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Nascar Nationwide Series | USsPost.com

February 13, 2010 by · Comments Off on Nascar Nationwide Series | USsPost.com 

Nascar Nationwide Series | USsPost.com:Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards prepares to run for the 2010 NASCAR Nationwide Series championship driving the No. 60 Copart/Fastenal Ford Fusion. Veteran crew chief, Mike Kelley will be sitting atop the pit box leading the team to victory.

After the second practice Thursday Kelley discussed some plans for 2010.

Q: Daytona is one of only four active tracks that Roush Fenway Racing has yet to win in the Nationwide Series. What will it take to change the record books?

a: You come down here ready for a superspeedway, we won Talladega last year. It’s about having a good handling race car with speed in it. We came down here this time and Carl said the car did everything he wanted it to do. So when we race on Saturday we will change that record. I know that Jack’s got 21 wins down here and the only thing he is missing is a Nationwide win and hopefully between Carl, myself and the team we’ll be able to put that behind us.

Q: Last season you spent a partial season with the No. 6 Nationwide team and the end with the 60 team. How does it feel to be in your first full season with Carl, running for the championship?

a: It’s going to be awesome…the biggest thing I can say is that putting us together for those three races last year has really helped out. We started off at Texas where we were trying to learn each other, what Carl needed, and what I need to do for changes. I’m expected to win the championship and I feel that we have been given all of the pieces to the puzzle to make it happen. I have a great fleet of cars, a great team and a lot of support from Jack and Ford in addition to two new sponsors, Fastenal and Copart. I feel that Carl and I both realize this is the year that we need to make it happen.

Q: How will Carl’s rookie team mates; Colin Braun and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. help the 60 team be competitive?

a: Actually it’s a two way street. A lot of people think that having rookie teammates is only for us to help them but it’s definitely not. When you have someone with the experience on road courses like Colin Braun, that’s definitely something that we lean on when we have testing and are at the road course tracks Colin might be a rookie in the Nationwide Series but he’s been to most of these tracks in the truck series. Ricky has shown a lot of speed and talent when we were fortunate enough to get him in the car last year. Milwaukee in my mind was a stand out race for Ricky. I’m hoping that we can attack areas to help them and I’m hoping Carl will be able to sit with these guys to explain where they need to be on the track and what they should expect in their car during practice so that they have a good setup when its time to race. That’s the difference between the veteran driver and the rookies…just understanding where their car needs to be in practice to be competitive on race day. Like I said, just because they have that yellow stripe on the tail of their race car doesn’t mean that we will not look to them for support or help. It should be good for everybody involved in the Nationwide programs at Roush Fenway Racing.

Q: Perspective on Danica Patrick?

a: I don’t really know a lot about Danica as a person. I know from being in this sport long enough to know what we need or what we need at this point. Anything we can do to open another set of eyes of fans. Whether it’s a different gender base or a different age group, Danica seems to be a tidal wave of getting to fans to the track and watching our sport on TV. That helps us as a group, our sponsors…basically everyone involved. As a driver, she hasn’t had enough time in these cars. In these cars it is not easy to jump from one car or class to another. But we all watched the ARCA race last week and she did very well. I’ve watched her in practiced and noticed that she ran a lot of laps in practice doing everything she needs to do in order to get herself acclimated with what’s going on out there. She is going to start the race just like the rest of us. At the end of the day she’ll be judged on her performance. In the end, she is just another racer.

Source : http://paddocktalk.com/news/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=128192&newlang=&topic=11&catid=21

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