Dave Blaney speaks, you listen
I mentioned yesterday that Dave Blaney spoke to the crew that gathered Tuesday at Bill Davis Racing in High Point. (The original field trip post is here.)
Blaney, is driving the No. 22 Dodge this season. He inherited the ride from Scott Wimmer, who got axed last year because, well, he stunk. (Not that Blaney did much better at Childress. But still.) This I didn't know - Blaney has lived in High Point for the past 4-5 years.
I didn't actually meet him - he was on the other side of the lunchroom, about 75 feet away, and I was the guy hiding behind a flower arrangement (tulips, I think) scribbling down some notes.
So, no, I didn't ask him a question. The other folks at the lunch-slash-tour did. Here are some of the things on their minds and what Blaney had to say:
Do you know why on some days you'll run well and teammate Michael Waltrip runs sorry?
"Yeay, you see that sometimes we wonder about that as well." Most times, Blaney went on, a team's cars are set up alike. But sometimes they'll make a set of changes to one car and the opposite to the second. Having a second car in the BDR fleet, Blaney added, might help both do better this season.
What's your week like?
Race on Sunday. Home by Monday morning. Meetings (to review the past week and get ready for the next week) all day Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday are his Saturday and Sunday. Thursday, he's off to the next race. There's less testing this year, so he and most other drivers expect to have some more time off during the middle of the week. Blaney said he doesn't do much sponsor work during the week - Cat calls on him mostly at the track on race weekends.
Do you wish you had a longer off season?
Blaney essentially said he'd race every weekend if he could. "I found out a long time ago I have to race to get paid, so I'm up for a race," he said. Relatively speaking, the mid-February to late November season isn't that bad. Said Blaney: "I don't have linebackers hitting me every week."
How do you get into racing?
A lot of drivers are born into racing. Their fathers and/or their grandfathers raced or worked somehow on cars. These days, Blaney said, there's a lot of local racing all over the place for kids as young as 6. Blaney's advice: Start early. "Experience," he said, "is the big thing."
What are your thoughts about BDR going with Toyota in 2007?
"I feel good about it," Blaney said. As a manufacturer, "they've done a good job." They make cars in the U.S. and employ American workers. "I just feel like it's a global company like Caterpiller is." (Ah, the sponsor plug. You knew it would come up sometime.)
Is physical fitness a big deal for the drivers?
Racing is mentally draining, not physically draining, Blaney said -- "no time outs, no halftime. ... If you can deal with the heat inside the cars, driving the cars isn't that bad."
What are your favorite tracks?
Blaney likes the 1.5-mile circuits like Charlotte and Atlanta.
Confrontations between drivers - are they staged?
Nope, Blaney said. "It's a heat of the moment thing. ... There's not too much intentional wrecking. There's just too much at stake. NASCAR keeps a hand over you. They're not going to let it turn into a wreckin' rodeo."
What about the new cars coming in 2007?
Blaney said the Car of Tomorrow is a little taller and wider, but you won't notice it on TV. Some people have criticized NASCAR for making teams have to dump their existing cars when the Car of Tomorrow hits the track next season. But, Blaney said, "these cars don't have much of a lifespan anyway. Most of them just get wrecked before they wear out." The oldest car he has is about two years old, and it has only about 4-5 races on it.
What's more mentally taxing, restrictor plate or non-restrictor plate racing?
For Blaney, it's definitely Daytona or Talladega. "You take a lot of aspirin before the restrictor plate race and after the restrictor plate race. That's tough racing. ... It's hard to get relaxed."