In the Field: Elliott Sadler

Racing in Charlotte is always an exciting week because Lowe's Motor Speedway is in everybody's back yard and it feels like a home track race to everyone in the business.

And being around Charlotte leading up to the Coke 600 is always a fun week for drivers, teams and owners because of all the fans that stay over, after the all-star race and make a week out of it, touring around to all the racing facilities in the area.

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For us at Evernham Motorsports, we're having a fan day starting on Friday morning, when there's no activity at the racetrack the day after pole qualifying.

We try to get the fans involved by us drivers being there to sign some autographs, we've got some racing simulators set up and a lot of tours and activities and games planned to get the kids involved.

That's pretty cool to be involved with that, since it's going to be my first Evernham Motorsports Fan Day. I'm definitely looking forward to it, and the fans should, too, because they can tour through about 90 percent of the shop.

Part of the thing that's neat about the whole deal is, there will still be work going on at the shop while Fan Day is going on, because there's a lot to be done.

But that's cool because some fans want to see that, to see what goes into working on these cars and building them and whatever it is the team does away from the racetrack.

This is the one day a year that Ray opens up the shop for everyone to come and take a look, so I hope a lot of people take advantage of that.

It's an odd schedule that Lowe's Motor Speedway brings us, but we don't mind having that off-day at the track, because we're all at home.

We don't want to go to other tracks and kind of waste a day, away from home, but it's pretty cool to go in there and get qualified, know that you're in the race and then have Friday off to spend with your family, which is pretty neat.

Or in our case at Evernham's, to spend time with some of our fans.

Even though we're driving at the highest level of the sport, that doesn't mean we're not fans, too -- and that really came home for me earlier this week when we tested our Avenger Car of Tomorrow at Rockingham.

Bill Elliott was there testing a car for the Wood Brothers, who as you know I formerly drove for. So that was a pretty special day.

I think it's amazing to have Bill around again. It's great for the sport. And to have him driving for Eddie and Len Wood is just greater yet.

As drivers and just people in the garage, we all know what the Wood Brothers mean to this sport, and what kind of people they are. They'll always do anything they can to help anybody in the garage.

It's not always about what they need or what they want.

So I think Bill Elliott has been offered other opportunities to come and work for teams, because he had champion's provisional starting spots available. For whatever reasons, he didn't want to do it before this.

But it shows you what kind of people the Wood Brothers are, and what kind of respect the Wood Brothers have in this garage, when they can get Bill Elliott to come back and drive their car.

So it's neat and it's pretty big news, him coming back and being in a Ford in Cup, especially driving for the legendary Wood Brothers.

I think it's a good idea because Bill can help them with all his experience and how good a qualifier he is on these big racetracks like Charlotte and Michigan and Pocono.

He'll do a good job for those guys.

For me, it's neat because I used to drive for the Wood Brothers and got my first Cup win in that 21 car. And Bill was one of Ray's first drivers when Dodge came back to Cup racing.

I know Bill real well and he's one of the nicest guys in the garage. He always comes by and talks to you, and he's really down-to-earth. He drove my 19 car at Watkins Glen last year before I got in it at Michigan the following week.

The guys at Evernham Motorsports love him. They loved him when he was there. Obviously they want to keep him involved in some of the testing we're doing, because he's just an all-around great guy.

So if he has the desire and wants to keep racing, it's great to have him around.

Charlotte race weeks are always a time when teams roll out special paint schemes, and we've got a pretty cool design on our Dodge Dealers/UAW Charger -- the "Fantasticar" that's promoting the Fantastic Four Silver Surfer movie that's coming out in the next couple weeks.

Jessica Alba is coming to the track as a special guest of our No. 19 team and Ray, so that's pretty neat. In fact, I think all four characters are coming.

I love special paint schemes and the design on this one is neat -- they made it real pretty and it's one of the coolest special cars I've ever driven, so I'm pretty excited about that, too.

It's got neat silver highlights on it, but the different shapes and designs they integrated into it is what makes it so attractive to me -- and I hope to the fans.

My car is typically just two colors, red and white, every single weekend and this car has a lot of different colors and pictures of the Fantastic Four characters on it.

It has more of a cartoon look to it, and it's really eye-catching. It's kind of busy, but it catches your eye and I think that's pretty neat, coming from just a two-color to this splashy, multi-colored car.

And any time you can associate yourself with a movie or another special event that's coming out, you're going to have some fans excited about it, so it will be a pretty neat deal.

You see a lot more special paint schemes now, than you did 10 years ago. One reason is because there are different marketing philosophies by the companies that want to switch it up every once in a while, to get their consumers' attention.

In that respect, you have the ability to throw in a wild paint scheme every here or there -- something really on the borderline of being too wild, or too busy -- but you only run it one or two races so it doesn't get old.

I think that's a good idea and it does throw you back to the short track days when a guy could come up with his own paint scheme or copy something from the Nextel Cup Series -- but basically let his imagination run wild and be creative.

So I think it's fun, and especially with most of the Coke 600 being run under the lights, if you can have a special paint scheme at night, with some reflective numbers on there that will shine back at the fans, with all their cameras, I think that's a great idea.

It's cool they're doing it, and I'm going to have a ball going out there and driving it.

Actually, this Fantasticar scheme isn't the first thing we've done this season with paint schemes. The Autism Awareness Month helmet auction was awesome, and I can't thank the fans and everyone who supported that, for bidding on it.

I think it ended up going for nearly $6,300, so that was real special and it meant a lot to me, and to my family.

I want to thank Mike Bartelli, who was the guy who actually posted the winning bid for the helmet. That was neat for him to do that. That was so cool that we decided to put something up for bid the 19th of every month, on sadlerfoundation.org.

We'll be putting something different and we hope; something cool that people will be interested in and want to support.