Watching the 2001 July Daytona race.
The Eurys and DEI put some special cars together.
You’re gonna see possibly the best car they ever built.
@NBCSN

The Eurys and DEI put some special cars together.
You’re gonna see possibly the best car they ever built.
@NBCSN
We weren’t qualifying well with our cars back then. They handled real well and it was a matter of time before we could make moves. You just had to be patient.
I remember you had a choice between a couple different rear gears. You also had some opportunity to shape the cowl at the back of the hood. How you made those two choices work together was really important. We worked on that a lot at the track.
This chassis was built with a raised floor pan. We had been pulling the cars down with shocks extremely low and floor pans were raised for more room. New shock/spring rules stopped allowing us to do that. But we didn’t change/lower the floor pan....
I felt like that unintentionally made this car fly through the corner. In travel it didn’t create as much drag under the car in the corners and seemed to maintain runs for a longer period of time, entire laps or more. It was wild.
When we showed up to the track for these plate races, Tony Jr walked around with a file all week. He never quit working on the rear spoiler. He filed it all weekend until it quit fitting the templates. He never gave up on improving the car all weekend.
Tom Ryan was in charge of building out our air boxes and cowls. The best in NASCAR. He was after me every time we ran a lap in practice asking what the car did well, didn’t do well. He was sure he could change the cowl & make the car draft better, lead better, push better.
The broadcast is talking about loose. It was slick and sideways. If you had any kind of push though you would eat up the RF tire quick. I remember the car stepping out a few times leading @MSTheGunslinger off turn 2 that scared me pretty good.
Lap 88 and DEI has drove their 3 cars to the front. @NBCSN #RacingWeekNBCSN
I’m thinking with 11 to go I got time to get to the front.
Now with another yellow, we are running out of laps. I’m getting sick to my stomach worrying that we are going to lose this race. The tension was heavy and Tony Sr gives an interview during the caution that said what was on all of our minds. He wasn’t happy with the late yellows.
The Eury’s temperature really steered our team. They were great to work with and I think all the crew guys and shop guys loved them like family. Tony Sr was fiery. All the time. We called him “Rosie” because his cheeks we always red.
The biggest moment in these final laps is a specific push I get from Mike Wallace. Keep an eye out for that. It created a run that my car maintained for nearly half a lap.
Mayfields last push was the ticket to get the lead.
Now I’m nervous again. The Gibbs boys. Haven’t seen em all night, don’t know what they got. Can they team up and get us?
Never been so happy to see @MW55 in my mirror.
I think this is at least the second time I have live tweeted this race. Such a special night. Love to relive it. Have watched this race a dozen times or more. The best part is the emotion of the Eurys, @MW55 and the rest of DEI.
Damn so many familiar faces in the post race celebration. I miss all those people. I miss those days at DEI. We’d have some good years together before it would eventually end.