Talledega Ken Schrader Preview

KEN SCHRADER TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY

SCHRADER'S THOUGHTS HEADING INTO THE WINSTON 500:

* "Qualifying at Talladega is pretty tricky," said Schrader. "The guys back at the shop build the car so that it is as low to the track as it can possibly can be. When it is real low to the ground, you can go a lot faster but it makes for a pretty bumpy ride for the driver. During your qualifying lap, you're flat-footed around the entire track, so you just hang on for the ride and hope it's fast enough.

"The race is a whole different ball game. You run wide open around the whole track, but you're doing it with 42 other cars surrounding you. That's what makes restrictor plate racing so exciting because one slip and you can potentially wipe out 20 good cars."

CREW CHIEF SHOP TALK:

* "The Skoal Racing team's restrictor plate program is real strong," said Sam Johns, crew chief of the Skoal Racing team. "Schrader sat on the pole for both the Busch Series race and the Winston Cup race last April. Schrader can really get around Talladega.

"Andy and the entire RAD program have been doing a lot of research at the wind tunnel to improve the aerodynamics and down force package for all of the teams involved. They have made a lot of improvements to the restrictor plate program over the past few months."

SKOAL RACING TEAM NEWS:

* The Skoal Racing team will race the same car that sat on the pole and finished sixth at Talladega Superspeedway in the spring and finished sixth in this year's Daytona 500.