Event Preview Fact Sheet

Event/Date:       Dodge/Save Mart 350/June 22, 2003

Venue:  Infineon Raceway

Robby Gordon’s NASCAR Winston Cup Performance History at Infineon Raceway

                                                                                                Laps Completed/

Date                 Start                 Finish               Total Laps                    Status               Money

6/23/02                        9                      11                    110/110                                   Running                          $82,006

6/24/01                        7                      2                      112/112                                   Running                          114,035

6/25/00                        11                    9                      112/112                                   Running                        42,415

6/28/98                        18                    37                    102/112                                   Suspension                   24,765

5/5/97                          18                    41                    43/74                                       Engine                          27,720

TOTALS      Avg. Start: 12.6       Avg. Finish: 20         Laps: 479/520                          Money: $290,941

NOTES:

• This Week’s Race Car (chassis No. 117) is a brand-new car.  The team tested it at Virginia International Raceway last month.
• The No. 31 Cingular Wireless Chevrolet will carry a special Charlie’s Angels II paint scheme this weekend at Sonoma as part of Cingular’s relationship with the movie
• Gordon and Richard Childress will be the guests on Tuesday’s NASCAR Winston Cup Teleconference
• Gordon will attend Thursday’s Dodge/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Winston Cup Press Conference at McCormick and Kuleto’s Seafood Restaurant in San Francisco
• Cingular Wireless crew chief Kevin Hamlin will marry Patti Miles Thursday in Napa.  Gordon and the Cingular Wireless team members will attend.
• Gordon flew to Orange, Calif., Sunday evening following the Michigan race and will remain in California until the week of the Daytona race
• The Dodge/Save Mart 350 will be broadcast live on FOX and PRN on Sunday, June 22 at 4 p.m. ET.  Qualifying is scheduled for Friday, June 20 at 6:05 p.m. ET.

ROBBY GORDON QUOTES:

“I’m pretty pumped up about going to Sonoma.  The Cingular team tested at Virginia International Raceway last month and the car was good enough that we’re going to take it to Infineon with us.  We got a bunch of good notes about the car and how it handles and responds to certain chassis adjustments.  I love racing road courses and am usually pretty competitive on them and I know that Kevin Hamlin knows how to set up a strong car for a road course. We’re planning on going and winning the race.  We won’t be happy with anything else.

“A road course is a place where the Cingular Wireless could score 185 points. That’s kind of our goal. We went and tested two separate road-course tests at VIR, and we’ve learned a lot about our road course car. Not only are we working on the tracks where we aren’t good, we’re working on the tracks we are good on to capitalize a little bit more on those.  We have kind of fallen off the past two races after running well and moving into the top 10 in points.  But Sonoma and Daytona are usually good tracks for us and we plan on gaining back some ground this weekend.

“I am excited about going to Sonoma and Watkins Glen because I think they’re going to be very good for us. But last year, we beat ourselves there. All I know is the Cingular team is not doing what Tony Stewart does this year when it comes time to pit.  We did that last year and paid dearly for it when we ended up about 22nd when we were running second.  Pit stops are huge at road courses because it’s so hard to pass on those tracks.  We’re going to be smarter with our pit strategy and hopefully come out of there with a win. Those are things the Cingular team has learned -- we can’t lose that track position because it’s so hard to pass in Winston Cup. Even if you’re a second a lap faster than everyone else, it’s still hard to pass and virtually impossible to make up 20-something spots on a road course.

“Issues in the pits cost probably cost us a win at Sonoma and Watkins Glen last year.  We made a real bad pit call at Infineon last year that we weren’t able to recover from, and at Watkins Glen we were clearly the fastest car all day long and had bad pit stops. In both races, other things besides my driving took us out of contention and we still didn’t win. Not one guy can make a difference at those types of tracks. You have to have the whole team around you and have the thought process in place.

“Infineon is a huge race for the Cingular team and me as a California native.  I’m looking forward to going back to Sonoma and visiting California, even though it’s about seven hours from my home.  I’ve got some really good friends up in the Sonoma area and we always try to find some time relax and hang out. There aren’t many races I look forward to more each season than Sonoma.  I grew up racing on the road courses and have had some success on those tracks. I didn’t say that I always have the best luck at road courses but I do have a lot of experience and success at those types of tracks.  I think the No. 31 Cingular Wireless team has just as good a shot, if not better, at winning at Infineon Raceway than I did last year. Sears Point is one of my favorite tracks. Always has been, always will be. I think the track was more fun when it had the old carousel corner that went up over the rise and made the fast left-hand turn.  But they changed the track a bit to create a better show for the fans. You can see more of the track now at one time than ever before.

“Not only has my career as a road racer helped me in Winston Cup road course races like Infineon, it’s also helped me a lot on the short tracks. I have learned something at road courses that I also use at places like Martinsville.  I treat Martinsville like a hairpin turn or a complete U-turn on the road courses.  I brake in a straight line, get the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet slowed down, get off the brakes and roll through the center of the corner.  That’s basically what I do in the hairpin turn (turn 11) at Sears Point.  True, I’m turning right at Infineon and left on the short tracks, but I pack the corner the same way and that hairpin turn is one of my strongest areas at Sonoma -- I make up a lot of time on other cars there.  I contribute that to my road racing experience.

“The Cingular Wireless team didn’t test last year like we’ve tested this year.  I think we only did a road course test last year at a local track to shake the car down. We’ve done more this year, such as some geometry stuff, steering and taking a different kind of car.  We’ve had two decent tests at Virginia International Raceway and I think we’re going to be good.

 “I absolutely love road course racing. I wish we did it 36 times a year.  I think I could have locked up a couple of championships if that were the case.  I think the road course races are just as important as the oval, short track and superspeedway races. They just challenge drivers in a different way.  I look at road course races as a maximum points-scoring weekend.  Anything less is unacceptable. It takes drivers to drive race courses and the best always rise to the top.  Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart always run well at road courses.  The ovals are different than the road course tracks and I think it’s good for NASCAR because it mixes it up.  You’ve got superspeedways, short tracks, high-banked short tracks, intermediate tracks and road courses. To win a Winston Cup championship, you’ve got to be competitive in all of them.  That’s where Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart have scored points in the past and it’s helped them win their championships.

“Let me try to explain what one qualifying lap is like at Infineon. I drive off pit road just past the start/finish line and grab fourth gear. Then I make a bending left turn up a hill into the first turn, being careful not to try to run that turn flat out.  If we run that corner flat out in the gas, it will make the Cingular car push the nose up the track. After the first turn, the track gets tight and goes left again.  When the road goes left again into what we now call turn 1a, I try to make the arc a little early and brake in a straight line, get off the brakes as soon as possible and coast through the corner.  I’ve got to slow down the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet to make a right-hand turn at the top of the hill into turn two.  We have to be careful getting into the throttle in that area because the car wants to spin the tires. On Sunday, this is the spot on the track you can hurt your tires by spinning them too much and wearing them out or overheating them. 

“At the top of the hill in turn two, I go through the short little straightaway into turn three.  As I exit turn three at the top of the hill, there’s another rise again heading into turn 3a.  When the car goes over that rise, it tries to get loose and lock up the right-front tire.  So we give the No. 31 Cingular Wireless Chevy some brake on the straight area, roll over the top of the hill, compress the car hard into the bank on the left-hand turn going into turn 3a and accelerate onto the next little hill into turn four.  Turn four is a blind right-hander heading up over the top of the rise.  That’s another corner that we try to brake into and then coast through the corner, and accelerate after the car is straight.  There is a lot of time to be gained in the corner if I do it right.  I’ve got to get the car pointed right and stay full throttle over the top of the hill. 

“Then we go down The Chute into turn seven. One of the keys to a good lap is to be able to run that corner pretty good.  The officials at Infineon Raceway made that corner where it is a passing zone now so it’s a pretty tight section of race track.  I downshift into second gear and try to keep it there and pull that gear all the way into the next corner.  In turn seven, we make a right-hander and it’s an increasing-radius right-hand turn.

“I come out of turn seven, brake and get the car rotated and off the brakes as soon as possible to try to roll around that corner.  Then it’s through the esses over on the backside of the track, where it is so important not to overdrive the car. I more or less slow down in the first ess to be able to accelerate into the next one.  The car keeps going through the esses to a fast right-hand turn in turn 10.  I try like heck not to overdrive that corner, brake early going into it, get on the gas exiting the corner and carry good speed behind the grandstands there down into the hairpin turn, which is turn 11.  When I get to that hairpin turn, I go to first gear and try to gas the car in a straight line as much as possible.  It’s important to try to hug the barriers and cones as tightly as possible and get the Cingular Wireless car pointed back straight and then stand hard on the gas. There is a lot of time to be made up in that hairpin turn and it’s a pretty ‘narly’ one.  It’s a very tight turn and I have to be cautious there because if I overbrake, I can lock up a tire, which will cost a lot of time. From there, I take the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet back to the start/finish line and try to run that perfect line 110 times in Sunday’s race.”