Event Preview Fact Sheet
Event/Date: Brickyard
400/Aug. 3, 2003
Venue: Indianapolis
Motor Speedway
Robby Gordon’s NASCAR
Winston Cup Performance History at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Laps Completed/
Date Start Finish Total Laps
Status Money
8/4/02 4
8 160/160 Running $167,431
8/5/01 42
30 159/160 Running
121,434
8/5/00 DNQ
8/3/97 11
28 159/160 Running 68,910
TOTALS Avg. Start: 19 Avg. Finish: 22 Laps: 478/480
Money: $357,775
NASCAR Winston Cup Points Position:
12th
NOTES:
- This Week’s Race Car (chassis No. 103) was
run earlier this year in Vegas, Martinsville and Michigan, finishing 23rd, 21st
and 22nd, respectively
- Gordon and the No. 31
Cingular Wireless team tested at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
July 14-15
- The No. 31 Cingular Wireless team is testing at
Watkins Glen Monday and Tuesday
- Gordon has five top-10
finishes in nine Indianapolis 500 starts, the most
recent in May 2003 driving as
part of the Indy/Charlotte Double for Andretti Green Racing
- Gordon finished 22nd in the 2003 Indy
500 after starting from the third position
- Gordon will run a FDNY/Special Olympics special
paint scheme next weekend at Watkins Glen.
Cingular Wireless will donate to both organizations $50
for each lap Gordon completes, $500 for each lap he leads and
$50,000 if he wins.
- The Brickyard 400 will broadcast live on NBC and IMS Radio Network
Sunday, Aug. 3 at 2 p.m. ET. Qualifying is scheduled for
Saturday, Aug. 2 at 11:05 a.m. ET.
ROBBY GORDON QUOTES:
“In some
respects, Indianapolis is just like every track — you’ve got to get around
the corners as fast as possible. A lot of people think a
good lap at Indy is about the straightaways
because they’re so long but it’s really all about the corners.
The Cingular Wireless team has to work on making sure I can go
to full throttle before the middle of the corner. If we
can do that, we’ll be fast on the front straightaway.
“After our
test at Indy two weeks ago, I think we can go back there and qualify
on the front row. We worked a lot on getting more grip and balance
in the Cingular car. We had a good test the first day but got rained out the second day, although
we were very good in the few laps we made before the rain hit. We only got to do 30 laps and there were more
things we wanted to learn about our car.
Handling is so important
at Indy and the better we can get off turns four and two, the
better laps we’ll run. You can’t carry the speed initially
on the straightaway no matter how much horsepower you’ve got.
The corners are the most important part of the track at Indy. It’s
always been that way with the Indy cars, also.
“Compared
to other tracks, Indy has a good racing groove. It has really
good grip and is a pretty flat race track. For some reason, the
Cingular team has run best on flat race tracks. We run really
good at Loudon, Martinsville, Richmond and places like that. Right now, those
tracks seem to be suiting me best.
We were good at Indy last year and had a great test earlier
this month. We’re
hoping for a pretty good weekend.
“We definitely need to get a better starting spot for the
Cingular Wireless Chevrolet than what we did in Pocono. Passing has become hard everywhere we go nowadays,
and with all the grip Indy has, the speeds
are higher and it just makes passing harder, especially in a Winston
Cup car.
“I
did the Double earlier this year in May with the Indy 500 and
Coca-Cola 600 but I really don’t think I have an edge up
on any of the other drivers because of that. There is a big difference between an IRL car
and a Winston Cup car. Everything is different, from the cars’
weight to tires to grip to downforce.
The way in which the two types of cars stop and accelerate is
different, also. The most
important thing is that you have to drive both cars on the ragged
edge to be competitive. There’s
nothing that the two really have in common except they have four
tires and an engine.
“We can go
wide-open in an Indy car during qualifying but we can’t do
that in a Winston Cup car or we’ll be wide-open into the
wall hard. It’s hard to keep an open-wheel car wide-open
around Indy because of the turbulent air.
But we definitely hold it wide-open more in an Indy car
than a Winston Cup car.
“Indy
is a race track I simply love racing. I have been racing there
for 10 years. It is probably one of the most popular speedways
in America. I’d
say Daytona and Indy are probably neck-and-neck. If you don’t
win the Daytona 500, you want to try to position yourself to win
the Brickyard 400. It’s
no secret that I would give my right arm to win the Indy 500 but
if I can’t win that one, I would love to win the Brickyard.
Indy is Indy and it is so steeped in tradition that it
would be an honor to win either race there.”
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