Rick Mast on Richmond.

Rick Mast (pictured here in 2000)has competed for nine different owners in his 13 year Winston Cup career but has been in racing a lot longer making him one of the most experienced faces in the NWC pitlane. He has needed to muster all his years of experience this year as he has toile with both the Midwest Transit and Eel River teams. Thanks to Mast's efforts, Eel River's No.27 Pontiac will start Saturday's Chevrolet Monte Carlo 400.

Rick Mast (pictured here in 2000)has competed for nine different owners in his 13 year Winston Cup career but has been in racing a lot longer making him one of the most experienced faces in the NWC pitlane. He has needed to muster all his years of experience this year as he has toile with both the Midwest Transit and Eel River teams. Thanks to Mast's efforts, Eel River's No.27 Pontiac will start Saturday's Chevrolet Monte Carlo 400.

Rick Mast's long and chequered career continues at present with the beleaguered Eel River Racing team but with a limited budget, an inexperienced crew and little in the way of competitive machinery, simply qualifying for races in like a race win for the ever popular Mast at the moment.

Since leaving the financially strapped Midwest Transit operation after the New England 300 at Loudon in July. Mast has qualified the relictrant Duke's sponsored Pontiac six times out of seven and made the field for Saturday night's Chevrolet Monte Carlo at the famous Richmond International Raceway with 34th fastest time. Mast's best finish for the team thus far has been a 27th place effort at Watkins Glen.

RICK MAST QUOTES ABOUT RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY.

"I like Richmond because it's 3/4 mile and you can race two and three wide and people race two and three wide all night long. You can rub fenders there a little bit and the fans love it. You can build a racetrack like that and put 150,000 seats up real easy if you want to do that. You don't have to worry about getting killed every time you turn the steering wheel. You can go two and three wide and race well. That's why we love it."

DOES A RACE TRACK HAVE TO BE EXCITING FOR THE FANS FOR A DRIVER TO LIKE IT?

"For me to like it, the fans have to like it. It has to be exciting for the fans. I think that's a big part of the reason why I like Indy. There are so many people there and it's so exciting for all the people. I guess most of the time the racing at Indy isn't that good, if you think about it. I just like the racetrack itself. I like running the track. The track itself is a big time challenge and all the 400,000 people. I'm big on the racetrack itself, number one and the fans number two."

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TRACKS THAT YOU DON'T LIKE?

"I don't like Texas because it's just one groove, you go extremely fast, and it's very hard to race on. It's very hard to race anybody. You can't race side by side there. You could do that at Atlanta but when they changed the racetrack they messed that up to where you can't do that at Atlanta anymore. I don't like Atlanta that much.

"I don't like Watkins Glen. Now, I love Sears Point and that's backwards from most of the drivers. Most of the drivers hate Sears Point, but I like Sears Point because it seems more like a road course should be. I enjoy racing there. It's got more twists and turns and Watkins Glen has got a lot more straightaways to it, which you would think that I would like. I honestly like Sears Point; I don't like Watkins Glen."

IT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO KEEP THE TIRES AND THE BRAKES ON THE CAR AT RICHMOND. HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

"That's all in the set-up of the car. Every bit of that is in the set-up of the race car. You're no more abusive there on tires than you are anywhere else. There's a certain amount of abuse that you can't throw on a tire no matter what racetrack you're at. Richmond is no exception to that rule, but if your car is not working there you'll end up abusing one tire or the other and if you do that you won't run very long. You have to back off and let the car do what it's going to do.

"It's the same way with the brakes. If your car is not turning good in the centre of the corner, and you have to slow down too much, you're going to use up too much brakes. And if you do that, it just eats the right front up and that just compounds the problem. It makes the car not turn even more. You get the right front so hot at Richmond if the car is not turning. The car has to work well. If the car works good, it's hard to abuse a car there, but if the car isn't working good there, you can abuse it pretty easily."

DOES THE RICHMOND TRACK CHANGE MUCH DURING A RACE?

"What changes is the sealer moving around. That's what changes. The sealer has a lot of grip to it and when the sealer wears off you loose grip and you move up the racetrack to find that grip. You'll be up there a while in that grip, then that sealer is gone and then first thing you know there's no sealer anywhere, no grip anywhere. So you move back down to the bottom of the racetrack. You'll see that happen a lot at Richmond. You'll start off at the bottom then midway through the race everybody will be at the top and then the last 50 or 100 laps everybody is back down at the bottom of the racetrack again.

"The track changes a lot from daytime to night. Richmond is pretty notorious for changing, but not as much as a Charlotte, but it does change considerably."

WHY DON'T WE SEE MORE TRACK USE THE SEALER?

"I don't know. Why do they use sealer anyhow? I don't know what the sealer is for. What I don't understand is why aren't more racetracks built like Richmond. You build all these brand new racetracks and they put up 100,000 seats at a two-mile racetrack and you run 10,000 miles per hour and nobody runs side by side all day. It's ridicules. They're worried about being a showplace and putting fans in and TV. Put TV ratings at Richmond and Bristol and what do you have? You've got ratings through the roof. You bring the fans to Richmond or Bristol and what do you have? You've got fans that go crazy over the finishes of these races. But promoters, for whatever reason, will not build a racetrack like Richmond. It doesn't make sense to me."

Read More