Fontan, Calif. — While the NASCAR tour is spending the holiday weekend on the west coast, many of their hearts and minds are watching the east coast and what’s transpiring at the hands of Hurricane Frances.
It is difficult to roll into a hauler or pass by a television that doesn’t have coverage of Frances with many folks having ties to Florida. NASCAR officials rearranged their compliment of field personnel as some stayed back in Daytona Beach to help their families battle the second major storm in a little less than three weeks time.
Ford teams are touched by the happenings in Florida. Daytona resident, Mark Martin brought his wife Arleen and son Matt to California to dodge the storm. Martin ran his Viagra Ford to third fastest in the final Happy Hour practice session to become best in class for the Oval.
Martin was joined in the top-10 in the final session by Dale Jarrett in the UPS Ford, who was fifth fastest, and Ricky Rudd, who ran the Motorcraft Ford to an eighth place spot in the final practice sheet.
The day wasn’t without incident after Elliott Sadler spun his way out of Turn 2 in the M&M’s Taurus. The spin, described by some as a 720-degree effort, ended without damage to Sadler’s ride.
The early session, which ended with Sadler second fastest, was stopped once after Scott Wimmer slammed the wall with his Dodge.
The practice sessions, while not in the same time slots as the race is schedule to be run, were close enough for the chassis men to see how their cars will react during the race. The early session did represent the approximate conditions that the cars will see at the races conclusion and the final session mimicked the condition of the race’s start time.
The master chassis man of the Wood Brothers Motorcraft Ford, Hoyt Overbagh, told www.teamfordracing.com that the stronger cars will be the ones that will have plenty of adjustment range built into their setups and people smart enough to know how to manage those adjustments.
“You can anticipate what your adjustments need to be and you’ve got to make sure the rest of the setup leaves you with that adjustment,” noted Overbagh. The issue that Overbagh and crew chief Michael “Fatback” McSwain will have to chase on the 21 car is a track that will continue to tighten up from dusk to dark.
