Letarte focused on keeping No. 24 car up front at LMS (cont'd)

"We're going to put a premium on qualifying and a premium on making sure our stuff is competitive during the day and get up into that lead lap, stay in that lead lap in that top 10 or 15 and work on it when the sun goes down."

Since the race is 400 laps, there's some question among the teams as to when it's time to quit playing and start racing for the victory. Letarte says that to him, it's pretty cut-and-dry.

"My honest opinion is, it's no secret you need to be out front and there is no trick or gadget that's going to get you to the front by Lap 300," he said. "You're going to race 200 just to be on the lead lap, but you need to start thinking about track position really early. You might want to start thinking about it at halfway and you need to back your pit strategy up from there.

"It's like the first time we went to New Hampshire or Martinsville and saw those pit strategies of staying out to win. After that, the cat's kind of out of the bag. You couldn't do it again because everyone is doing it. That's what I think is going to happen in the 600. It's not going to be the guy that has the best pit strategy at Lap 350; the pit strategy is going to be made back at Lap 250 or 300. It won't become obvious until Lap 350."

Letarte was pretty happy with his car in qualifying for the All-Star race, but once the race started it was an exercise in frustration.

"We started off too free and we lost our track position working on it," he said. "That's kind of the story with these races any more. You just can't get it back. We didn't have the car we wanted. We had a good car Friday night in qualifying, so we're looking forward to Thursday's qualifying."

Since starting position has a lot to do with track position, Letarte is focused on race trim for Gordon's car -- it's about consistency.

"In race trim, we definitely need to work on our car. We're struggling to find the consistency we need at both ends of the track," Letarte said. "We have a pretty good Turn 1 and 2, but we can't seem to get it through 3 and 4. We did make some pretty big changes for the race from practice, we wanted to learn some things, and that's what the All-Star race is all about.

"We have some better direction for the 600. You can go over there and test at night, but there's no better test than a race."

In the end, Letarte said the new car is still a mystery despite the success that Hendrick Motorsports enjoyed last season in its debut. That means he's working on filling up his bag of crew chief tricks.

"That's all we try to do every week, make it handle," he said. "The best driving car is what you need and that's been a struggle for us. Last year, it just baffled us that these cars could be so ill-handling for some people, and this year, we're kind of on the other side of the fence. It's baffling me that we can't get it any better than we have. The key is a having a strong group of guys, and we have that."

So, when the Coca-Cola 600 gets to the halfway point, start looking for pit strategy to make an appearance. That's likely going to be the key to who winds up in Victory Lane.