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Summertime is when most people relax a bit, go on vacation and take it easy in the warm weather. But not for the No. 48 Lowe’s team. This is the time of year when we buckle down, work harder and do everything we can to prepare for success in the second half of the season.
There are really three areas where we focus for the summer – team training for the hot weather, preparation and execution at the racetrack, and developing an edge to be as competitive as possible at the end of the season.
The No. 48 Lowe’s crew is working out every day to improve it strength and conditioning for the heat. So is Jimmie. This is critical to helping us have the endurance to perform our best at the end of a long race – just like at Dover recently. We’re also doing things to keep our focus strong and our momentum high, like team activities and different kinds of training programs.
We also are spending days and days planning for every possible scenario that could happen in the upcoming races – from how the tires will perform, to the shocks and springs packages to how the cautions will fall. This allows us to develop a race strategy and backup plan for every event so when something does happen, we’re ready to deal with it.
Back at Hendrick Motorsports, we’re working on improving our cars for the second half of the season. We’re taking what we’ve learned at places like Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Texas, Dover, Martinsville, California and Talladega in the first race of the season and applying that to the cars we’re working on for later this year.
We’ve learned a lot this year about the shocks and springs, and how these Goodyear tires react with our car setups. The more knowledge and data we can gather here, the better we’ll be in the fall.
While you’re on vacation this summer, enjoying a day out on the lake, or just relaxing and watching the race on Sunday afternoon, remember that the No. 48 Lowe’s team is hard at work planting for success. And come November, we hope to reap the benefits with a big celebration at the NASCAR banquet in Las Vegas.