Normally I start with a little bit of food talk, but this week is all about beer. Charlotte (Queen City) born beer that is. In the past couple of days I was able to visit two of the local breweries, both of which I would recomend as a side trip for anyone coming in town for the May (or October races). The first one I went to was the Carolina brewery http://www.carolinabeer.com/. It is in Mooreville across the street from the Penske shop. Their flagship beer is Carolina Blonde, but they have a nice selection of artisan and seasonal brews for the more adventurous. It is only open from 12-2 on Saturday afternoons, but for $5 you get a tour of the brewery and 5 six ounce sample glasses, which I can assure you is plenty if you are going to drive afterwards. The other brewery, Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, I visited just last night http://oldemeckbrew.com/. OMB is only about a month old and last night was thier opening night for thier tap room. They only make one beer right now called Copper, and it is a German style beer that is a medium amber color. It is not too bitter, but I fear the militant Bud Light drinker will find it to be too heavy. Nonetheless it was a fun little brewery and I recommend giving it a visit.

On to the racing. After a nice long off weekend, the circus is back out to Phoenix. PIR is for sure one of my favorite oval circuits. It is short and flat with corners of differing radius. All of these elements reward the drivers who are smooth and the teams that can get the big heavy Cup cars to corner well with out help from big banking. The location is superb as well, with the cactus dotted desert mountains providing a picturesque backdrop.

So if a car needs to turn well at Phoenix, what can you do to the setup to help that. One of the biggest items on the minds of the crew chiefs is RF camber. The tire that Goodyear brings to Phoenix likes to have alot of it. NASCAR mandates that you can only run 8 degrees of camber when the car rolls through the tech line, and at Phoenix, some of the teams will get close to maxing this out. More camber means that the car will turn better, but it also means the tires will wear out faster. This will make the cars slower late in a run, and could lead to tire failures. The drivers will be using alot of brakes here too, so expect to see openings in the nose of the car to duct cool air to the brakes and to the bead of the tire.

Another tool in the crew chiefs pocket to get the car to turn better is at the rear of the car. The rear suspension is a solid axle and there are two truck arms that mount it to the chassis. Below is a picture of the bottom of a Cup car showing the truck arms and where they mount. Instead of having both truck arms mounts at the same height, one of the truck arms will be low, and the other one will be high. Doing this will get the rear axle to steer when the car gets into the corner, and it will help the car turn better.

As far as predictions, you just get the feeling that the big teams will dominate again. Hendrick has historically had a really strong flat track program and I would expect them to be at the front again. Harvick used to dominate at this track though, so I will go for a win for the 29 with a Hendrick piece in tow. For some reason, the 9 can get a result at Phoenix, so I will tip Kasey for a top 5. RG has not been that good in a cup car here since 2005, and I fear that run will continue. A top 30 is about all that can be expected unless they have done alot of homework.