Around The Track: Speed critical at Texas

Texas is about one of the fastest tracks on the circuit. You definitely feel the sensation of speed at Texas. It is a very high G-loading racetrack. I would put it in the highest categories of lateral G-loads that we feel anywhere. That would even include Bristol.

	Ricky Rudd says things happen quickly at Texas. Credit: Autostock

Going around Texas is pretty uneventful other than things happen pretty quickly. Out of pit road, up the backstretch, arcing into Turn 3, you make a real wide entry into the corner and bring the car right down to the bottom of the track. You put your left front tire on the apron and barely crack the throttle. You roll back on the throttle, but a lot of times you don't even get out of the throttle. You roll back to about 30 percent throttle, and you roll right back in it. As soon as you roll out, you roll right back into it. You aren't out of the throttle a second, two seconds max.

Keeping the momentum at Texas is real important. It's all about keeping the momentum of the car going through the corner. So, very little RPM drop through the corner, very little speed drop through the corner.

Down the frontstretch it has a sort of double dogleg configuration, similar to Charlotte. No big deal there, other than you want to run the car as straight as possible through there so you're not turning the steering wheel and scrubbing speed.

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It is really important to exit the dogleg correctly, so your car is lined up with the right pitch attitude as you get into Turn 1. The turn is similar to Turn 3 other than it is banked a little differently; it is a little more difficult corner. If you miss the corner a little bit, the car has a tendency to push up into the second lane, so the entry and the angle of the car entry into that corner is real critical to maintain a fast speed.

If you do everything just right when you crack the throttle, you are out of the throttle just maybe a second, but out of the throttle a little more -- maybe 15 percent throttle versus the 30 percent at the other end of the track. But there is no difference in keeping up the momentum.

You want to roll into the backstretch with a lot of speed. Exiting Turn 2, the track has a tendency to unload the car, and it is not unusual to see people scrape the wall on the exit of Turn 2 and the exit of Turn 4. When the car finally unloads from the corner and into the flatter straightaway, it has a tendency to use up the racetrack in a hurry. You've got to be real attentive of the car using up the racetrack on late exits. If you are underneath somebody passing them or if you are running the racetrack by yourself, you have to be careful that you don't run out of track at the corner exits.

Ricky Rudd drives the No. 21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus owned by Wood Brothers Racing.