Track: Texas Motor Speedway (1.5-mile tri-oval) in Fort Worth, Texas
Race: Samsung/Radio Shack 500 Date 04.17.05
NASCAR Nextel Cup points position: 31st (dropped one position from last week)
Notes:
- The No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Charger at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend is Chassis No. 86. The team tested this brand-new race car earlier this year during pre-season testing at Las Vegas and California. Scott Wimmer then raced it at Las Vegas, where he and the CAT Racing team took a 28th-starting position and turned it into a top-15 run the majority of the day. They were knocking on the door of the top 10 and running lap times as fast as those of the leader before a late-race mechanical problem on pit road relegated the CAT crew from 12th to 25th, and an eventual 27th-place finish.
- Dont miss Wimmer in Texas Wimmer will visit the infield media center theatre at Texas Motor Speedway around 9 a.m. CT Friday, April 15, to chat LIVE with KSCS 96.3 FM. He also will take time from 12:30 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. CT Saturday, April 16, to meet race fans during an autograph session at his merchandise trailer on souvenir row just outside Texas Motor Speedway.
- No Tuesday Testing Wimmer and his No. 22 CAT Racing team planned to test at Kentucky Speedway in Fort Mitchell, Ky., Tuesday, but cancelled the test session due to rain.
- Skinner will pull double-duty with Bad Boy Mike Skinner and Bill Davis Racing will team up with Bad Boy Mowers, Inc., powered by Vanguard BIG BLOCK, to race the No. 23 BDR car in the May 1 Aarons 499 NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Skinner will also compete in the Dodge Ram Tough 200 NASCAR Craftsman truck race at Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis that same weekend. He will practice and qualify the No. 23 Bad Boys Mowers Dodge at Talladega on Friday, April 29, then proceed to St. Louis to qualify and run the No. 5 Toyota Tundra in the truck race at Gateway International on Saturday. Skinner will then return to Talladega to compete in Sundays Aarons 499. This will be the second time this year Skinner and Davis have teamed up to field the No. 23 in a Nextel Cup points race. Skinner raced the No. 23 Argent Mortgage car in the Daytona 500 for Davis, qualifying 13th during time trials and finishing thirdneck-and-neck with the Dale Earnhardt Inc. carsin the first Gatorade 150 Duel, which lined him up seventh to start the 47th running of the 500. Unfortunately, Skinner was collected in the ninth and final caution of the race, relegating him from a top-10 run to a 30th-place finish. About Bad Boy Mowers Founded in 1998 and based in Batesville, Ark., Bad Boy Mowers, Inc. is a manufacturer of zero-turn commercial lawn mowers. Its vision for the future is to become the Bad Boy of the commercial mowing industry by providing its customers with a superior performing machine, second-to-none in power, durability and accessibility. To achieve this goal, Bad Boy has teamed with Briggs and Stratton Commercial Power to bring its customers the 31 horsepower Vanguard BIG BLOCK. This BIG BLOCK engine is the most powerful 31 horsepower air-cooled engine on the market. To learn more about Bad Boy Mowers, go to www.badboymowers.com, and to learn more about Skinners double-duty weekend, go to www.billdavisracing.com
- Catch it Qualifying for the NASCAR Nextel Cup Samsung/Radio Shack 500 is scheduled to start at 4:10 p.m. ET Friday, April 15, and will broadcast LIVE on SPEED (TV), PRN (radio) and XM Radio. The Samsung/Radio Shack 500 race is scheduled to start at 1:20 p.m. ET Sunday, April 17, and will broadcast LIVE on FOX (TV), PRN and XM Radio.
S. Wimmer on heading to Texas Motor Speedway this weekend:
I am excited about heading to Texas because it is close to Arkansas. I have a lot of friends in Arkansas, so Thursday some of them are coming down to meet me, and were going to go do some bass fishing on a private lake. I really enjoy fishing and hope we can catch some big ones down there.
Last year was my first Nextel Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. We really werent too happy with the car in the beginning. Halfway through the race the car really started giving us what we needed and was running a lot better than the way it started. Unfortunately, we had already fallen a lap down and had trouble in attempting to make it back up. It seemed like I was just getting to where I was real comfortable with the car, and then we got caught up in an accident that ended the day early for us.
Hopefully, with the new rules package and the new tires with the track aging another year, well have a good feel for what we need. I think it is good we are going there twice this year because there is such a strong NASCAR fan base in Texas. The fans are great, and they dont get to see a lot of NASCAR Cup racing around there, so it is good to go. It is a fun place to visit, and there is a lot of fun stuff to do when you are not at the race track.