Notebook: Pop Secret 400
By Tim Packman, Turner Sports Interactive
November 5, 2001
11:05 AM EST (1605 GMT)
ROCKINGHAM, N.C. - Cloudless Carolina blue skies, temperatures in the 70s and 43 colorful Winston Cup cars greeted the fans for Sunday’s Pop Secret 400 at North Carolina Speedway.
KEEP IT CLEAN
During the pre-race drivers meeting, Rusty Wallace asked if the track crew was going to make sure the racing surface stayed clean all day. That was in reference to last week’s race at Phoenix where an excessive amount of debris reportedly led to some cut tires.
Wallace was leading in the No. 2 Ford last week when a cut right-front tire dropped him from the top spot. After making an unplanned pitstop, he battled back to a 15th-place finish.
“If there’s anything out there, I’ll let you know,” Wallace said to David Hoots, Race Director for the Winston Cup Series.
“I’m sure you will,” Hoots shot back.
CONGRATS TO HARVICK...SORT OF
Kevin Harvick captured the Busch Series crown with his fifth-place finish on Saturday. During the year, however, he has had several skirmishes with his fellow Busch drivers.
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Kevin Harvick
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He has also competed full-time in Winston Cup since the second race of the season.
The young upstart has had his share of run-ins with his fellow Winston Cup drivers this year, as well. However, when Hoots openly congratulated Harvick on his championship at Sunday’s drivers meetings, the drivers applauded. Not all of them, but most of them.
GREEN, GREEN...YELLOW
It didn’t take long for the rolling to begin at The Rock.
As the green flag dropped to start the race, the field roared into Turn 1 where Kyle Petty was tapped and sent spinning sideways -- eventually hitting fellow-Dodge driver Bill Elliott.
Petty started 22nd and Elliott was right behind him in 24th.
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Kyle Petty
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“Kyle tried to get in front of the No. 8 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) car,” Elliott said after the wreck. “He couldn’t get in, they clipped and Kyle spun. I thought he was going to stay down and I tried to hold my line. Kyle came back and I ran out of race track.”
Petty’s season-long woes continued. “I just got run over,” Petty said, a three-time winner at The Rock. “The guys on the crew worked hard and we thought we could have a good day. It didn’t work out that way.”
RECORD CAUTIONS
For a change, a record was set for the fewest cautions at a race track.
There were only two cautions for 16 laps in the 400-mile event. Prior to Sunday’s race, the record for the least yellow flags was five in 1997.
The race lasted three hours, five minutes and 59 seconds and the margin of victory was 6.285 seconds. There were 16 lead changes among six drivers.
ROUGH DAY FOR BUSCH
Kurt Busch showed a glimmer of promise again leading the fifth race of his rookie year. He started 11th and led two times for 45 laps and appeared to be en route to at least a top-five or top-10 finish in the No. 97 Ford.
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Kurt Busch
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However, on lap 339, he was forced out after the car overheated and temporarily caught fire. As he jumped out of the car on pit road, owner Jack Roush was right there to console him.
“It’s tough,” Busch said. “Jack said we might do well if we get the opportunity to have better equipment. Once we get better equipment we should start showing our results.
“This was an awesome run for us and we just need to get better stuff like Jack said. It’s nobody’s fault.
“The engine just started melting down. It started to squirt water and it was starting to lose water pressure.”
SPEAKING OF EQUIPMENT
Todd Bodine started last and finished 41st because of an ill-handling car. Seems he was anticipating a bad day before it even started.
“The car was junk,” he said of the No. 26 Ford. “We decided we were gonna finish last anyway, so we just used it (this race) as a test session.
“We came in and changed things to try and learn something and we did. We couldn’t gain anything as far as positions on the track so we just parked it.”
SHORT DAY FOR LONG
Carl Long qualified for his second race this year in the No. 85 Dodge. After starting 29th, he fell out of the race after slapping the Turn 4 wall on lap 170 of the 393-lap event.
His tough break was because of bad brakes.
“We didn’t have enough air to the brakes,” Long said. “The brakes were giving away on me. I didn’t know what happened at first. I didn’t know if the rotor disintegrated going into the corner or what.
“I then went off into the corner and it shot straight to the wall. I tried to let off but it had a magnet in that wall and I found it.”
Long recorded a 41st-place finish.
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