Tech Q&A: Paul Andrews

June 24, 2001
1:19 PM EDT (1719 GMT)

Paul Andrews, crew chief of the No. 1 Pennzoil Chevrolet, talks about setting up a car for a road course like Sears Point.

Paul Andrews

On Saturday, Andrews addressed several technical questions regarding Sunday’s Dodge/Save Mart 350 at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.

Q: There are some good road courses in the United States, such as Road America. Do you feel two of them are enough, and from a mechanic’s perspective, do they provide a bit of diversity or a pain in the butt?

A: (laughing heartily) It’s a little bit of both, I think. I think two road courses is enough. Sometimes I think two road courses is two too many.

We’ve had a lot of success at ‘em lately and we’re pretty happy with ‘em but it takes a completely different breed of car that doesn’t do nothing else but run road courses, so I think two is plenty.

Q: Your title is crew chief, but you also have to be “driver psychologist.” How critical is that role at a road course?

A: I think it’s critical anywhere, and sometimes even more so on road courses. It’s pretty easy to get flustrated at road courses because you’ve got so many turns to have problems at and you have to keep your driver on course -- mentally and physically, too.

You’ve got to keep the car on course and it’s pretty important because it’s real easy to get discouraged at these places, because track position means so much. If you’ve got something that’s gonna improve track position later on in the race, he needs to be aware of what’s going on and we need to just try to keep him rolling and on-track.

Q: Set-up wise, what is the biggest difference between your Sears Point set-up and say, what you will run at Chicago?

The No. 1 car will start 34th at Sears Point.

A: Springs and shocks. Actually, it goes back to the car, also. The car is completely different. Actually, they are offset completely the opposite way. If you take that variable out of it, you run fairly even springs on road courses. On ovals, such as Chicago, you run quite a bit of right front spring and a little bit of left front spring and a big right rear spring and a small left rear spring. Of course, it’s a completely different shock package, also.

Q: On an oval track the car is “set up to turn left.” How do you achieve a “square” car to go left and right on a road course?

A: Actually, the road courses we run are predominantly right-hand turns, with a few left-hand turns. The chassis is actually a complete turnaround of our normal oval track chassis. Still, you have to turn left and right so you need even front springs and even rear springs and kind of even front shocks and even rear shocks, which gives it a good balance. You still want as much right-side weight as possible where on an oval you want as much left-side weight as possible. Q: In terms of pit strategy, what is the most critical consideration for you at a road course: fuel mileage, the performance advantage of new tires or track position?

Steve Park is currently eighth on the Winston Cup points list.

A: Track position is the biggest thing at road courses. It goes back to everything is backward at a road course, including the way you look at when you pit. You want to pit at a road course as soon as you can. As soon as you get within that certain window of pit stops you want to go ahead and stop, because track position means so much. There are so many places on a road course where they cannot pass you. If you can have a pretty good car and maintain track position you are gonna end up finishing real good.

Q: You are looking at a 20-race stretch after an off-weekend. From a crew chief’s perspective, what is your biggest consideration between staying ahead at the shop and keeping the guys fresh?

A: They are both concerns. We have got to have plenty of equipment at the shop, so if we run into trouble at a couple tracks and we end up losing a car or whatever, we have to have plenty of equipment at the shop so we can bounce back from it without getting ourselves into trouble.