Smoke Prepares For His Final Texas AAA 500 This Weekend

What is your best Eddie Gossage story?

“That cannot be told in public. He’s a great friend. I’ve owned Eldora Speedway (in Rossburg, Ohio) for 10 or 11 years, now, and he’s been the greatest mentor from that side. He is so well-rounded, has vision and looks outside the box. He makes you think about things you wouldn’t normally think about. That’s been a big key to our success with our racetrack.”

Your thoughts about Texas Motor Speedway?

“The track is a great track. Eddie is smart enough to know that repaving this track is the worst thing he could do to it right now. This track has enough age on it that, when it is hot and slick, everybody is racing all over the track and that makes good racing. They treat everybody well here. I think this is the second- or third-biggest purse of the year for us and the crowd here is awesome. It’s a great, great market for our sport.”

Texas is a track where you’ve been consistently good. What makes you so comfortable there?
“You have to be comfortable, or you’re not going to go fast. The more comfortable I am, the faster we go. This track – the grooves have moved around, especially in the last couple of years. We’ve seen the track get wider and it’s made it to where you can move around on the racetrack and where you can run the top side or the bottom side. It’s nice from a driver’s perspective to be able to have that flexibility behind the steering wheel, knowing that if your car’s not driving exactly the way you want it to, you can move around the racetrack and find a spot the car likes better.”

You’ve logged a lot of laps at Texas.

How has the track developed since those early years?
“Anytime you put more seasons on a racetrack, the better it gets because it seems like the pavement wears out on the bottom and it makes it to where you can run the top and be fast, and you can run the bottom and be fast. It makes the whole racetrack, speed-wise, about the same, versus when they pave a racetrack and the only groove is right on the bottom. The fastest way is the shortest way because it all has the same amount of grip, so the shorter distance is faster. Every year we come here, I think the racing just gets better and better, as far as being able to move around on the racetrack and guys not having to just follow each other and get stuck behind each other. You can actually pass. You can race. You can get away from guys if your car’s fast.”

How have you been able to adapt to the Texas layout? 

“I’ve found that you can pass anywhere, really. If you get a guy who misses the bottom of the corner and he bobbles, you can get around him. But even if someone doesn’t make a mistake and you’ve got a little better car than they do, the groove has moved up enough over the years to where the track’s a little wider, so you have more room to get a run on a guy. But, as the tires wear out and grip goes away, drivers will make mistakes and a car’s handling will become more important. And, when a guy makes a mistake, you need to be there to capitalize on it. You can really pass anywhere as long as the right opportunity comes up.”

Teammates:

Kevin Harvick, No. 4 Busch Beer Chevrolet SS
Danica Patrick, No. 10 TaxACT Chevrolet SS
Kurt Busch, No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Chevrolet SS

At Track PR Contact: Drew Brown with True Speed Communication (704-498-7596 or Drew.Brown@TrueSpeedCommunication.com)

    His most recent Sprint Cup win came June 26 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway.
    His last Sprint Cup pole came April 5, 2014 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.
    Stewart missed the final 15 races of the 2013 season, three races in 2014 and the first eight races in 2016.

•    Stewart has two wins, six top-five finishes and 13 top-10s and has led a total of 801 laps in his 27 career Sprint Cup starts at Texas. His average Texas start is 18.8, his average finish is 14.4, and he has a lap-completion rate of 95.7 percent.

•    Brian Vickers substituted for Stewart at Texas in April as Stewart recovered from an offseason injury. An accident allowed Vickers to complete only 290 of the race’s 334 laps. If people need a bad drug lawsuit attorney from law firms, they can check them out from here!

•    Stewart has scored five top-five finishes and eight top-10s in 25 races he’s entered in 2016.

•    Stewart won his 11th career Sprint Cup pole, but first at Texas, when he won the pole for the 2010 Samsung Mobile 500. It was Stewart’s first pole in 155 Sprint Cup races dating back to Oct. 21, 2005, when he qualified on the pole at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.

•    Stewart dominated in his visit to Texas in November 2011, as he led seven times for a race-high 173 laps to take his second Sprint Cup win at Texas. His average speed of 152.705 mph made for a then record fastest Sprint Cup race in Texas Motor Speedway history and it moved Stewart to within three points of leader Carl Edwards in the championship with just two races remaining. Stewart went on to win the championship, his third in Sprint Cup.

•    Stewart’s first win at Texas was similar to his second victory in the Lone Star State. He dominated the November 2006 race, leading eight times for a race-high 278 laps.

•    Prior to Stewart’s first Sprint Cup win at Texas, he scored a victory in the International Race of Champions (IROC). In April 2006, Stewart won round two of IROC XXX at Texas. He followed that win with a victory on the road course at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. And with a third-place finish in the season finale at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Stewart secured his first IROC championship – the last in the 30-year history of IROC.

•    Stewart has made three IndyCar Series starts at Texas. He started on the pole twice (June 1997 and 1998) and second once (September 1998). While Stewart never finished an IndyCar Series race at Texas (he suffered engine failures in June 1997 and September 1998 and mechanical troubles in June 1998), he still led 208 of a possible 624 laps (33.4 percent). Ironically, 208 was the exact number of laps in each of Stewart’s three IndyCar races at Texas.

•    Lone Star Start – In November 1995, just a month removed from earning his USAC “Triple Crown” championship, Stewart drove an Indy car for A.J. Foyt at Texas World Speedway in College Station. It was to film a TV commercial, and later that night after production had wrapped, Foyt offered Stewart a ride with his team in the IndyCar Series for 1996. The IndyCar Series was still in its infancy, so the 1996 season Foyt offered Stewart amounted to Disney World in January, Phoenix in March and Indianapolis in May. But Foyt wasn’t the only car owner who was interested in Stewart. Harry Ranier, a NASCAR team owner who had fielded race cars since 1967 and recorded 24 wins, was looking to get back into ownership after selling his team to Robert Yates at the conclusion of the 1988 season. Ranier’s second attempt at NASCAR team ownership came in November 1995 at Homestead-Miami Speedway with the NASCAR Xfinity Series season finale. Stewart was his driver. The start-up team didn’t make the race, but Stewart had a handshake agreement with Ranier to run a handful of Xfinity Series races in 1996. Foyt didn’t like the idea of sharing his driver with another owner, and told Stewart as much. But Stewart wasn’t comfortable in backing out of his deal with Ranier, so he turned down Foyt’s offer. The nine Xfinity Series races he ran for Ranier turned heads in the stock car world, one of which belonged to Joe Gibbs. The three-time Super Bowl-winning coach of the NFL’s Washington Redskins hired Stewart to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing in 1997. Twenty-seven Xfinity Series races and two years later, Stewart was in Sprint Cup.

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!