Texas: Bill Elliott preview

Bill Elliott Returns To Texas Motor Speedway and The NASCAR Nextel Cup Series

No. 91 Evernham Dodge
Driver: Bill Elliott
Team Director: Sammy Johns
Team Owner: Ray Evernham

Car Information:

The No. 91 Evernham Dodge is running the new Evernham-designed chassis at Texas. It first ran the chassis at the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The team will convert most of its racecars to the Evernham chassis this season. The chassis was designed by the Evernham engineering team along with Dodge Motorsports engineering.

QUOTES

What is the key to success at Texas?

"Persistence. Texas is a 500-mile race like Atlanta, but it's harder on the car motor-wise. The pace doesn't drop off. You've also got to have good pit stops and have some luck fall your way. We had a good test out at Texas, so I think we'll be good for the race."

What have you been doing between races?

"I've been testing for Ray Evernham and running my sprint car. I've only run one race in the sprint car, but I'd like to race as much as I can. I just went out for fun, and boy, is it great to just go lay back and have fun out there."

How is the new Evernham chassis progressing?

"We tested the new Evernham chassis at Texas last week, and it's pretty good. We've got a lot of data on it and we're getting it all sorted out. The team will get it implemented in the No. 9 and No. 19 later this year."

How do you like Texas?

"I really like Texas. It's the kind of track that suits me. I tend to do better on the fast, flat tracks. Texas is a lot like Kansas, Charlotte, Michigan, but they're all a little different from each other. The fans might not notice the differences but as a driver you do. Each one of them drives a little different than the other. They're all mile-and-a-half tracks but they all have something unique about them that tells you as a driver where you are."

STATS & FACTS

* The UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 is the third race of the limited schedule Elliott will run for the 2004 season.

* This weekend's race will mark Elliott's eighth career start at Texas Motor Speedway. He has one pole position and one top-10 at the track, both earned in the 2002 Samsung/Radio Shack 500. He has placed in the top-15 in four of his six races at Texas.

* Elliott set a new track record with his pole-setting lap of 27.803-sec./194.224 mph in qualifying for the 2002 Cup race at Texas. The lap was more than a full mile-per-hour over the second-place qualifying time that day, and wiped out the previous track record by more than two miles-per-hour (Terry Labonte, 192.137 mph, 28.105 sec., 3/31/00).

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