer Shane Westerberg grew up in Miami
• Gordon will fly to Baja California, Mexico, immediately following Sunday’s race at Homestead to prepare for the Nov. 21 Baja 1000
• Gordon won the 1989 Baja 1000 in a solo drive and 1987 as co-driver with his father, Bob Gordon
• Gordon earned his career-first SCORE Off-Road Trophy Truck class championship in 1996, winning four of the seven events
• Gordon won five consecutive SCORE/HDRA Heavy Metal Off-Road championships between 1986 and 1990
• Go to www.score-international.com to track Gordon’s progress in next week’s Tecate/SCORE  Baja 1000
• The Ford 400 will be broadcast live on NBC and MRN Sunday, Nov. 16 at 1 p.m. EDT.  Qualifying is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 14 at 1:35 p.m. ET.

ROBBY GORDON QUOTES:

“The Cingular team struggled pretty badly at Homestead last year, as did all the RCR teams.  But we felt that the Chevrolets were at a disadvantage to the Fords and Pontiacs.  However, that’s all in the past now and won’t matter for this weekend.  Everyone will be in more of the same boat this year since they have added the banking to Homestead.  All the teams are headed out there early to get in a day of testing before practice officially opens on Friday, so hopefully, we will figure the track out pretty quickly.

“It will be a totally different race track this year than last.  One corner of the track is kind of flat and the other corner has banking, so we will try to hit a happy medium where the Cingular car will run well through both ends of the track.  We’ll be more or less starting from scratch with our setup, although we will be taking some notes from other tracks.  All the teams will be virtually starting from square one and will have to build their notes as the week goes along.  We race on a lot of mile-and-a-half, fast, banked tracks that might end up being similar to Homestead with its new banking, but no one will really know until we get on the track.  It should definitely be a fast race track this year.

“It will be interesting to run on the new, progressive banking and see how it all plays out. Hopefully, it will enable us to have more than one groove where we can race side-by-side and still not have a disadvantage, because usually there is a bottom groove that is faster than the top groove, or vice versa. So, hopefully we will have more side-by-side racing and more ability for passing. That is why they put the banking in there and that’s what they are looking for, so hopefully it will all play out that way.
 

“With just one race left, everyone starts reflecting on the 2003 season and what they could have and should have done differently.  I’m really proud of the No. 31 Cingular Wireless team and our efforts this year, although we came up short of where we wanted to be.  Our goal at the beginning of the year was to finish in the top 10 in points and we looked like we were headed for that for a while.  But we took a wrong turn somewhere in the middle of the summer and never could get back.  We’ve had some races where we struggled in the beginning and didn’t the car up to par until it was too late but we’ve also had some bad luck on the race track.  We’ve gotten wrecked a couple of times when we were running in the top five — wrecks that weren’t our fault.  It’s frustrating but that’s just racing.   You can’t control what the other guy does.  You can only control your team and your team’s efforts each week and I feel confident that the Cingular team has given 100-percent effort each weekend.  Pretty soon, we’ll be putting this year behind us and planning for 2004.  Hopefully, next year will be our time to finish in the top 10 and possibly even contend for a championship.”