Sweltering heat, blinding sun make conditions tough (cont'd)

Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 2 Dodge that sits on the pole for Sunday's race, said how much heat is felt inside a Cup car actually seems to be relative to how fast you might be going as the race progresses.

"It's really odd," he said. "When the race starts, your body is dry and your driver's suit is dry and it feels like you're running around in a dryer with forced hot air hitting your body. When it's wet [from sweat], the air hits your body and somewhat cools it a little bit.

"You just try to get your car handling well. Good-handling cars can take away heat. It's amazing how that works -- and then you just make sure you stay hydrated."

Of course, the heat plays a factor in how a car handles, too.

"Most of what we deal with when it's hot like this is track temperature," Jeff Gordon said. "We're seeing track temperatures this weekend of almost 150 degrees -- and that's almost unheard of.

"That's pretty crazy, so you basically have about a half to three-quarters of a lap of good grip in the tires and then you really start sliding around. So getting the car to handle well on a hot racetrack is going to be the biggest challenge we have."

Well, that and that nasty backstretch where the sun basically blinds the drivers for the first 45 minutes of the race. The good news there is that eventually the sun goes down -- cooling the track, the inside of the cars, and opening eyes to see all that is around them.

"Yeah, you don't want to not be able to see at all. That's a bad thing, and it's pretty difficult," driver Martin Truex Jr. said about the early-race glare that so upsets Jarrett. "Obviously we tape the windshield up to try to help. But it's a little weird for the first hour of the race or so. It's a little bit frustrating because it's hard to see. But we've dealt with it at places like Darlington where it's a lot more critical to know where you're at on the racetrack, so hopefully it won't be that big of an issue."

Jeff Burton wasn't so sure it won't be.

"It's a part of the racing here that I wish we didn't have to deal with," Burton said. "It's a nuisance and it has the potential to be a definite problem."