Event
Preview Fact Sheet
Event/Date: Virginia 500/April
13, 2003
Venue: Martinsville (Va.) Speedway
Robby Gordon’s NASCAR Winston Cup Performance
History at Martinsville Speedway
Date
|
Start
|
Finish
|
Laps
Completed/
Total Laps
|
Status
|
Money
|
10/20/02
|
12
|
23
|
498/500
|
Running
|
$66,631
|
04/14/02
|
11
|
34
|
481/500
|
Vibration
|
65,611
|
10/14/01
|
28
|
38
|
442/500
|
Running
|
61,799
|
04/09/00
|
42
|
40
|
425/500
|
Rear
End
|
21,650
|
04/20/97
|
40
|
41
|
395/500
|
Accident
|
7,075
|
TOTALS Avg. Start: 26.6 Avg. Finish:
35.2 Laps: 2,240/2,500 Money: $222,766
NASCAR Winston Cup Points Position: 13th
NOTES:
- This Week’s Race Car (chassis No. 103) was last run at
Las Vegas. It was also tested at Caraway Speedway and at Homestead
and Kentucky in December 2002.
- Gordon is scheduled to test at Nashville (Tenn.)
Superspeedway on April 15 and 16
- The Virginia 500 will be broadcast live on
FX and MRN on Sunday, April 13 at 1 p.m. EST. Qualifying is scheduled
for Friday, April 11 at 3:05 p.m. EST.
ROBBY
GORDON QUOTES:
“The Cingular team was really strong at
Martinsville last October but we shot ourselves in the foot. We
moved right through the field when the race started and got up to
the second position within 150 or so laps. But we made the decision
to follow leader Tony Stewart into the pits during a caution and
no one else pitted with us. That put us in 19th behind
a bunch of traffic and the car got tight behind that many cars.
We struggled the rest of the day and ended up 23rd.
We know what we need for the set-up on the car this year. We just
need to make sure we make smart calls on pit road all day that put
us where we need to be and the car will hopefully be strong enough
to stay up front.
“Martinsville is a great track because the
racing is so tight and the quarters so close. Bristol and Martinsville
are often two of the best races of the year because we’re all
cramped up in such a small space on the track for 500 laps. It’s
hard not to let your emotions get the best of you when you’ve
got guys beating and banging on you all day. Your patience is just
about shot by the end. Not only do drivers have to control their
race cars for 500 laps at Martinsville, they’ve got to control
their tempers for 500 laps. Sometimes that is the biggest challenge
of all.
“I compare the turns at Martinsville to
the hairpin turn on the road course at Sonoma, except you’re
turning right at Sonoma. Martinsville is like two hairpin turns
in a row that make up an oval. Martinsville’s got the sharpest
and flattest corners on the circuit. Martinsville seems like it’s
smaller than Bristol, although it isn’t, because the track
is so flat and before you know it, you’re back at the same,
sharp corner again.
“I think the flat tracks are very good for
me and they’re a lot like road racing. We’ve run fairly
decent the last couple of times at Martinsville but haven’t
come out with really good finishes. We were one of the quickest
cars in Happy Hour there last October and hopefully we can have
a car just as competitive but be there at the end.
“We’ve all heard talk of NASCAR moving
one of Martinsville’s dates to another venue. I can understand
why they would consider doing that because Martinsville doesn’t
hold very many people and there are so many tracks we go to in that
general area. But Martinsville is also a great short track that
produces some terrific races. I really enjoy Martinsville, even
though it’s a tough race. Martinsville takes you back to the
roots of NASCAR and Saturday night racing and I’m probably
not alone when I say I’d miss racing there twice a year.
“We’re about 20-percent of the way
through the season right now and we’re 13th in points
but we’re all right there together from about 10th to
20th. It’s feasible that we could be ninth next
week or 18th. Our goal for the year is to be in the
top 10 at the end and if we have solid, top-10 runs each week, that
will happen. But we got behind the curve at the beginning of the
season at Richard Childress Racing and have struggled in our body
department. The information we gathered with our 2003 car at Kentucky
wasn’t valuable information that we could use at other race
tracks. We built bodies for other tracks based on Kentucky but
once we went to other tracks, we weren’t as competitive. The
Cingular Wireless car was loose entering the corners, as you saw
at Texas. Kevin Harvick and Jeff Green both got new bodies on their
car at Texas and were very competitive. I am getting my new body
for Fontana, the next downforce track, and am looking forward to
it because the Cingular team should be good there with the new body.
In our fabrication shop, the three teams alternate when we get new
cars or bodies that come out of the fab shop. When Texas rolled
around, it just so happened that it wasn’t my turn and we had
finally hit on something with the new bodies. So, I should have
what I need at Fontana and from there on out.”
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