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Danger Ahead: NASCAR Drivers Have to Know Their Tracks
Lee Spencer
The Sporting News

If history repeats, this year's Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup champion won't be the driver with the most race victories; he'll be the one who best avoids accidents and incidents on the racetrack.
With the fall Talladega race in the books, some would say the wild card is out of the Chase mix. Don't believe it. Six distinctly different tracks remain on the schedule. Four of them -- Lowe's, Atlanta, Texas and Homestead -- are of the 1.5-mile intermediate variety. They often are referred to as cookie-cutter tracks, but nothing could be further from the truth. The levigated surface at Lowe's, the speeds at Atlanta, the variable banking at Homestead and the "weeping" track at Texas all add degrees of unpredictability.
Throw in Martinsville, a short-track pressure cooker where emotions get the best of competitors, and 1-mile Phoenix with its propensity for disaster and the Chase champ won't be decided until the final laps of the final race, just as in 2004.
Drivers who have won at these tracks know where the danger zones are and what needs to be done to avoid trouble:

Lowe's Motor Speedway:
With 22 cautions spread out over seemingly every inch of the track in the spring event, there isn't any specific area of concern. In Cup testing last month, Chase drivers Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle each destroyed two cars. But a week later after tires were dragged around the track's surface, Jimmie Johnson -- who has won three consecutive events at Lowe's and four of the past five -- tested a Busch car. He said the grip level was high and the track was as fast as it ever had been.
Johnson's rough spots: "There have been a lot of problems in (Turns) 1 and 2 because there's a big transition going into the corner. If you lose it there, you're never going to save it. If you try to arc the car into the turn, it puts it onto the edge, and when you land in the banking, it upsets the car and takes you around. The track has so much grip in it, when you cross the line of the grip level, you're around and gone. There's no room to save it. You're going so fast, covering so much ground in such a short period of time that you're in the wall before you know it. There are some big swells down the backstretch, but they're smaller than they were before. Turn 3 is much more forgiving, and the 'Humpy' bumps are not as predominant as they used to be."

Martinsville Speedway:
With its hairpin turns and limited straightaways, Martinsville is a track where an accident is always right around the corner. Jeff Gordon won the spring race, which included 16 caution flags -- two short of the track record in 2000. The most treacherous part of the track is pit road, where 43 drivers simultaneously attempt to parallel park into 30-foot spaces while traveling 35 mph.
Gordon's rough spots: "Every track we go to has areas that can get you into trouble -- just being in traffic at some of them or on a restart when there's lapped cars. That can be treacherous. But Martinsville definitely is the narrowest, tightest pit road that we have. It's important to qualify well there to get a good pit selection because there's only one or two that are worthwhile. You really have to be patient in the pits and be willing to lose some spots if you're going to keep the fenders on the cars because of the damage. There's an opening on the front straightaway before you come around the corner. Other than that, there's no safe place."

Atlanta Motor Speedway:
Atlanta is considered the fastest track on the circuit and therefore one of the most dangerous. In the spring, Carl Edwards edged Johnson by 0.028 seconds in an exhilarating last-lap battle. Edwards displayed incredible car control throughout the race as he picked up his first career win. Two of the race's eight cautions started out of Turn 2.
Edwards' rough spots: "I think Atlanta is just so fast that there are so many places things can happen, but I'd say it's off of both of the corners, and when you're racing someone real hard, especially off of Turn 2. There are two really distinct lines in Turns 1 and 2. Some people run the very bottom and some people run the very top, and late in the run it's really hard sometimes to know whether or not you should give a guy the spot. A lot of times you come off Turn 2 and the car wiggles and moves a little bit more than you want, and if somebody is near you or you're racing for a position, it's really easy to get caught up in something right there. To me, that's the trouble spot."

Texas Motor Speedway:
Perfecting a comfortable setup at Texas that will accommodate both ends of the track is tough, but Elliott Sadler had his car dialed in when he dominated the 2004 race.
Sadler's rough spots: "Getting into Turn 1 has been a trouble zone at Texas since the very first race there. That's where the weeping (water seepage) was, but the banking there is different than any other track. It goes into the banking so late, and we're running so fast when we get there, and the car is always so loose into the corner. Guys really have to pay attention there. You'll see a lot of wrecks there in qualifying and practice and in the race itself. I know the first time we ever went there and raced, there were a bunch of drivers that wrecked in Turn 1. Coming off of Turn 2, there's not much banking and you can slide up into the wall and slide into someone else. Three and 4 pretty much take care of themselves -- it's easy at the end of the track, but 1 and 2 always have been really tough, and because of the speeds we run it makes it that much worse."

Phoenix International Raceway:
Construction two years ago included a new configuration for Turn 2. The wall coming out of 2 was moved, expanding the track and lessening the turn's dogleg effect. That also eliminated the severity of the turn's exit and extended the passing zone. In the inaugural spring night race, Kurt Busch kept his nose clean and finished 2.3 seconds ahead of Michael Waltrip.
Busch's rough spots: "Turn 2 has always been the toughest. It seems like the exit is so very sharp, and with the track being so different in 1 and 2 versus 3 and 4 you start to generate your passes off of Turn 2. If you have a great race car, you can work on the underside of somebody. Turn 2 also seems to be the congestion point. But then on restarts in 3 and 4 everyone starts to gather on top of everybody's bumpers because there's so many ways to approach those turns, whether it's driving in deep or getting off the gas early and then racing through the center -- there's so many different lines in 3 and 4, then that area gets congested."

Homestead-Miami Speedway:
Two years ago, the track was completely ground down and resurfaced, and graduated banking was added to make passing easier. In 2004, Greg Biffle held on for the win in a race that was marred by 14 cautions.
Biffle's rough spots: "Homestead is pretty forgiving, but you take a real late entry, a real wide arc into the corner, and if you get into the fuzz -- or out of the groove and into the marbles -- on the corner entry or get loose on corner entry, that can be the trouble spot. Turn 3 and 4 are probably a little bit harder than 1 and 2, but in 1 and 2 you get sun in your eyes late in the day, so it makes it difficult to see. You want to take the latest apex into the corner that you can, which means you want to run right into the edge of the debris and then turn it into the middle of the track. You don't want to run around the bottom."

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