Car Notes - MOEN/Menards Chevrolet Impala
Nextel Cup Primary Car: Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chassis # 19/ Back up Car #12
Last Raced: Phoenix International Raceway (April 2007) Qualified 33rd – Finished 25th – Menard was the highest finishing Raybestos Rookie in the Phoenix COT race.
Overview
Menards Racing heads to Richmond with fond memories of its most recent Car of Tomorrow race. At Phoenix International Raceway, Menard earned top Raybestos Rookie honors with a 25th place finish in the event. While the team hopes to better that result this weekend, the lessons learned in the race at Phoenix will most certainly help improve the No. 15 team’s COT program in this weekend’s Crown Royal 400. Driver Paul Menard is a fan of Richmond International Raceway, having led a total of 160 laps at the track and nearly winning the NASCAR Busch Series race at the track in the fall of 2005.
Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three
During the NASCAR sanctioned Richmond test, 51 teams worked on COT cars. The members of the No. 15 team were extremely pleased with the results of the test. Most recently, Menard tested the Car of Tomorrow at Nashville Superspeedway on Tuesday, May 1st.
Working Towards Top-35
The No. 15 team sits 39th in Nextel Cup Owner’s Standings, 114 points outside of the top-35. Menard lost an engine on lap 22 of last week’s race in Talladega, making the move up the point latter increasingly difficult.
Raybestos Rookie of the Year Notes
Since 1975, only one Raybestos® Rookie has won the spring race at Richmond. The winning Rookie is Paul Menard’s teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won the event in 2000. He led the race just once covering the final 31 laps and officially scored his second career win by .159 second over Terry Labonte. Currently, Menard stands third in overall Raybestos Rookie ratings. He has 62 points, 38 points behind Juan Pablo Montoya who leads the battle with 100 points.
RICHMOND Quotes:
Paul Menard Quote on the Crown Royal 400:
“We’ve come a long way with the COT. We went to Lakeland in January at and first I wasn’t such a huge fan. It’s just a totally different feel. Then we went to Bristol and Martinsville and struggled but we kept our heads up and we had a pretty good car by then end of the Phoenix race. We keep testing and we know that’s all we can do to improve. We’ve got the potential to have a really strong car in race runs but getting in the show is half the battle. We’re up against some really good teams this weekend in Richmond; a couple of teams that were really fast at the test. We’ll just have to see how it shakes out.”
Nextel Cup Car Chief “B” Hoover on the Crown Royal 400:
“We’re had some highs and lows with the COT car this year, but were definitely working in the right direction. After the race at Phoenix we came back to the shop and said okay now we have something to build on. Tony Eury Sr. is the best leader in the garage and if anyone’s going to figure out how to succeed with the COT, it’s going to be him. If anything, the COT evens the playing ground as far as the driver goes and Paul did a great job during the test, so we’re definitely going in with high hopes this weekend.”
