Dalton Baldwin Preview – KOMA Unwind Relaxation Drink 150 at Southern National Motorsports Park
Dalton Baldwin likes his chances at the upcoming KOMA Unwind Relaxation Drink 150 race this Saturday.
This is the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour’s fourth visit to the .4 mile oval track located in Kenley, N.C. It features 17 degrees of banking in the corners and seven degree banking in the straightaways. Only eight drivers out of the 24 entered have Southern Modified experience at this track.
Dalton’s goal is to drive the No. 18 Woman 2 Woman Breast Cancer Chevrolet to a top ten finish and collect some bonus points in his quest to win the Rookie of the Year award.
“I personally picked Southern National,” he told me, “as a track that we would run really well at, possibly win at. Looking at it and watching videos, it’s just our kind of track. Its high banked with sweeping turns, there’s a good outside groove, etc. It looks a lot like Desoto Super Speedway, where we’ve won 4 championships and numerous races across 7 years. So I am really looking forward to this track.”
He also plans on giving himself every advantage by relying on the advice and help of some of the track veterans.
“The fortunate thing for us is that the tour hasn’t gone to this track since 2008. From what I know, only a few drivers that are entered in the race have experience at the track. One of those, Tim Brown, and his brother, Ben, have had serious success at the track, with a win and two second places in three tour races there. They’re gonna help us in a direction for a setup. So, hopefully that leads somewhere and gives us a leg up.”
Dalton missed the first points race of the season due to engine problems. With his primary focus on competing for the Rookie of the Year award, it makes it even more important to strive for top ten finishes the remainder of the season.
“We’re still in it,” he says. “We just can’t have a bad race now.”
Dalton Baldwin Racing would like to thank their partners, Woman 2 Woman Breast Cancer Foundation, SpeedwayMedia.com, Advance Auto Parts of Dunedin, Fla., BG Products, SpeedRacer Photos, and Eibach Performance for their continued support.
For more information about Dalton Baldwin Racing including driver bio, race schedule, pictures and videos, please visit www.daltonbaldwin.com. You can also find his Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/DaltonBaldwinRacing and Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/DaltonBaldwinRacing.
Kyle Busch comes up short in Bristol following pit road penalty
For the second straight week, Kyle Busch would come up short as he would finish second to Kasey Kahne, after finishing fourth in Las Vegas the week prior.
“Wish it was a little bit more,” he admitted. “There at the end we were probably holding up the guys behind me, but track position is everything here anymore. It’s frustrating the way that is. I wish I could have kept up with the 5, but he took off, left us all. I was too tight at the end. Center of the corner turn, not being able to get it to do what it needed to do. What we fought in practice. We got to work on that.”
Each week, Busch has been fast – however, has found himself getting in trouble on pit road, suffering pit road speeding penalties.
“If we didn’t have so many of those, we’d be a lot better off,” Busch commented afterwards. “Being able to work on our car further up front, there’s a difference when you run back in traffic.”
One of the things that made racing in traffic tough was the fact it was hard to run the bottom throughout the race. Busch said he found you could run the bottom and make some passes for a few laps after a restart.
“I think the tire’s a little bit better here where you can grip up on the bottom,” Busch added. “As you go every single lap after a restart, the rubber lays down more and more. Then you start sliding. You got to find your way up to the top eventually.”
However, Busch sees that improving down the road as they get to know the cars better and what is the new track layout at Bristol. He feels that there are some adjustments that his team can make, or that Goodyear can improve the tire.
“For some reason the bottom here I think this year I’ve noticed is a lot more — there’s a lot more bumps down there right on the bottom,” he continued. “You kind of run through there and it’s a lot of harmonics going on. Kind of hard for the tire to grip down there for a long time as well.
“This place is aging, getting a little rougher down on the bottom, making it a little bit tougher to grip the racetrack, too.”
Despite the concerns with the groove, the race at Bristol was a solid one that many fans enjoyed. They saw drivers racing with each other, side-by-side, putting on a typical short track race. Busch agreed with that saying it was kind of like the accordion effect in that you’d catch the car in front of you, slide a bit back due to abusing your tires and then re-catch that guy.
“It’s kind of the thing that you get with short tracks,” he commented. “There’s other short tracks across the country that are hard to pass on, too. This one is a little different because you’re running around the top instead of what it was at the bottom.”
He also added that you didn’t see the bump-and-run in times like that because, simply, it wouldn’t had worked.
“If you bump the car in front of you, the guy in front of you is running the same speed, there’s no sense in doing that because the guy is going to come back on you later,” he explained. “So it probably doesn’t work.”
