NASCAR Winston Cup Preview |
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Topics: Winston Cup
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Kenny Schrader
January 18, 2003
DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA
Q. Kenny, several changes for you since last year?
KEN SCHRADER: Pretty big change. We drove the MB2 car for three years and this year I will be with BAM Motorsports and I'm excited to be there. This is the first year they have run full schedule. This team only ran a limited schedule last year. They started off the season and a lot of people didn't take them for a real team because they weren't running the full schedule. It said BAM on the hood of the car. If it had said RCR, it would have been okay. But the couple that owns it, her name is Beth Ann Morganthau and those initials spell BAM. The car was all white and it didn't have a sponsor, so that meant it wasn't a real team. But it really is and we are running a full schedule this year and we are happy that wherever the cars are on display we are proud that it has 1-800-CALL ATT on it. 1-800-CALL-ATT WILL be on it for Daytona and for quite a few races the first part of the season. We got a lot of work to do like a lot of other teams. We are looking forward to running the season.
Q. Isn't the experience Kenny Schrader brings to this new team going to be very helpful during the season?
KEN SCHRADER: I don't think I can screw them up too bad. They've got Eddie Jones as the general manager over there. He has been in the sport for years. Scott Eggleston is the crew chief. Scott won the Daytona 500 a couple of years ago with Michael and he brings a lot of experience. We had a good test at Daytona. We wound up 18th or something. Going to Vegas here in a couple of weeks with a lot of other cars. Yes, I think maybe I will help a little bit, just bring a little stability. That's a little scary if I'm bringing stability. (Laughter).
Q. How important is testing at Daytona from what we've seen and how has it changed in the last few years?
KENNY SCHRADER: The times are really close. You spend three days down there to run two laps, more or less. We did a little drafting the other day. We've done that quite a few times before. You have to run this testing. Daytona is a big race for us. It pays a lot of money, a lot of prestige in winning. We'll test three times for the Daytona 500. We will go to Talladega twice and Daytona once, just for two laps of qualifying for the Daytona 500.
Q. Ken, can you talk about what it will take to build this team since they haven't qualified for many races and haven't been around much ... what will take them to get them to race consistently this year?
KEN SCHRADER: We (BAM Racing) went to 20 races last year and qualified for 18 of them. We ran half dozen different drivers through and because they made the driver change partway through the year, we couldn't get someone to finish out the full season. Because we weren't running the full season, they kind of had to pick and choose. The people that own the car are very committed to this sport. They are working off their money right now. Hopefully, just a little bit. They did that last year. That's why we are excited about 1-800-ATT because that brings a little more credibility to our team. Everything is there. I mean they've got a shop. They got nice cars. They got some depth as far as people working in the shop. They've got good leadership. Joey Harrington is building the motors. We've got what we need to do it; it's just that we don't have an overabundance of stuff. .