Menard looking to continue strong runs at Atlanta

HAMPTON, Ga. -- Atlanta Motor Speedway has always had a reputation for being tough on tires, and that should hold true again in Sunday night's Emory Healthcare 500. But factor in a different tire composition for this weekend -- and practice and qualifying during the day -- and teams find themselves having to make their best guesses at the correct setup.

Paul Menard went from 41st to 15th in last year's inaugural Labor Day race under the lights. And just to prove that wasn't a fluke, he finished fifth at AMS in the spring. Menard placed himself among the contenders with a solid run in the 45-minute final practice, recording the eighth-quickest time of the 47 cars in attendance.

Atlanta Speeds

Practice 1

Pos.	Driver	Speed
1.	Kasey Kahne	183.874
2.	Kurt Busch	182.868
3.	Clint Bowyer	182.633
4.	Jeff Burton	182.422
5.	Denny Hamlin	182.201

• Complete speeds

Final Practice

Pos.	Driver	Speed
1.	Ryan Newman	183.680
2.	Carl Edwards	183.588
3.	Juan Montoya	183.497
4.	David Ragan	183.400
5.	Clint Bowyer	183.303

• Complete speeds

"It's going to be a lot different race track," Menard said. "The track gains a lot of grip at night and there doesn't seem to be a big balance shift, but we'll find out more in the Nationwide race [Saturday] what the balance shift is and work on our Cup car accordingly."

How much does Menard like Atlanta? Two of his five top-10 finishes have come at the 1.54-mile quad-oval.

"It's my favorite race track," Menard said. "It's a lot of fun to come to. Goodyear changed the tires on us, so everybody's kind of thrown for a loop right now. It's a lot different feel than what we're used to."

The new tire compound made for some head-scratching in the garage Saturday, as drivers and crew chiefs tried to find elusive cornering speed. Carl Edwards tried to explain what a lap with the new tires was like.

"When you drive down in the corner here, there's a certain amount of grip that you're looking for," Edwards said. "You expect to drive down in the corner and have the car grip a certain amount, and what's happening here is that on the entry and exit of the corner, the tires feel really slick.

"The car has to be really compressed in the center of the corner to make a bunch of grip, so it becomes difficult to drive because it's like ice. You're sliding and sliding until you get the car compressed in the corner and then it turns. I don't know what causes that. I don't think my crew chief knows what causes that, so we've been struggling with it."

If final practice speeds are to be believed, Edwards and crew chief Bob Osborne figured something out. Edwards' lap of 183.588 mph was only exceeded by that of Ryan Newman's 183.680 mph. In all, seven drivers exceeded 183 mph, while Menard's best lap on a cloudless afternoon was 182.862 mph.

"We're pretty happy with the race car," Menard said. "There are a couple of things we're going to look at here, but it's a very short second practice, so we worked on qualifying."

The majority of teams worked on race setups in the first two-hour session, then made mock qualifying runs in the final practice. However, Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, Kurt Busch and Joey Logano all completed at least 20 laps in the final 45 minutes.

There were no incidents in either practice session.

Fresh tires have always been critical to success at Atlanta, but Edwards believes late-race pit strategy Sunday night will definitely revolve around rubber.

"At the end of the Cup race, the decision to take tires -- two tires or four tires -- I think there will be people taking tires all the way up to six or eight laps to go," Edwards said. "The race could be really dynamic at the end."