BUSCH: McFarland takes road racing school

McFarland Works on Right Handers
Bondurant School has helped some of the best on their road-racing

Mooresville, NC (January 11, 2006) -- It has been 1½ decades since Mark McFarland raced on any type of road course. That was in his go-kart days, a time when he was dominating his way to 186 career wins.

When the NASCAR Busch Series rolls into Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on March 5, however, it will be a totally different ballgame. Some of the best stock car drivers and road race specialists in the world will dot the starting grid at the Mexico City track.

Always a student of the game, McFarland concluded a two-day session yesterday at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Phoenix, Az in hopes of polishing off those rusty skills. Drivers trained at Bondurant have gone on to win road course races in the Busch Series, as well as the Nextel Cup level.

"Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. (team owner) really urged me to go out to Bondurant," said McFarland. "He has developed into one of the best road course drivers out there and he came from basically the same racing background as me. He gives much of the credit for how far he has come to Bondurant."

During the two day event Mike McGovern, head instructor for Bondurant, put McFarland through a series of different tracks, in multiple types of cars. He was pleased to see how intuitive McFarland was and how far he came during his session.

"Mark progressed very well during his two days here," said McGovern. "He has good vision and good car control and he will find out how well his experience here will transfer to the Busch cars when he gets to Mexico City."

The team also plans a test at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, SC to provide McFarland an opportunity to build on his Bondurant experience and he may head back to the desert racing oasis before the second road course race of the season at Watkins Glen International.

"I really enjoyed the classes at Bondurant," sounded McFarland. "It was amazing to see the gains I made in myself from day one to day two. Road racing takes a different mind set."

-jrm-