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Pre-Race Notes: Dover (Del.) International Speedway
Event/Date: Autism Speaks 400 presented by Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips and Cheese- May 31, 2009
Venue: Dover (Del.) International Speedway
Notes
This Week's Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet at Dover International Speedway … Kevin Harvick will pilot Chassis No. 192 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable this weekend at Dover International Speedway. Before it carried the No. 29 colors, this car was the workhorse of the No. 07 fleet. It was driven by Clint Bowyer in five races last season and eight races in 2007. Most recently, Casey Mears piloted this car to a 24th-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway in March.
Stat Facts … In 16 NASCAR Sprint Cups Series starts at DIS, Harvick has earned two top-five and six top-10 finishes. Additionally, the Bakersfield, Calif., native has earned a 19.8 starting average and an 18.4 finishing average.
After 12 … Over the season's first 12 races, Harvick has notched two top-five and two top-10 finishes. The 33-year-old driver has logged a 20.5 starting average and a 23.2 finishing average. He has completed 3,727 of the 3,848 (96.9 percent) total laps run this season.
Race Recap … Several mishaps left Harvick three laps down to the race leaders, resulting in a 41st-place finish in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day. First, contact was made between the car of Sam Hornish Jr. and Harvick's machine, damaging the No. 29's right-front fender. A flat tire sent Harvick into the outside retaining wall a few laps later, while a pit road speeding penalty cost him more track position. With the finish, Harvick drops two spots, to 23rd, in the NSCS point standings.
RCR at Dover … Richard Childress has earned four wins at DIS, the latest coming in September 2006 when Jeff Burton drove the No. 31 Chevrolet to Victory Lane after the Dover 400. The other three wins came with Dale Earnhardt, who won both events at the "Monster Mile" in 1989 and the spring race in 1993. Additionally, RCR has earned one pole, 20 top-five and 40 top-10 finishes at the high-banked concrete oval. Childress, a former driver in NASCAR's top division, contributed three of those top 10s from 1976-1980. Last fall, all three RCR-prepared entries finished in the top 10. Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton finished sixth, eighth and ninth, respectively in the Sept., 21, 2008 Camping World RV 400 Presented by AAA.
Double Down in Dover … In addition to his duties behind the wheel of the Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet, Harvick returns to the seat of the No. 33 Kevin Harvick, Inc. Chevy for this weekend's Nationwide Series event at Dover. Live coverage of the Heluva Good! 200 will take the green flag Saturday, May 30 beginning at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The race will be televised live on ABC and broadcast on the Motor Racing Network and Sirius XM Satellite Radio. Qualifying for the 12th race on the 2009 Nationwide Series calendar will be televised live on SPEED the same day at 10 a.m. EDT.
Up to Speed … Live coverage of the Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway will take the green flag Sunday, May 31 beginning at 1:30 p.m. EDT and will be telecast live on FOX. The event will also be broadcast live on MRN and Sirius XM Satellite Radio. Qualifying for the 13th of 36 points-paying NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races will air live on SPEED, MRN and Sirius XM Satellite Radio Friday, May 29 at 3 p.m. EDT.
RCR Website … To keep up with the latest news and information about Richard Childress Racing and to view exclusive content, visit the team's official website at www.RCRRacing.com.
Kevin Harvick Quote
Dover was "Feast or Famine" for you last year. You finished 38th in this race a year ago, but rebounded with a sixth-place finish in the second race.
"We ran good at both races. We practiced well at the first race. I don't think we made very many laps and got in a huge wreck on the sixth or seventh lap there. Right now, the main focus is to get solid finishes. Right now for us, a solid finish is a top-15 finish. We've got to crawl before we walk and get our stuff back together."
When there's a wreck ahead of you at Dover, it's kind of hard to avoid it, isn't it? There's really no place to escape, regardless of where you go or what you do.
"Yeah, when you come up off the corners at Dover and somebody wrecks in the middle of the track, the hard part from a driver's perspective is you can't see the exit of the corners. You drive like some guys drive on a weekly basis, because you can't see any further than your hood for about half the corner because there's so much banking."
"When you come off the corner, the walls are so tight to the inside of the straightaway, there's just nowhere to hide. We were unfortunate to get in that wreck last year and I think we were the seventh or eighth car into the pile. It's just hard to get stopped and hard to see what's going on."
Dover has a new pit road. It's longer and wider, with SAFER barriers. How much did the track need to improve that situation?
"It was pretty bad. You're holding a Sprint Cup Series race and you don't have enough pit stalls on pit road for all the cars. That's one of the regulations I'm glad NASCAR is being more stringent on. If you don't have enough pit stalls, you don't get a race. If you don't have sufficient garages or the barriers in place, you shouldn't even be in the running for a race. I'm glad to see that they fixed that and stepped it up and it'll be good."
For the average fan, can you talk about how tough Dover is to drive? With the banking all the way around and the tight corners, you really have to fight it all day.
"The strange thing about Dover is, I always tell people it's like driving down a sidewalk. It's got that 'choppy' sense to it. It's beating you up for 400 miles. It's a long race. It's pretty taxing on your body because it's rough and there's a lot of banking. It's one of the places you really have to overdrive compared to what we do on a week-to-week basis to go fast."