BRISTOL TESTING NOTES, DAVID STARR AND RICK CRAWFORD

Jul 23, 2007

BRISTOL TESTING NOTES, DAVID STARR AND RICK CRAWFORD DAVID STARR—10—International MaxxForce Diesel Ford F-150

WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW CONCRETE SURFACE? “Any time you get to come to Bristol Motor Speedway, I was excited. I could hardly sleep last night thinking about making laps in my International MaxxForce Diesel F-150 at Bristol. It’s my favorite track on the whole circuit. They’ve done a tremendous job with the concrete out there. I’ve enjoyed it and I think that as time goes on, and as the day goes on, the race track is just going to get better and better because we’re getting more rubber in the race track. The racing has always been exciting and spectacular and great here, but with the way everything is looking right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a lot of side-by-side racing at Bristol. It’s incredible.” YOU SPENT THE EARLY PART OF THE TEST ATOP THE HAULER WITH RICK CRAWFORD WATCHING SOME OF THE TRUCKS CIRCLE THE TRACK. HOW NICE IT IS HAVING A VETERAN TEAMMATE TO TALK WITH IN SITUATIONS LIKE THAT? “It’s great having a veteran teammate. It’s the first time in my career to have a teammate, which has been a really positive thing for our International MaxxForce Diesel team and myself. It’s really neat when two teams work together under one roof as one team. We’ve been through our growing pains this year, but it helps you get through the growing pains a lot quicker. ON A SCALE OF ONE TO 10, WHAT DO YOU RATE THE NEW SURFACE? “Heck, it’s a 12. They’ve done a tremendous job; I was just so impressed. When you walk in the gate and you walk over turn three, it has the ‘wow’ effect to it. ‘Wow, it looks great.”

RICK CRAWFORD—14—Circle Bar/Power Stroke Diesel by International Ford F-150

WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW CONCRETE SURFACE? “I just told one of the track managers there, ‘Great job on the facility here.’ Especially the racetrack, where we’re all interested in as drivers. It’s very smooth, but they left some characteristics of Bristol here, and it’s really fun to drive.” WILL WE SEE ANY SIDE-BY-SIDE RACING HERE IN AUGUST? “I don’t think you’re going to have to wait a year to put the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series out there three-wide. We live on the crazy side, and we’ll be ready to put on a great show for the fans here at Bristol. You never can tell. If we get bottlenecked out there, we’ll find another groove. We might not stay in it very long, but we’ll find another groove and really get going.” HAVE YOU GONE TO THE HIGH SIDE OF THE BANKING YET? “Well, I’m going to get our Power Stroke Diesel by International Ford F-150 fixed up on the low side first. It’s almost there, it’s pretty close, and then we’ll go up to the high side and try everything out here. DO THEY NEED TO FORCE THE DRIVERS TO WORK IN THE HIGH-SIDE GROOVE? “Like I say, you don’t have to force anybody to go to the high side. If they feel like they can complete a pass, they’ll be up there. What you did here, you just expanded the racing surface. I see the progressive banking already there. I haven’t tried it yet because I’m not ready and the truck’s not ready, but we’re close. I’ll try it before the day’s out.” DO YOU GIVE THE SURFACE AN A-PLUS? “No, I won’t give it an A-plus because I haven’t won here yet with the new surface (laughs). I had an A-plus for the old Bristol because I won (NASCAR All-Pro Series). I enjoy coming here. There are places that you hate to go test. I’m not one of those drivers that says, ‘Ah, we’re going to test again here. We’re just going to burn up tires and nothing is going to come out of here.’ I would come to Bristol to burn up tires. This is a great, exciting place to race at. I just asked my 18-year-old son (Adam), who raced Friday night at Pensacola (Fla.) and Saturday night in Mobile (Ala.) in two twin 100-lap races, and I just asked him, ‘What do you think about racing here?’ His eyes lit up like mine did the first time I came here. You never know, the next couple of years we might have him here in a pickup.”

Testing quotes compiled by Kevin Radvany, Circle Bar PR