How Will Dales Dip Affect the Race at Texas
Lots of drivers complaining about that little, or big, dip that is over the tunnel between turns 1 and 2 at Texas Motor Speedway, they do say everything is bigger in Texas. Track officials say the dip hasn’t gotten bigger, but you can’t convince the drivers of that.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. first mentioned it last weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway to earn the bump the nickname “Dale’s Dip.” Jimmie Johnson called it a “huge hole” earlier in the week.
Denny Hamlin called it a “very violent bump” on Friday. Jeff Gordon said it’s “significant” and will impact the race.
“The primary thing we’re working on is getting us through the bumps,” Gordon said before qualifying. “That’s on our minds, definitely. Source: Nascar.com
President of Texas Motor Speedway, Eddie Gossage, says they have fixed the track and banking twice, and they will check out the track after the race and if it needs fixed they will fix it. Sure. Make the millions of dollars first, hope it doesn’t affect the Chase and then fix it. Makes perfect sense to me. Someone should take him in some high speed laps around it and see if he likes it.
Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice president of competition, said nobody has complained to the sanctioning body.
“Maybe they want to play it out in the press,” he said with a laugh. “It’s just like somebody asked me what we’re going to do about the sun in the drivers’ eyes. Are we supposed to pick the racetrack up and move it or what?”
Could well just be the press, they are always searching for something to talk about, look how hard they jumped on the Robby Gordon thing, lord knows they can only announce who the leader is so many times.
Here are the top 10 qualifiers:
1. 25 Brian Vickers
2. 19 Elliott Sadler
3. 2 Kurt Busch
4. 9 Kasey Kahne
5. 48 Jimmie Johnson
6. 11 Denny Hamlin
7. 38 David Gilliland
8. 20 Tony Stewart
9. 7 Robby Gordon
10. 8 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
