Inside the Garage: Thomas

At only 33 years of age, with a background steeped in the engineering field and a resume that already includes employment stints at Petty Enterprises, Joe Gibbs Racing and Penske Racing South, it appears that Brandon Thomas has a bright future in NASCAR.

Thomas is currently serving as the crew chief for the No. 96 Chevrolet being driven by Tony Raines for Hall of Fame Racing. The car will be driven by J.J. Yeley next season

Q: The Nextel Cup Series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for this weekend's race. What do you like or not like about this track?

Thomas: I fear Atlanta [laughing]. I fear it heavily. It's been a bad track for us with Tony. And I don't know if that's because of the car we put under Tony, or Tony just not liking the track. I watched him run a Busch race there earlier in the year and he ran great in the Busch race. So I think it's more of the Cup car.

We struggle in Atlanta because the tire construction there, compared to other mile-and-a-half ovals, high-banked ovals, is very different. It's kind of a prehistoric tire now, compared to the rest of the Goodyear inventory -- one that we really don't have much for.

Q: Why is that?

Thomas: I don't know. You have to ask Goodyear. The sidewall construction just seems to be a lot different. ... It seems to be a lot different than what they run at a Charlotte or Texas. And because the pavement is so old at Atlanta, you run a couple quick laps and then you fall off really quickly. Atlanta is more classically like what Charlotte was before -- what I'll call good racetracks before -- where a guy could run off five or six really fast laps, and 10 laps later he's running slower. Now these tracks are paved where you might run your fastest lap on 55-lap-old tires. So you have to run a car really tripped out, really loose -- and you get races like what you had in Charlotte [recently].

Q: Where there is too little grip, you mean?

Thomas: Well, everybody spun out. We spun out and hit the wall in Turn 3. And I told Tony after the race, 'I'd love to be angry with you. But by the way the reigning Nextel Cup champion [Jimmie Johnson] just spun out and hit the wall; and [Matt] Kenseth, who is arguably one of the best in the business, spun out and hit the wall, what can I say?' All of these guys wrecked because of the way the racetrack and the tire combination worked together.

Q: So the moral of story is that Goodyear has some work to do?

Thomas: Honestly, it's not necessarily Goodyear's fault. It's the fact that they keep re-paving tracks -- making tracks smoother and better grip. Goodyear has to do something to allow the tire to live. You know, if it were my job to be the tire engineer, I'd probably do it a little bit differently than they do. But they get backed into a corner.

Q: Talk a little bit about this year. You guys have been running well at times and some stuff has happened, like Juan Montoya taking Raines out when he was running in the top 10 earlier this year at Martinsville?

Thomas: Obviously, it's very frustrating. You want to capitalize on opportunities when they come along. What you get really angry about are the things that get taken away from you that are out of your control. If we had pitted at the wrong time and knocked ourselves out of the top 10 [in the spring] at Martinsville, you can come back and be angry at yourself. The nonsense with Montoya, that was him reading a situation the week before the wrong way and then retaliating. I know that took a little bit of the wind out of Tony's sails when that happened. You can't dwell on those things, but they do affect you to some degree. (Continued)