Event Preview Fact Sheet

Event/Date:    Subway 400/Feb. 23, 2003

Venue:            North Carolina Speedway

Robby Gordon’s NASCAR Winston Cup Performance History at North Carolina Speedway

TOTALS     Avg. Start: 23.7  Avg. Finish: 31.5       Laps: 2,489/3,144         Money: $327,686

NASCAR Winston Cup Points Position:  Seventh

NOTES:

• This Week’s Race Car (chassis No. 105) is a brand-new car.  The team tested it at Homestead last November.
• Rockingham will mark Gordon’s 100^th NASCAR Winston Cup Series start
• Gordon is scheduled to test at Atlanta Motor Speedway Feb. 25 and 26.  The test was originally scheduled for Feb. 18 and 19 but was postponed due to weather conditions in North Carolina that delayed the team’s return after the Daytona 500.
• Gordon’s teammate Kevin Harvick tested at Rockingham earlier this month

• The North Carolina 400 will be broadcast live on FOX and MRN on Sunday, Feb. 23^rd at 1:00 p.m. EST.  Qualifying is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 21^st at 3:05 p.m. EST.

ROBBY GORDON QUOTES:

“I think Rockingham will be a good weekend for us.  It was a good track for the Cingular Wireless team last November and we also ran well there last February. We were going to sneak out of there in February with probably a top-10 finish but I got too aggressive at the end of the race and got myself in trouble.  But one of my goals this year is to learn from my mistakes in the past and learn not to make them again.  I won’t do that again at Rockingham and will try to score as many points as possible.  We’re going there to try to win the race but the key is if all you’ve got is a sixth-place car, take that sixth-place and run with it.  Don’t destroy the car trying to get something out of it that’s not there.  I really learned that last year and think that was where some of our problems came from.

 “The Cingular team had a great run at Daytona.  I’m disappointed that we didn’t win and disappointed that we didn’t run 500 miles.  We had a car capable of winning the race if it had gone the whole way.  The most important thing is that we came out of there with a whole car and some good points.  We proved to ourselves and to everyone else that we are a strong race team that has overcome a bunch of obstacles and come back stronger than Richard Childress Racing has been in a couple of years.  Richard is very pleased with how well we all ran at Daytona and we’ve got that momentum on our side now heading into the next race.  I learn a little more about these Winston Cup cars each weekend and I think I learned how to draft better last week in Daytona.  I learned to choose my lines carefully and stick with my partner, whoever he may be.  But the next few races don’t require a partner to win so we’ll just concentrate on setting up the Cingular Wireless Chevy the best we can and taking it to the front.

“Kevin Hamlin (crew chief) and I are getting along really well and we had a great two weeks down in Daytona.  We’ve got a lot of new faces on the road crew this year and they’re doing a great job.  We’re working together really well and they seem to have adapted well to what I need in a race car.  We just need to keep on doing what we did at Daytona each week and we’ll have a good points finish this year.

“The new Chevrolet Monte Carlo has more front downforce than the old one and that should make a difference in our performance at Rockingham.  The car should handle better than it did last year and we shouldn’t have to spend all our time chasing the set-up.  Rockingham is a very difficult track because the tires go away after about 10 laps and we have to show a lot of patience and save our car as much as possible.  If we have the car to win, we’ll go for it when the time comes. But if we don’t, we’ll do our best to keep the car in one piece and not give up the great points position we’ve started out in.  This could definitely be the best year I’ve ever had in the Winston Cup Series.”