Inside the Garage: No. 1 crew chief Bono Manion (cont'd)

Q: Speaking of good feelings leading to good results and confidence, Martin's run real well there. He made his Cup debut there a few years ago subbing for Dale Earnhardt Jr., so how excited does he get about going there?

Manion: Yeah, I think it's right up there on the top of his list of tracks that he really, really enjoys racing. He had a lot of success up there in the Busch North car.

He's told me a couple times that this Car of Tomorrow kind of drives like his Busch North car -- the feeling that he wants. So that kind of made us feel good.

But going up to Loudon, I feel great about what we're doing and I know Martin's real excited about getting up there and seeing what we've got for 'em.

Accepting the role

With Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving DEI, it's Martin Truex Jr. who will step into the spotlight.

• Complete story, click here

Q: Is Loudon like Phoenix in that it's a flat, fast 1-mile track, and do you have much flexibility in what you can do with this Car of Tomorrow to help the way it cuts in the middle and comes up off the corner?

Manion: It is going to be the first time we're with the COT at such a flat racetrack. We all tested at Milwaukee, 'we' being the whole DEI organization: The 1, 8 [Earnhardt] and 15 [Paul Menard].

There were quite a few teams up there and we stacked up pretty good against them, so we felt pretty good about that.

As far as the setup, you can work on your front springs. We're allowed to run bump stops now, with the splitter -- so working on the front springs and bump stops is your best option to get the car to turn in the middle.

The other important thing there is that you need forward bite. You need to be able to stand on the gas and come off the corner under somebody. The only opportunity you have to pass is either high or low, and low seems to be a pretty good opportunity there.

Q: With what happened to the two Hendrick Motorsports cars at Infineon last weekend, where they were penalized for working in what they called "gray areas" -- as a crew chief does that make you want to stay far away from those areas on the COT, despite what history's always told you about doing what you have to do to compete?

Manion: NASCAR keeps sending this message about the rules. I don't know ... missing the first day of practice and I guess not qualifying would hurt a little bit.

But you know, we're going into building speedway cars and [the fenders] would be another area that people might try to massage outside of the templates.

So I think that message is still being sent -- and it was sent again this weekend. If you do anything outside of the box, we're gonna get ya.

I guess what they did over there was pretty obvious, but I don't know. Unfortunately, when they say 'I didn't know it was on the car,' somebody's really going to mean that one day and [it won't get any mercy].

So you really need to check and double check your rules. And you know when you're scratching that surface. There's been a couple times this year we've scratched it -- and you know what? The risk just ain't worth the reward.

There's not [enough] speed there. It would be better, maybe -- but it's just not worth it, you know? So you've just really got to pay attention.

We surely don't want to get a fine or a points penalty -- especially this late in the game. (Continued)