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John's Thoughts on Las Vegas 

“I think, first of all, when you are out there by yourself, you don’t see a huge difference in the cars.  You feel it, but it’s not dramatic.  I think the big deal is when you are racing with people.  Then it’s much more dramatic.  There is less spoiler holding you on the ground. If somebody gets on the outside of you, you really feel them a lot more.  There is just less air catching and holding the back end down.

            “I know of several guys who have crashed and a lot of guys have spun when racing side-by-side. You usually don’t hear a lot of that in testing or practice.  I think there are going to be some adjustments for people to really deal with and figure out. I guess the best answer is to have a really, really fast car and run away from the field.  That way you don’t have to deal with anyone around you.

            “Las Vegas is not all that different from California.  It’s tighter corners and all that, but it’s a really smooth race track.  All the things we learned at California we think we can apply at Vegas.  The things we learned from California are going to make us better at Vegas.  

“We tested out there too, but the weather wasn’t very good.  It was sunny, but extremely windy.  Those are probably the hardest conditions to run in.  We had a pretty good test, but we had our problems too.  It was a combination test between Vegas and California. Some teams ran well at one and others were better at the other.  Hopefully we’ve got everything coming together.  Being the third race of the season, we’re still under the new qualifying procedure. I guess we’re gambling a little more than most.

            “Right now, we’re going to these race tracks like everybody else and prepare like everybody else.  I think that when it’s all said and done, we’ll get through these first five races, and then we can really start concentrating on being like everyone else. Right now, we’re not like 35 other guys. (Top 35 in last season’s owners’ points are guaranteed a starting spot in the first five races).  We have to fight our way in, and as we do that, hopefully we won’t have to worry about it after that.   Then we can fight to race well with this VB/APlus at Sunoco Ford and not worry about the rest of it.”