Four to attempt triple-header at Bristol.
With all three of NASCAR's top sanctioned series competing on the same bill this week at the Bristol Motor Speedway it gives several drivers a chance to try and go for a rare triple-header, including Kevin Harvick, Robby Gordon and Jack Roush's latest discovery, Carl Edwards.
Gordon, Harvick, Edwards and veteran independent driver Brad Teague will start their 'weekend' tonight (Wednesday) in the O'Reilly 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event.
With all three of NASCAR's top sanctioned series competing on the same bill this week at the Bristol Motor Speedway it gives several drivers a chance to try and go for a rare triple-header, including Kevin Harvick, Robby Gordon and Jack Roush's latest discovery, Carl Edwards.
Gordon, Harvick, Edwards and veteran independent driver Brad Teague will start their 'weekend' tonight (Wednesday) in the O'Reilly 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event.
Edwards enters the event sitting fourth in points in his #99 Superchips Ford run by Roush Racing while Harvick, whose Kevin Harvick Inc. team already runs a full-time NCTS schedule with Matt Crafton will enter a second GM Goodwrench sponsored Chevrolet.
Last year Harvick also entered the Bristol Truck race and finished 10th, while Edwards was eleventh.
Noted 'have vehicle will race' style driver Gordon will make his fourth career Truck Series start for Morgan Dollar Motorsports, complete with a fitting Bad to the Bone sponsorship deal while Tennessee based driver Teague will attempt to improve on a 16th place finish in the 2003 Bristol race in a Ford owned by Paul Brown.
Friday's Food City 250 NASCAR Busch Series race will see Harvick and Gordon assume their usual Busch Series rides (the #21 Reese's RCR Chevrolet for Harvick and the #55 Fruit of the Loom Team Gordon Chevy for Gordon).
Edwards meanwhile will attempt to make just his second ever Busch start in a MAC Tools sponsored Ford entered by Bobby Benton. Teague meanwhile will attempt to make his 13th Busch start of the year for the independent Jimmy Means Racing team while attempting to improve on a seasons-best 26th place finish at his home track.
While Harvick and Gordon will be looking to make it into Victory Lane in Saturday's Sharpie 500 Nextel Cup event, simply making it through Bud Pole qualifying will be a victory in itself for Teague. Having secured sponsorship from Tennessee based the New Peoples Bank and a car and engine from Robert Yates Racing; a Herculean effort will be required from his Means-Jenkins Racing team if Teague is to make his first Cup Series start since the autumn of 1994.
"It's going to be a busy week for me at Bristol, but that's the way I like it," said Gordon, who finished 35th in last year's Sharpie 500. "I've never done a triple before so it's pretty big for us. I think it is definitely going to work in my favor, especially for Team Cingular.
"Bristol is a race track where experience does help. It's all about building momentum and rhythm. I will be able to take things from the truck race Wednesday and apply that to the Busch race Friday and then take from both of those experiences and apply that to Saturday night's race."
"Bristol is special to me because it brings back a lot of memories," added Harvick, who has failed to complete just one lap out of a possible 3,500 at the 'Worlds Fastest Half Mile' in Nextel Cup competition since graduating from the Busch Series in 2001. "I grew up on a half-mile, high-banked racetrack in Bakersfield. Bristol is one of those places where we've had a lot of success. I've won Busch races and finished second a couple of times in a Cup car. We always seem to end the race running really good there and that's a big plus heading into this weekend"
"I don't think it will be that hard," continued Harvick on racing three times in one weekend. "Bristol is one of my favorite racetracks and when we looked on the schedule and saw that they were all together again, we decided to do it.
"The nice thing is that we have a day off between running the Truck and the Busch Series races. It will give me a chance to relax before going full steam into the weekend. Racing both series is something I've become accustomed to now. It really helps me get adjusted and into a rhythm for the races."