Columnist Rusty Wallace: ‘Free day’ helped to learn a little about new track

Rusty Wallace

Thursday, Feb. 26, 1998 | 2:52 a.m.

TODAY WAS a very unusual day for what we do because we generally don't get to have an open day of testing. When we got to the track today, there wasn't any tire rule and we didn't have to run ourselves through inspection.

NASCAR basically gave us a free day today to run on the race track to get accustomed to the new facility and to see what it's going to take to run Sunday's race. We spent all day today trying to get our Miller Lite Ford to go as fast as we possibly could for Friday's qualifying run.

On Friday, life is normal again for us with practice and qualifying. When we sign in Friday morning, it's all back to everything having to be legal: We go through templates, we're limited to three sets of tires, they go through the engines, through the complete inspection routine.

We won't qualify with the same exact setup on the car as we'll run in Sunday's race. Some people qualify with the same engine and leave it in the whole week but we'll be changing engines after qualifying because this is a fairly long race.

It's a big race track and it's going to turn on a lot of rpms so durability is going to be very important on engines here. So we'll keep the freshest engine in the car as we possibly can.

I've been talking to a lot of people about chassis setups and everybody's all over the board -- everybody has different setups, different ways in what they think is right and wrong. The track is so smooth that it eats up a lot of changes. You can make a change at one race track and it'll show up big but you can make a change here and it won't hardly show up because the track is so smooth and has so much grip.

As far as qualifying goes Friday, in order to keep going the way we've been going, my philosophy is just to go for broke and get it up in the front. When that's done, we'll get all the springs and shocks out of that car and get the race setup in there and then that's where you've got to concentrate and do all you possibly can to be quickest on Sunday.

I put a lot of emphasis on qualifying because it gives you the good pit selections and it makes your life so much easier when you start in the front. It's easier to stay in the front instead of having to wear your tires out to get through that traffic and muscle your way back to the front or rely on quick pit stops and caution flags to help you. I don't like relying on all of that.

Once you qualify good and you start up front, it's just easier on equipment, it's easier on you, it's easier on everybody.

Qualifying is a special race in itself. I used to say it's a pain in the butt but now it's a special race. You have to do as best you can in that race in order to get into position to win the big race.