Keeping cool is the key to winning

It's 500-laps of mayhem where even the winning car can drive into Victory Lane wrecked and beaten.

"You have to be aggressive on a short track, especially like Bristol," says Jeff Gordon. "If you are going to make a pass, you have to get through lapped traffic and be aggressive, but there is a time and place for it. If you don't drive wisely, you will get yourself caught up in an accident that is uncalled for.

"This is one of those places where you never know what is going to happen in front of you, so you have to stay on your toes and pay attention and just hope it's your day to make it to the finish. Making it to the finish is very important here, but one of the toughest things to do."

Gordon will start 15th in Sunday's Food City 500 NASCAR Winston Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway. He has won four races at Bristol and admits the emotional roller coaster is as difficult as the track itself.

"Your emotions are up and down," says Gordon. "You will be as happy as you can be, then you will be as angry as you can be. I think you always have to keep control of your emotions. That is the sign of a good race car driver, especially a driver and a team that is going to battle for a championship.

"I see a lot of very hard racing and sometimes you have to put your fender in there to make the move. That doesn't always make people happy. No one ever wants to do anything deliberate, but sometimes your patience runs out. Driving that is too aggressively can ruin some friendships out there."

One of Gordon's best moves came in this race in 1997, when he was able to knock Rusty Wallace out of the way in the third turn of the last lap. It got Wallace's Ford loose enough that it wiggled, which allowed Gordon to pull his Chevrolet low and beat Rusty to the chequered flag.

"I thought it was a great move," says Gordon. "I caught him on lapped traffic. He got held up a little bit, that allowed me to get up there to him. That's the closest I've ever gotten to somebody's rear bumper. If you are going to do it, you want to make it look really good and I made it look about as good as you can make it look right there."

What made Gordon's move such a surprise is that throughout his racing career, he has always been known as a smooth race driver. He left the rough stuff to others.

"It depends on who you are racing," says Gordon. "If you are racing a guy that you know if things are turned around they would do to you what you are about to do, you have to consider that. You will race Bill Elliott or Mark Martin on the last lap different that you will race a guy like Rusty Wallace or a guy like the late Dale Earnhardt. That has a lot to do with it."

Martin will start on the pole in Sunday's 500-lap race and admits that composure is as critical as the right tires and the horsepower generated by the engine.

"I think we face those same things at Martinsville as well," says Martin. "Bristol is a real fast race track. One little distraction can get you far enough behind that you're in trouble. It's a very intense race track at very close quarters, so we all know what happens when you put us under those conditions and then grind us in the ground for 500 laps around it.

"The drivers get fatigued and they get frustrated and they don't have the same amount of patience that they have when they're not dealing with those circumstances."

Part of the problem at Bristol is the way the track is shaped. Although it is a very short oval, it has the steepest banking in all of racing. That allows for fast speeds on a tight race track.

"This race track is called a short track and it is short in size, but because of the banks on it, it races like a superspeedway," adds Martin. "Martinsville races certainly like a short track and Michigan races like a short track as well, but, to me, driving and setting up for this race track is more like a speedway - more like a Charlotte or a Dover or something like that."

So, the driver who understands how to keep cool may be the one who finds the path to victory lane on Sunday.