Nascar Racing Online

Archive for June, 2009

The past week is one that defending Truck Series champion Johnny Benson doesn’t want to remember, ever. Just days after seeing his team implode due to funding problems, he was involved in a horrific wreck at a Michigan track.

Running in a Super Modified race at the Berlin Raceway in Marne, Michigan, Benson and another driver collided on the very first lap of the race, sending Benson careening into the wall. His car was covered in flame before safety crews could get there, and it looked very grim indeed for Benson. Thankfully, he not only survived, he’s been upgraded to "fair" condition, and he suffered "only" a broken rib in the wreck.

We’re still working through the process for showing video here at Yahoo! Sports, so I’ll defer to some other sites for the, shall we say, extralegal crash video. Here’s video of the actual crash itself from a newscast, and here’s fan video. Scary stuff; glad he’s okay.

Johnny Benson upgraded to fair condition after Saturday’s crash [SceneDaily]

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Been awhile since we had a good pit-stop caption, so here you go. Make of Jamie McMurray‘s stop what you will. Have at it!

After the jump, a non-NASCAR-approved vehicle at the track.

There were plenty of "Dale Jr. missed pit stall" and borderline 9/11 references that I decided to let you find for yourselves at the original post. Here are a few more:

RobLobster43:
Dale Jr’s Ego arrives late to the race.

2112dude:
"No tires, boys, this will be a gas’n'go!"

Vaffanculo:
Dear President Obama,
This is how you Photoshop a plane, flying over a certain location, without scaring the Bejeebeez out of an entire city.
Sincerely,
Vaffanculo 

Drew:
Owner/Racer Tony Stewart decides to expand his business to owner/racer/ultimate badass with his own B-52 bomber.

Brett V:
After getting all hopped up on Amp Energy and crystal meth, Dale Jr. and Jeremy Mayfield hijack a cargo plane and head for Mexico.

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Any time you go to Michigan, you run the risk of having Kid Rock pop up in your photos. And look — it’s happened again! Hot off Kyle Petty’s Twitter feed, here’s Kyle hanging with My Name Is Kiiiiiiiiid before the Michigan race. Kyle’s a golfer; wonder if Kid will talk him into hitting off a beer can the way he did with John Daly last year.

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For the seventh consecutive race, Kyle Busch dominated and led the most laps of a Nationwide  Series event. But for the fifth of those seven, it was another driver who hoisted the trophy as Joey Logano won the Meijer 300 Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway.

Busch was flat out dominating, leading six times for 162 laps before an ill-advised adjutment forced the Gibbs no. 18 to tighten-up in the final laps. Logano was bad-fast all afternoon, including on pit road where NASCAR penalized him for speeding on lap 74.

The penalty made little difference to Logano as the Nationwide sophomore restarted 15th and charged back to the front in time to retake the lead from Busch with ten laps remaining.

The victory caps off an incredible afternoon for Logano. The win was his second of the season (third career) and second at Kentucky. The 18-year old also scored the victory from the pole in similar fashion to his first career victory last June at the 1.5 asphalt oval.

“It’s really cool,” Logano said. “This place is one of my favorite race tracks. It’s one of those places that just suits you. To win two-for-two here, that’s really cool for me and the whole team. I guess that’s the first time anyone’s ever done that here, so it’s pretty neat. We’ve got two poles, two wins — perfect record here, so that’s pretty cool.”

The rest of the top five included Busch, Brad Kaselowski, Brendam Gaughan and Justin Allgaier. Jason Leffler, Michael Annett, Burney Lammar, Ricky Stenhouse and Kelly Bires rounded out the top ten.

With his runner up finish, Busch extends his Nationwide points lead to137 points over Carl Edwards. Edward finished three laps down in 20th place after numerous pit infractions.

Onwards to Milwaukee.

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This week, we’re honored to be joined by the man … the myth … the legend that is Dexter Bean! Ten feet tall, he is! The terror of NASCAR! So good, he can win races even while only turning right!

Okay, the truth is Dexter Bean is a 22-year-old driver who’s just now making his break into Sprint Cup racing. But over at the Yahoo! chat room, we saw him show up out of nowhere in the All-Star showdown, and so we immediately began creating myths about him. And once we got done with that silliness, we simply had to know more about him. As you’ll see, he’s running a single-car family operation on the thinnest of margins, but he and the rest of the #51 team are making a go of it. They debuted at the Sprint race in Pocono, and will next race in New Hampshire. Beyond that, feel free to create whatever legends you like surrounding Dexter Bean.

Feel free to give comments and suggestions at jay.busbee@yahoo.com. Play, download or subscribe to us through our new iTunes site; we’ll love you no matter what you do.

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So remember last weekend, when everybody was all excited about Robby Gordon winning the Baja 500 and then jetting across the country to run at Pocono? Yeah, well, turns out that the story was a bit too good to be true.

Gordon, who’ll apparently race anything that’s not chained down or on fire, knocked off the field by a mere five minutes, crossing the finish line in downtown Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico after 432 miles.

Problem was, Gordon apparently cut quite a few corners along the way. Not literally; he didn’t leave the race course, but he did exceed the maximum allowable speed of 60 mph while traveling on a highway. (Aside: Only 60 mph? Really?) There’s also a YouTube video out there somewhere of Gordon’s truck taking fuel, also a violation.

SCORE International, the governing body overseeing the race, dinged Gordon with a 10-minute penalty for the speed and a 90-minute penalty for the refueling. The penalties dropped Gordon to seventh place. Gordon has, as yet, made no public statement on the penalties. It’s worth noting, however, that prior accusations of him cheating in a March off-road race were withdrawn.

If there’s any solace Gordon can take, it’s that nearly every vehicle competing in the race received penalties. Of the 21 trucks in the race, only five didn’t receive penalties, and two of those didn’t even finish the race.

(Thanks to Dee and the other tipster who sent me this one.)

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Matt Kenseth, losing in a go-kart race. Hmmm. Not a stunning endorsement for your Sprint credentials, Matt. (Gracias to Carol for the find.)

Welcome, everybody, to Midnight Marbles. For those of you just joining us here from the Vickers-in-NYC post, glad to have you aboard. This is the place where we hang and talk whatever — NASCAR, recipes, music, politics, anything. Pop in, introduce yourself, say hello to the regulars. And regulars, make everybody feel welcome. We’re all friends here, even the Kyle and Junior fans. See you in a bit with more stuff.

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This is just flat-out cool: Wednesday, Brian Vickers and Team Red Bull decided to give jaded New Yorkers a taste of NASCAR craftsmanship. So amid the cabs and bicycle couriers, Vickers chose his spot, and boom:

That’s a thing of beauty right there. And even though Vickers was only stopped for fourteen seconds, he still picked up a passenger, and got him to LaGuardia in record time. (Not really, but it must’ve been tempting.)

New York has long been a target of NASCAR; plans for a track in Staten Island have burbled up and down with regularity. But we’ve all been missing the obvious: why not a race down Manhattan’s concrete canyons? Hey, it works in video games, so it’s got to be a good idea, right?

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For those just waking up from their annual Pocono beauty rests, here’s a few things that happened last weekend.

• Tony Stewart won his first points race as an owner. While Smoke’s season has been impressive, let’s take a step back. He’s getting credited with being the first owner/driver to win since Ricky Rudd won in 1998. Technically that’s true, but Stewart bought in to an existing team with sound infrastructure already in place. This wasn’t like Robby Gordon or even Michael Waltrip building a team from scratch. All credit to Stewart for landing sponsorship, aligning with Hendrick and going out and driving the wheels off every week, but it’s hardly the same as Rudd or an independent driver/owner turning the trick.
• NASCAR implemented double-file restarts at Pocono. The decision itself seems like a simple and logical move to get the lead lap cars closer together at the front of the field. Whether the change is positive or negative is not the point. What I struggle with is whether any midseason rule change is good or bad for the sport. Excluding safety concerns, no other sport installs or changes rules in the middle of a season. If a 2pt conversion or instant replay is a good idea, it has to wait until the next season to change. NASCAR changes rules whenever they think it’s necessary. On the positive side someone could say NASCAR is proactive. If something is a good idea, why wait for next year? Of course people could also say that officials are simply reacting to the latest controversey (i.e. freezing the field on cautions) and making the rules up as they go. I’m stuck in the middle on this one. Any thoughts?
• Silly Season has been slow to gain speed, but according to SI.com, Martin Truex might be the first big piece to fit in place. According to Tim Tuttle, Truex’s initial option was possibbly Hendrick’s #5 car until Mark Martin opted for another fulltime go in 2010. So the top two options for the biggest free agent prize are (Stewart)-Haas-CNC Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing. Who would have imagined that last sentence a year ago? Maybe next year we’ll be hearing gossip about Jeff Gordon weighing his options between Petty Enterprises and Phoenix Racing.

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Every day, we bring you the best in NASCAR news and opinion. Get your day rolling right … or left, whichever.

• Oh sweet mercy, who greenlit a pink paint job? Check this complete list of paint scheme fails. Ouch. [All Left Turns]

• Check out the starting grid of the Indy 500-that-coulda-been: Casey Mears, Mike Bliss, Robbie Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Max Papis, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, John Andretti, Ryan Newman, J.J. Yeley, Juan Pablo Montoya, A.J. Allmendinger, Jimmie Johnson, Dave Blaney, Sam Hornish Jr., Scott Speed, Paul Menard, Colin Braun, Jason Leffler, Bryan Clauson, Ken Schrader, Jacques Villeneuve and Patrick Carpentier. Bump Drafts makes a good case that NASCAR’s done something right to snag guys that would have been more likely to go open-wheel in past decades. [Bump Drafts]

• The Detroit Lions‘ head coach will serve as the honorary marshal for the LifeLock 400 this weekend. Five bucks says you can’t name him. [Scene Daily]

• High praise for Ryan McGee and ESPN’s NASCAR Now program in its handling of the Mayfield situation. [The Daly Report]

• Hey, look who’s coming back at Infineon — Boris Said! And he’s driving the 08 car for John Carter! (Who?) [NASCAR.com]

Got a link/tip? Hit us up at jay.busbee@yahoo.com and follow us on Twitter.

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