Tech Q&A: Tommy Baldwin

The newly-married duo of Jimmy Spencer and Tommy Baldwin are still on their honeymoon as driver-crew chief.

	Tommy Baldwin

The two's talents are perhaps best combined at Richmond -- a track both men love. Perhaps it's history -- Baldwin won the Bud Pole with Ward Burton there last spring, and Burton usually ran well at RIR during Baldwin's tenure at Bill Davis Racing.

Spencer has never won a Winston Cup event at RIR, but he won both Busch Series events there in 2001. Richmond's generous corners make it a favorite on the Winston Cup circuit among drivers, and Tommy Baldwin discusses what the .750-mile oval means as a crew chief.

What kind of shock and spring package do you run at RIR?

I can't tell you that (laughs). The biggest thing you try to do at a place like Richmond is work on the shock and springs and get the car in the center of the corner where it will turn off (the corner) with some forward bite.

A lot of it is driver feel, every driver has a little bit different package, but we try to keep the right front supported enough so that it allows the driver to get in the corner and get off the corner.

Last pit stop -- track position or tires?

ALSO  •  Baldwin's Crew Chief Page  •  J. Spencer's Driver Page

40 laps left, tires, if it's 20 laps left, maybe track position, half tires. 10 laps left, track position.

You guys have had some bad luck recently, but RIR is one of Jimmy's best tracks.

We're excited about that. We felt that where I was last year we were on the pole and had a very fast car, and Jimmy was pretty good in that race too. We are taking the same car back that we ran at Martinsville a couple weeks ago, and we're pretty excited about it.

You guys didn't pick RIR as one of your test tracks. Why not?

We felt that we were going to be pretty good there so we felt the need to try to concentrate on a track that we're not real strong at. We have two tests left, one of them is at Indy, so we figured we'd try to save it for the end of the year in case after we run all the races the first time if case we need to go and work on something.

They didn't reseal the surface at Richmond over the winter -- will that return the track to a two-groove track?

I hope so. It was pretty close to that last race. Richmond is a great racetrack. They need to build a couple more of them.