by Bill Karadimos and Ed Coombs  |  About The Author   |  Discuss

ALL PHOTOS BY BILL KARADIMOS

The word of the day is HOT. Temperatures hovered in the 100 degree range which makes things almost unbearable. During his behind the hauler chat Jimmie Johnson said, "The first 20 minutes is really the toughest; I'd say the first and the last (20 minutes). Until you sweat enough and saturate the suit, then the air that does move through the car when the suit is saturated you have a little bit of an air conditioning effect that takes place. But the first 20, and then at the end of the race you're certainly tired, but until you sweat enough, which is kind of gross, but until you sweat enough, it's just not comfortable in the cars." Clearly, heat will be an issue again this weekend. I'm really not looking forward to it.

As I watched the Dupont team push of Jeff Gordon's car for practice there was I noticed there was fluid under the car. The team also noticed it and hooked up some cooling lines and rechecked the car before he went out to practice. I wondered if this would be a precursor to his weekend. 

Kasey Kahne won the pole award again. The hottest driver on the circuit said, "I came into today thinking that we had a good shot, but winning a pole at Infineon is tougher than it sounds." We'll see how he races Sunday.

You can contact Ed at coombse@speedwaymedia.com

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