Drivers find All-Star notes helpful in prepping for 600

CONCORD, N.C. -- While Tony Stewart was busy wondering what he might buy with the $1 million check he earned for winning Saturday night's Sprint All-Star Race, the rest of the field hoped the lessons learned in defeat would pay dividends next weekend, when the regular season resumes with the longest race on the schedule: the Coca-Cola 600.

For Kurt Busch, a third-place finish Saturday night was less important than the information gained, particularly during the first 50-lap segment, which was run without a caution.

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"We finished third, but that doesn't mean anything," Busch said. "If anything, we learned some things for next weekend's 600 that hopefully we can apply. That's the good news of it.

"The fact that our car seemed like it would handle OK, but the other cars would come near us the longer that we ran. It's something that you don't know if you're setting up into the car, it's just something that you're dealt."

Denny Hamlin, who finished fourth, was able to make his car stick to the bottom groove and steadily worked his way back from his 18th starting position.

"It gives us a lot of confidence," Hamlin said. "When we run like pooh here on the All-Star week, a lot of times it transfers over to the 600. I'm jacked up about that run. We made strides. We came here with a totally different package, to try to get better and get me more comfortable on these big tracks, and it has worked so far."

Rookie Joey Logano, who won the fan vote, went from 21st to eighth. An extra 100 laps against the best drivers in the series was exactly what he needed to prepare for NASCAR's longest race.

"[I learned] just where to be on the race track, what I want in the race car, what the track did night to day," Logano said. "Just little things like that, typical going to race track-type of things, finding little stuff on the race track, a little line here a little stuff there. I'll write it down and read it before I get here again."

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Kurt Busch looks forward to the Coca-Cola 600 after a third-place run in the All-Star Race.

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Seeing how the track changed as it cooled also was important for Jimmie Johnson, who otherwise had a miserable night. He scrapped the wall early in the third segment, then spun out to bring out the first caution in the final sprint, winding up 13th.

"The balance of the track really changed through the night and I didn't expect it to have that big of a swing from the start of the race on," Johnson said. "I also learned, and I knew this in the back of my mind, but track position was so much more important than I ever thought it would be."

That was on Busch's mind, as well, particularly how to make his car handle well in both long runs and the possibility of a short sprint or green-white-checkered finish.

"For a 600-mile race, you definitely want to be good on the long runs," Busch said. "What we can't do to ourselves is when we get to the end of the race, like it is right now. The track is cool, the temperatures have gone down, the lap times really pick up and that's where we've struggled a little bit -- to lay those quick lap times down when tracks cool off."

Fifth-place finisher Carl Edwards was another driver who used the All-Star Race to file away important information for future reference. But at the same time, he wouldn't have minded having an extra $1 million in his pocket.

"[We weren't] that great all night, but the last run we were actually pretty good passing people and moving to the front," Edwards said. "I think we've got something to build on for the 600, but I'd like to know what it feels like to be over there in Victory Lane at this All-Star Race sometime.

"I learned tons of stuff. I learned lots of things and I really did have a good time there at the end. We just needed some more laps and we won't need more laps in the 600. There will be plenty."