Pennzoil Dodge Race Preview: Raines Heads for Flemington
7 August 1997
Pennzoil Dodge Team Ready for Flemington Pennzoil Dodge driver Tony Raines' five consecutive top 10 finishes ended last week at Indianapolis Raceway Park (IRP) when the rookie driver cut a tire with 15 laps left in the race. Raines hopes to begin a new streak at Flemington Speedway on Saturday. Flemington is known for its traditionally-tight short track racing, which should favor Raines. The Hoosier driver's first win in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series came on May 24 on the 1/2-mile oval at I-70 Speedway in Odessa, Mo. Raines has six top-10 finishes this year on tracks shorter than a mile. Raines on... ...working to the front on a short oval like Flemington: "A lot of times at a track like this, everybody focuses on running on the bottom. They never really try to go outside. Sometimes, if you step out there, you find out that your truck works really well. If a guy is holding up the traffic, sometimes you might be faster on the outside." ...practicing in the outside groove on a short track: "You probably could work with the outer groove in practice a little bit, but you tend not to because you're too busy trying to get fast on the bottom so you can qualify well. It seems to be one of those things you do during the race unintentionally. You do it out of necessity and not by design." ...eight races in 10 weeks: "It is starting to wear on people and everybody is getting tired. But, it's the same for everyone We need some time to work on the equipment and get caught up, but it's stretches like this that separate the `contenders from the pretenders.' We're coming down to crunch-time in this 10-race run. Now is when you need to really `knuckle-down' that much harder and get a couple of good finishes." ...rebounding from a disappointment the week before: "We had a little bad luck there at IRP. We cut a tire and got bit when we needed it the least. That's the way racing goes. It's frustrating, because we want the Pennzoil Dodge to run better than that, and that's what we're going to do. Everybody stumbles on the way through the woods somewhere, and we feel like that was it for us. It just makes the Pennzoil team a little hungrier." For More Information Contact: Al Larsen Cohn & Wolfe (404) 880-5267 al_larsen@cohnwolfe.com