The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes its speedy tour to Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth, Texas for the Samsung Mobile 500 this Saturday at 7 p.m. with TV coverage from FOX
The 1.5 mile quad-oval has 24 degree banking, is a favorite for some drivers, and is very popular with Texas fans as well. TMS is one of the so called cookie-cutter tracks, the intermediate 1.5 mile tracks that look very similar from the air, but none are really are identical.
Each has notable characteristics.
Texas Motor Speedway is high-banked and is one of eight 1.5 mile tracks, The others, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kansas Speedway, Kentucky Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway have unique bumps and banking.
The top five drivers in NSCS points, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, and Kevin Harvick, had comments on the next race and more.
FYI WIRZ is the select presentation of motorsports topics by Dwight Drum @ Racetake.com. Quotes derived from motorsports industry press releases.
Kyle Busch [No. 18 Toyota]
Busch, the present points leader, talked about when he looks at the points: “About Charlotte time—about the end of May, you get into the season and you look at where you’re at,” Busch said. “You’re about going to be where you’re going to be when you come down to Chase time. You kind of look at Charlotte and kind of evaluate where you’re at. You could pretty much say you’re either going to be four positions better or five positions worse once you get down to Chase time.”
Carl Edwards [No. 99 Ford]
“I love racing at Texas and it’s been one of our best race tracks,” Edwards said. “I’ve got some great memories from that place. There’s nothing like standing in victory lane and shooting off those Berettas. That is a fun place to win a race. Martinsville was tough for us. We used up our point lead and now we are going to Texas to get it back.”
Jimmie Johnson [No. 48 Chevrolet]
"My first thought is what the hell are we doing with this weird schedule at Texas?” Johnson said. “We practice on Thursday night and all the other stuff that's going on. So I'm still trying to get my head around that (laughs). But we're excited to go back to Texas; obviously is a great spot for our circuit with a lot of great fans. Night races are always good."
Kurt Busch [No. 22 Dodge]
Busch talked about the so-called cookie-cutter tracks: “Each place may look the same, but each driver and crew chief will tell you that it drives very different and requires you to work hard on your race setups,” Busch said. “It’s a tough track, that’s for sure and it’s so fast. With this race being at night under the lights, I guarantee you that Texas will feel like it’s the fastest one of them all. There's just a lot of high speed action at Texas. You really have to get up on the wheel and grit your teeth. You have to push your car extra if you're going to make it stick and get that extra speed out of it."
Kevin Harvick [No 29 Chevrolet]
“As far as the race track goes, it still has big bumps in the middle of Turns 1 and 2 and it still has the little bumps on the bottom of Turns 3 and 4,” Harvick said. “There's still a big bump in that corner over the tunnel, so it has character. It wears the tires out of the car and they become harder to drive as the run goes on. It's a fun race track to race on because you have options to move around, but you still have really, really big speed at the beginning of the runs."
Photo credit: Dwight Drum @ Racetake.com
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Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/657970-fyi-wirz-nascars-top-point-aces-talk-race-7-at-texas
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