Richmond Advance -- Fan Questions Answered
Ken Schrader, driver of the #21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford Fusion answers his fan’s questions concerning driving the final race before the “Chase”, his car at Richmond, short track success, cars from different manufacturers, his truck team and diversity driver Chris Bristol.
Do you ask for any extra help from your spotter(s) to not do anything that messes up anyone's chances of reaching the Chase at a key race like this? Or is it just a race like any other? “It’s like any other race for me. If I were them (the contenders for the Chase), I’d be the one being more careful.
Can you use what you learned during the spring test at Richmond for this race, or has too much changed since then? “You always use every prior race’s notes and go from there. If they have sealed the track or there is a difference in the weather you just have to adjust, but you always use the prior race’s notes.”
Kenny, your short track performances have been your best runs these last few years. Do you feel that your driving skills are better suited for short tracks rather than the bigger ones? “My cars just seem to have handled better at the shorter tracks. I don’t prefer the shorter tracks. Our two best runs this year have been in restrictor plate races on super speedways.”
Since you might be the only driver who has raced all the different makes in the last 10 years, is there any real difference aside from what the cars look like? “No, there’s not any difference at all. The way NASCAR has the cars aero matched, they are all making the same down force, the engines are all making the same horsepower. They’ve done a real good job of balancing all the manufacturers so not every year you’re wanting to change because you think someone has an advantage.”
Ken, we all saw the great test you had at Indianapolis yet the car is still to take a green flag. Is it going to run somewhere this season? “We had a good test at Indy and we learned a lot of stuff and then we went back and put that stuff in a car that we felt was a better car after wind tunnel testing. And, that is the car that we ran at Pocono. We didn’t want to take the car we had at Indy and risk it. But we liked the car at Pocono so we took it to Indy and to Michigan and Fontana. It was a good test, but we could apply what we learned to the car we’ve run.”
I was wondering if you had had a sponsor for the truck team this year, what races would you have run? “We would run whatever races the sponsor wanted to run. The sponsor dictates where they want you to go and what markets. That’s how that works.”
What ever happened to Mike Wallace driving your Federated Auto parts truck? “He ran it just that once at Daytona I think. I guess he drove the Oakwood Homes truck for a while.”
How is Chris Bristol coming along? Any plans to add additional development drivers? "No plans to add drivers, but there wasn’t a plan with Chris either. We ran him in the ARCA race at St. Louis and now we’ve got him at Fontana for the Grand National West race. We just kind of seeing how it goes, but we’re real proud of Chris and what he’s doing.”
AND
How many donuts did you have to eat while filming the Little Debbie commercial? “We got pretty lucky and I didn’t have to eat a ton of them, but it wouldn’t have been a big deal because I really like them anyway.”
Note: Ken Schrader will fly the U.S. Air Force colors this week at Richmond International Raceway
Ken Schrader Career |
Starts
693
|
Poles
23 |
Wins
4 |
Top 5's
64 |
Top 10's
183 |
Wood Brothers Career |
Starts
1260 |
Poles
119 |
Wins
97 |
Top 5's
336 |
Top 10's
515 |
Schrader
at Richmond
|
Starts
43
|
Poles
1 |
Wins
0 |
Top 5's
3 |
Top 10's
11 |
Wood Brothers at Richmond
|
Starts
54 |
Poles
0 |
Wins
2 |
Top 5's
6 |
Top 10's
18 |
