4LT GS Roadster
The storm at Lowe's Motor Speedway has passed and track drying efforts are under way...
CONCORD, N.C. - The Coca-Cola 600 - NASCAR's longest race, which will be run for a 50th time Sunday at Lowe's Motor Speedway - isn't much different than any other 400- or 500-miler anymore.
No longer are the early stages of the 400-lap race treated as so many parade laps. Cars are too fast these days, drivers too talented and the stakes too high.
“Used to be, it seemed like (there was) a period where you could sort of ride,” said driver Matt Kenseth, who starts 30th today in his No. 17 Ford. You could run 80 percent.
“It's so competitive now that you run the whole race hard. Everybody is pretty much hammer-down from start to finish.”
But figuring out how to deal with the race's length, as well as the change from day to night (the green flag drops Sunday 6:03 p.m., the checkered flag in darkness nearly five hours later), will always be a challenge.
“You have to be mentally tough to block some things and yet focus on others,” said Kyle Busch, who will start on the outside of the front row next to pole-winner Ryan Newman. “The biggest thing is the track changing, (when) we go from day to night. Just keeping up with the race track, what the track is doing, telling our crew chiefs how to adjust the car to make it better.
“After (darkness), the track is going to stay the same probably the last 100 miles. So by then, you'd better have your stuff right.”
The race's distance, however, remains the key factor in what sets it apart from other events on the Sprint Cup 36-race schedule.
“I think it's important for our series to have a race that's longer than all the other ones,” said Jeff Burton. “It's also important for our series to have a race that's shorter than all the other ones. If the race track owners all got together and said, ‘Hey, every week we're going to have 600-mile races,' I would not think that would be in our best interests.”
Whatever the length, Newman thinks the quality of the racing is what's important.
“I think the racing itself breeds the excitement,” he said. “It could be 300 miles or it could be 700 miles. If we do the same thing for 1,000 miles and it's great, exciting racing, eventually that excitement is not going to be there at the 900th mile.
“It's not going to be the same as if you just had that short race that bred a lot of different action and you had the excitement of a good race and victory.
“I think there's a balance there between the type of racing that you have at a given track and the opportunity to have a longer race.”
The 600 is the longest race. And the drivers will go all out all night.
“Today, you don't have that ‘Let's hold back (mentality),'” he said. “That mentality is no longer. There is no, ‘Well, let's just ride around and save our car.'
“There's no such thing as saving our car.”
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