NASCAR Winston Cup Brickyard 400 Preview -- #4, Sterling Martin
24 July 1997
#4 Sterling Marlin, Kodak Gold Film Chevrolet Monte Carlo
NASCAR Winston Cup Series
Brickyard 400 Advance
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
STERLING MARLIN NOTES & QUOTES: BRICKYARD 400
'It wasn't Daytona but we knew it was big'
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Driver Sterling Marlin and the Kodak Gold Film Chevrolet
team head next to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for what has become one of
NASCAR's biggest - and most important - events of the year. The Brickyard 400
will be in its fourth season next week, and Marlin hopes to join Jeff Gordon,
Dale Earnhardt and Dale Jarrett as a winner at the famed speedway.
A win would be the tonic the Kodak Gold Film Chevrolet team could use right
now. Piles of misfortune and enough bad luck to fill the crawl space under a
million ladders have plagued the team this season. When able to overcome
misfortune, they have shone - coming from a lap down after five laps at
Daytona to finish third in the July Pepsi 400, for example; and coming from a
lap down after cutting a tire on the second lap to finish 10th in the May
Dover event. The team has constantly overcome adversity not of its own making.
With the unkind luck that has plagued the team this season, few would be
surprised Marlin is the 13th-ranked NASCAR driver at the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway. His winnings of $236,080 and his best finish of seventh place him
there. He was 39th a year ago after getting caught up in an accident with
Kyle Petty early in the event.
Son of long-time NASCAR veteran Coo Coo Marlin, Sterling grew up on the
Winston Cup tracks, helping his father when and where he could. His big break
came when he joined Morgan-McClure Motorsports to drive the Kodak Gold Film
Chevrolet at the beginning of the 1994 season. Out of the box, he won the
Daytona 500 and has added five other race victories since then, including the
1995 Daytona 500.
The thoughts of Kodak Gold Film Chevrolet driver Sterling Marlin heading into
Indianapolis:
"Just like everybody else in racing, I grew up with Indianapolis. It's just
that it wasn't always first on my list. When you're a kid and especially when
you're a kid who's the son of a stock car racer, you think of Daytona and
Darlington and Charlotte. Indianapolis is another place and another thing.
You know it's important and you know it's important in racing but how can it
compare? We knew it wasn't Daytona but we knew it was big.
"I mean, when I was a kid, you just couldn't do any better than win at
Nashville. Sure, maybe somebody won the Indianapolis 500 but that wasn't any
big deal. Let him come out to Nashville and beat Daddy and those guys out
there. Then I would believe he was something special.
"I guess you're thinking tends to change as you get older. You start
realizing that big things really are big things. Indianapolis is definitely a
big thing. Sure, I'd love to try it sometime in an Indy car. I never thought
the day would come when me or anybody else would drive the place in a stock
car. I'd never even been inside the place until NASCAR first came here. It
was pretty impressive four years ago and it's pretty impressive now.
Indianapolis is one of those tracks that is just as awesome when you're
standing still as when you're going around it at 175 miles per hour.
"We're going to attack the place. I don't think there is any other way to
race there. You sure can't be tentative. You have to go at it aggressively.
Now, 'aggressive' and 'stupid' aren't interchangeable. It's just like any
other track. If you overdrive the thing, you're going to be picking wall
splinters our of your backside. If you aren't aggressive enough with it, then
you're going to be seeing the leaders in your rearview mirror pretty quickly.
There's something like a 'smooth aggressive,' and that's what you're trying
to hit every lap at Indy.
"We feel this Kodak Gold Film Chevrolet team could do pretty well up there.
We're going to Indianapolis with the idea of turning our season around.
Daytona (the team came from a lap down and 41st place to finish third) was a
sign we're heading the way we want to head. We had a little trouble at Pocono
and the cautions didn't fall the way we needed them too, but we still were
headed for at least a top 10 finish in the first half of that race. We're not
down. We're ready for try it again.
"The good thing about the way the schedule is is that you can't get too down
on yourself for anything. There isn't any time to do it. We do have this
weekend off but there's plenty of work going on at the race shop getting
ready for all those races in a row coming up. Even if we wanted to kick
ourselves for a race this season we would have to wait until the end of the
year to schedule it. If you're going to have a "Pity Party" in NASCAR racing,
it's got to come in December."
By Williams Company of America, Inc.