What Happened in Practice [at Kansas]? #74-Tont Raines responsed: “It blew an oil plug out of the oil pump and oiled down the entire engine bay so it wouldn’t turn and it wouldn’t slow down and it hit the wall pretty hard. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful (laughs).” HOW HARD DID YOU HIT? “I was kind of ready for it because I knew I was going to hit it, obviously, and the car was going head-first into it so I jacked the brakes and the wheel and got it to where I thought it was going to flat or brush it and I thought that would be better. It just hit a lot harder than I expected it to. I thought I had slowed down some by then but it was all good. Everything worked well. The car is not very good though, now. It’s pretty well destroyed. We’ll just get the backup out andhopefully it will be as good. I just smelled smoke, oil burning, right when I went past the start finish line. Just as I was getting ready to turn in, I could tell by the feel of the wheels that there was oil on something, the right front tire had gone down, something was happening bad. When I turned in, it wouldn’t turn, obviously, and then I rolled off the gas and got on the brake and it wouldn’t slow down. I knew then that it was either blowing up or something had happened big. At that point it wasn’t about saving the car, it was about how I was going to hit. I’ve listened to these guys and they tell me how to wreck so I kind of leaned forward and got my HANS belts taught and then bounced her off the fence. I’m like ‘Wow, that didn’t feel so good’ but everything worked really good. I think all the improvements that we’ve made inside the car, I’ve not looked at it real close but looked at it a little bit, and it looks like it did everything that you’d hope for it to do.”(Camp and Assoc PR)(10-4-2003)
