CONCORD, N.C. – As the Hendrick Motorsports teams are getting ready to head to Nashville Superspeedway this Sunday to take on the 1.33-mile track, No. 48 crew chief Greg Ives is breaking out his notes from the early days of testing at the Tennessee venue.
“(Going to Nashville) was always a fun flight on a Monday morning or a Tuesday afternoon or Thursday morning before we flew somewhere else,” Ives said on SiriusXM Radio. “We used to test there all the time and had a lot of fun.”
Ives revealed that the plan for Sunday’s inaugural NASCAR Cup Series event for the Ally 400 is the same plan he implements every week before the driver Alex Bowman and No. 48 team heads to the track – making sure that the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE is as fine-tuned as possible before the race.
“We have to continue to bring solid foundation cars and when you get to the racetrack, you can be close just with that,” Ives said. “Whether it’s shocks, springs, bars, all that stuff, you can tune it in practice.”
The adjustments Ives and his crew have made this year have yielded the No. 48 Ally team two wins, four top-five finishes and eight top-10s through the first 16 points-paying races in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season.
Furthering the novelty of the debut race, the race in Nashville is sponsored by Ally, the primary partner of the No. 48 Chevrolet, which allowed NASCAR Hall of Famers Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to have a friendly competition as to who could design a fan-favorite No. 48 scheme for the first-time event.
“All in all, it’s going to be a fun track going there with the Ally Chevrolet, designed by Dale Jr.,” Ives said. “Ally is sponsoring the race, so (I’m) looking forward to getting there and having a good show and getting some practice in.”
Be sure to tune in this Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN to see if the No. 48 team and the rest of the Hendrick Motorsports teams can tame the 1.33-mile track at Nashville.