NASCAR Cup

Marlin, Leffler Richmond II preview

Sterling Marlin, driver No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T 2Â· In 31 starts, Marlin has eight top-10s and three top-5s at Richmond International Raceway. Â· In the May '01 event at Richmond, Marlin started 15th and finished ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

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Sterling Marlin, driver
No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T

2· In 31 starts, Marlin has eight top-10s and three top-5s at Richmond International Raceway.

· In the May '01 event at Richmond, Marlin started 15th and finished 11th.

· Marlin is currently third in overall NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship points. His highest championship finish ever is third (1995) when he won three races and scored nine top-5 finishes.

· Marlin is the only driver to remain in the top-10 in NASCAR Winston Cup championship points all season.

· Dominant Dodge: Marlin has lead the way for Dodge all season. He has seven top-fives and 13 top-10s. Marlin gave Dodge their first 2001 win in the Pepsi 400 at Michigan Speedway.

Jason Leffler, driver
No. 01 Cingular Wireless Dodge Intrepid R/T
· In the May '01 event at Richmond, Leffler started 28th and finished 26th.

· Leffler is currently tied for fourth in Raybestos Rookie-of-the-Year points.

· Leffler's best start of the season is 11th in the Pepsi 400 at Michigan. His best finish is 13th in the MBNA Platinum 400 at Dover.

Tony Glover, team manager, No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T:
RICHMOND:
"Richmond is going to be a key race for us down the stretch. It's one of those tracks where if you're the least bit off in your set up or your race strategy or your pit stops you can finish really, really bad. We didn't have quite the run at Richmond at the beginning of this season, so we've worked really hard to try and improve on that and hopefully we'll have a better setup for this race and come out with a finish that reflects the capabilities of this team."

RED FLAGS AT END OF RACE:
"I'm personally not for it. I know that NASCAR does everything in their power to please the race fans and I know that we're in the entertainment business but I think that when you have a red flag with two to five laps to go your asking to get a whole bunch of race cars torn up. I think that if there's a caution near the end of a race then so be it."

HARVICK COMPETING IN THREE EVENTS THIS WEEKEND:
"I think he is a tremendous racer and a very talented young man. I guess it's like playing basketball - the more you do it the better you get at it. And I think it helps him to compete a lot."

TEMPERS:
"Basically tempers come and go. If NASCAR sees enough of it then they will put a stop to it. We're right now dead in the middle of a 20-week stretch - people's tempers are getting short; driver's tempers are getting short. We're getting near the end of the line for the Winston Cup championship and everybody's fighting for every single point they can get. We've gone to some tracks in the past couple of weeks that can pretty much get on a driver's nerves and things like that are going to happen."

Matt Chambers, crew chief, No. 01 Cingular Wireless Dodge Intrepid R/T:
JASON ADAPTING DRIVING STYLE:
"I've talked to some other rookies and it seems that everyone has the same problem when transferring to the Winston Cup cars - they can't drive the car into the corner as hard. Jason was doing that the first 10 races or so. He was over driving the car and that was making it to where we had to run some different setups than what Sterling was running. Now, Jason has a lot of races under his belt and he has enough experience to know that the veterans aren't driving hard into the corner like he was. He adapted his driving style and when we would come back from the races and look at our setups and we were the same as the 40 car."

-chip ganassi racing

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