Nascar Racing Online

Archive for February, 2010

Generally, there’s not a whole lot of crossover between NASCAR and winter sports, certain Coors Light commercials notwithstanding. But Geoff Bodine is out to change all that.

Bodine, best known as the 1986 Daytona 500 winner, has become an integral part of the U.S. bobsledding effort by bringing design smarts and mindset from the track to the snow. Back in 1992, he discovered that the U.S. bobsledding team was trying — and failing — to beat the vastly superior European teams in Euro-made sleds that those sneaky cross-ponders dumped on America. Darn those Europeans!

NBC analyst John Morgan told the AP the story of how he used to acquire his sleds — by paying European sliders in cash on the spot after races for their sleds. Ugly scene, that, and one that a good old American like Bodine couldn’t abide.

And you don’t try to out-engineer a NASCAR guy, so Bodine established the Bo-Dyn Project in connection with designer Bob Cuneo. Since then, Bodine and Bo-Dyn have been the lead design firm in helping the U.S. rise from obscurity and irrelevance to championship status.  

To defray costs — even used sleds can cost $100,000 — Bodine hosts an annual bobsledding competition in which various NASCAR drivers throw themselves down the ol’ ice chute; this year’s champion was Joey Logano. Proceeds raised from the competition help support Bo-Dyn’s efforts.

The four-man bobsled — sorry, "bobsleigh" — competition runs Friday and Saturday. And with any luck, the U.S. will do a burnout on the medal stand.

By the way, Olympics fans, make sure you keep an eye on Fourth-Place Medal, Yahoo! Sports’ Olympic blog. The rest of the planet’s reading it; make sure you are, too.

For Geoff Bodine, no one-track mind [AP via Washington Post]

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Here’s something that could go spectacularly well or really, really badly. Michael Waltrip is going to be hosting a new traveling "heartland" talent search on SPEED called "Fast Track to Fame," and he’s going to be looking for folks with "heartland" appeal … whatever that is. (Translation: go easy on the Sarah Palin jokes.)

The traveling armada is looking for singers, dancers, musicians, comedians, sword swallowers, carnival geeks, strippers … okay, maybe not those last few. (But give it a try. You never know.) The tryouts will follow the tried-and-true "American Idol"/"Gong Show" model, with judges sizing up acts and, presumably, offering some folksy, homespun wisdom on the value of holding onto your dreams or whatever. 

Think you’ve got what it takes to be on the show? Head on over to the website and apply. Weekly winners will get to strut their stuff on Friday and Saturday nights of races at the SPEED Stage set up at each track. And I’m sure that the fans watching there will be ever so polite and dignified, particularly on Saturday night after 36 hours of drinking.

"Fast Track to Fame" kicks off on March 1 on SPEED at 8 p.m. Eastern, and will continue through early June. And with any luck, Mikey will replace Simon Cowell on "Idol" shortly thereafter.

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Before you read this article I want to make it perfectly clear to all of you that I was, and still am, a Dale Earnhardt fan.

With that being said I am approaching this with an open mind and with an unbiased opinion – as much as there is to give anyway.

It would seem that a little ol’ fanpost written by our up-and-comer-writer-in-training, Athletic, has sparked a bit of debate about retiring numbers in NASCAR – especially the #3!

Now with me being an avid Dale Earnhardt fan I would love for his number to be retired, but let’s think about this for a minute, is this really reasonable?

Yes!  And … well … no, not really.

You see numbers are owned by the car owners not the driver, unless you are a owner driver like Tony Stewart with his soon to be famed #14.

That famed slanted white number 3 with red trim is owned by Richard Childress, in fact he drove with that style of number before Earnhardt did.

Car numbers are not like jersey numbers.  Dale Earnhardt drove cars with numbers of 2, 15, & 3 among others while Wayne Gretzky had the number 99 his whole pro career.  There’s a difference here.  The car number is tied to the car owner/sponsor not the driver where as the jersey number is the other way around, that is why Tony Stewart didn’t take the 20 with him when he left JGR, it was owned by JGR and tied in with the sponsor Home Depot.

Now granted just because a number has been tied in with a sponsor doesn’t mean it can move when the sponsor leaves, not so.  In the last 15 years the sponsor Budweiser has been on cars numbered 11, 25, 8, and 9 because they don’t own the number either – its the car owners and they’re not giving up those numbers too easily.

I understand that and respect it, and then there is the fact that there are only 110 numbers ( 0-99, 00-09) available to race with because there are no triple digits allowed and if you start retiring numbers then you’re eventually going to run out of numbers.  Granted it would take a while, but the possibility is there.

So what do you do to honour some famous drivers who drove to fame with a number that eventually became as famous as them making them intrinsically tied to each other like Earnhardt and the #3?

Retire the number I say … well not the number exactly but the trademarked number style.  I think they should retire the version of the number but not the number itself.

So what would happen in Earnhardt’s case would be that NASCAR would retire the RCR version of  the fiercely thrusted white and red number three that was synonymous with Earnhardt while still allowing the number to be used in a differently designed way other than the RCR version that Earnhardt made famous as he became more famous himself.

Now RCR would still technically own their version of the number 3 that was retired so they could still capitalize on any profit that might be made from it through souvenir/memorabilia sales.  And once that version of the number is retired then RCR could still use the number three on their car they could race again.  That means that Richard could give the number to his grandson as long as it is a differently designed one compared to the Earnhardt one.

This would hold true for any number being retired whether its Petty’s 43, Johnson’s 48, or Gordon’s 7.

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Hmm. Kasey Kahne‘s crew does a bit of quick-change repair work here on the No. 9 on Sunday. But that’s the official story. What’s really happening here? You know, don’t you? Answer below.

After the jump, Jimmie Johnson and Snoop Dogg are mad, ’cause everybody got they cups, but they ain’t pitched in …

Plenty of vanilla/jizzle humor this time around …

Furiousd:
The Double Jizzle and the D-O-Double Gizzle!

Rick C:
Snoop: "Bathroom that way?"

Godsmack:
Token white guy used to talk to the cops when they show up.

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Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Shell Pennzoil Chevrolet, takes a turn alongside Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s/Kobalt Tools Chevrolet, during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Auto Club 500 via nascar-assets.americaneagle.com.   Credit: Jeff Gross/Getty Images

Well yesterday’s action at Fontana saw some good racing, another green/white/checker, and oh ya, another Jimmie Johnson win.

Now before you go thinking I’m jumping on the “I hate Jimmie Johnson” bandwagon I’m not.  Jimmie Johnson won that race because (to paraphrase Kevin Harvick) he’s got a couple of golden horseshoes stuffed up inside the trapdoor of his firesuit.

The best car didn’t win on Sunday, the luckiest driver did – that’s all.  If Jimmie was going to pit one lap later he would have been behind the pace car and not in front of it which allowed him to go to the front when everyone else came in under the yellow.

Races have been won and lost this way since the inception of the caution flag, so you Jimmie haters get over it.  If it were anyone else, except for maybe Kyle Busch, everyone would be saying something different right now.

There has been some interesting debate about Jimmie’s win in one of our recent fan posts, and I would have to go with the people who are saying that is was luck that he won and not anything else.  Harvick had one of the best cars, but he hit the wall trying to run Jimmie down and I guess after that little mishap he started thinking big picture and point raced for the remaining few laps, after all second place is better than a thirty-second place.

But I also want to offer you all this; you have to be good to be lucky too!

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Start-and-parkers. They’re the parsley of NASCAR — they don’t really get in the way and they don’t have a whole lot of effect on the race as a whole, but if you think about them, you wonder what the hell they’re doing there in the first place.

Start-and-parkers — the guys who start the race then peel off soon afterward with "engine problems" and collect a fat little check — drive some people nuts. The idea of someone coming to a race with no intention of, you know, racing is, on a competitive level, a bit offensive. Don’t show up unless you’re ready to go the distance, some fans charge, and they have a point. 

Now, NASCAR might — I say might — be paying attention. NASCAR officials confiscated Blaney’s No. 66 Prism Motorsports Toyota after Blaney had run just 43 laps. Standard enough, right? Well, problem is, NASCAR has said the car won’t be returned until next Saturday — long after the time to qualify for Las Vegas — and since Prism Motorsports doesn’t have a backup, Prism Motorsports is, as we used to say, screwed, blued and tattooed.

Over at FoxSports.com, Lee Spencer has an interesting column suggesting why NASCAR might be cracking down on Prism — because they’ve got two cars making a grab for race cash, not just one:

“It’s one thing to try to race each week,” said the manager of a team
that generally finishes among the 40-somethings who spoke on the
condition of anonymity. “But I think doing two (teams) to get a check
isn’t going to sit very well with NASCAR.”

Prism took home more than $160,000 for its two cars, which ran a total of 83 laps. (Michael McDowell was in the other.) And while that seems a bit suspect, or at least frustrating, Prism has said it would be willing to run a whole race, and a whole season, if it had the sponsorship money to do so.

Bottom line: nobody’s happy with the start-and-parkers, but it’s the way the rules are set up. If NASCAR is indeed cracking down on them, it needs to just come out and say so. Of all the NASCAR initiatives so far, that’s the one least likely to draw fan heat.

Questions arise as NASCAR confiscates start-and-park car [FoxSports]

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Ah, those tired old formula questions that journalists ask drivers. "How did it feel when you almost won the race?" is one of my favorites. Seems the retired drivers are not immune from this treatment; they just get different questions. For example: "If you were building a team right now, what current driver would you choose?"

Racing legend Junior Johnson, who won fifty races as a driver and six Championships as an owner, gets this kind of thing fairly regularly. In 2008, a reporter for ESPN asked him to choose between Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, and Carl Edwards. Johnson had three championships, Carl had a great season and the cover of Men’s Fitness, and Kyle had 8 Cup wins that season, and an attitude.

And the winner was… drumroll please… Kyle Busch. (Insert record-scratch sound effect here.) "I like his hell-bent driving style," Johnson was quoted as saying. "He’s going to do what he needs to do. You’ve just got to polish him a little." (A little?)

Asked a similar question just a few days ago, Junior Johnson would choose … Tony Stewart. Not four-time champion Jimmie Johnson. "I like Tony Stewart’s kind of driving; and Jimmie Johnson’s a great race driver, there’s no question about it, but he’s got one of the greatest mechanics I’ve ever seen come along, and I’ve had some great ones," Johnson said Sunday. (I hear his crew chief’s nothing to sneeze at either.) But, Johnson continued, "I just think Tony, I would take Tony over the rest of them." ALL of them? Really? Wow.

Which leaves me wondering what kind of a quandary Junior would be in if he were asked to choose between, say, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski?
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I’ve got a busy day ahead but fortunately I’ll be within earshot of the TV so I’ll be able to listen to the race and pop into the room when something important happens or when I need a break.

If you get a chance during the race follow my twitter lists and see what the media, wives, girlfriends, etc are tweeting about you just might get some juicy info before the FOX crew does.  If I were a producer at FOX I’d have somebody monitoring NASCAR’s Twitter accounts to get the latest info and feed it to my broadcast crew and out it up on FOX’s web page ASAP.

See you after the jump, as I’ll be checking in and posting throughout the day.

POS	CAR	DRIVER	MAKE	SPONSOR	SPEED	TIME	BEHIND
1	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	Bass Pro Shops / Tracker	183.744	39.185	Leader
2	42	Juan Montoya	Chevrolet	Target	183.477	39.242	-0.057
3	33	Clint Bowyer	Chevrolet	Cheerios / Hamburger Helper	183.127	39.317	-0.132
4	9	Kasey Kahne	Ford	Budweiser / Team USA	182.913	39.363	-0.178
5	66	Dave Blaney	Toyota	Prism Motorsports	182.908	39.364	-0.179
6	29	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet	Shell / Pennzoil	182.899	39.366	-0.181
7	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	Lowe’s / Kobalt Tools	182.890	39.368	-0.183
8	77	Sam Hornish Jr.	Dodge	Auto Club	182.811	39.385	-0.200
9	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	Interstate Batteries	182.788	39.390	-0.205
10	5	Mark Martin	Chevrolet	GoDaddy.com	182.741	39.400	-0.215
11	00	David Reutimann	Toyota	Aaron’s Dream Machine	182.597	39.431	-0.246
12	2	Kurt Busch	Dodge	Miller Lite	182.292	39.497	-0.312
13	82	Scott Speed	Toyota	Red Bull	182.195	39.518	-0.333
14	31	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet	Caterpillar	182.085	39.542	-0.357
15	6	David Ragan	Ford	UPS	181.974	39.566	-0.381
16	14	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet	Old Spice / Office Depot	181.883	39.586	-0.401
17	36	Mike Bliss	Chevrolet	Wave Energy Drink	181.749	39.615	-0.430
18	39	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	Haas Automation	181.726	39.620	-0.435
19	20	Joey Logano	Toyota	The Home Depot	181.671	39.632	-0.447
20	17	Matt Kenseth	Ford	Crown Royal	181.502	39.669	-0.484
21	12	Brad Keselowski	Dodge	AAA Insurance	181.333	39.706	-0.521
22	78	Regan Smith	Chevrolet	Furniture Row Companies	181.324	39.708	-0.523
23	83	Brian Vickers	Toyota	Red Bull	181.314	39.710	-0.525
24	09	Aric Almirola	Chevrolet	Phoenix Racing	181.314	39.710	-0.525
25	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	FedEx Freight	181.301	39.713	-0.528
26	47	Marcos Ambrose	Toyota	Armor All	181.228	39.729	-0.544
27	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevrolet	Amp Energy Juice / National Guard	181.109	39.755	-0.570
28	24	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet	DuPont	181.055	39.767	-0.582
29	43	A.J. Allmendinger	Ford	Best Buy	181.041	39.770	-0.585
30	55	Michael McDowell	Toyota	Prism Motorsports	180.895	39.802	-0.617
31	99	Carl Edwards	Ford	Aflac “You don’t know quack”	180.768	39.830	-0.645
32	87	Joe Nemechek	Toyota	FrontRowJoe.com	180.755	39.833	-0.648
33	71	Bobby Labonte	Chevrolet	TaxSlayer.com	180.587	39.870	-0.685
34	56	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	NAPA Auto Parts	180.523	39.884	-0.699
35	16	Greg Biffle	Ford	3M	180.325	39.928	-0.743
36	98	Paul Menard	Ford	Energizer / Menards	180.081	39.982	-0.797
37	19	Elliott Sadler	Ford	Stanley	179.919	40.018	-0.833
38	37	Kevin Conway*	Ford	Extenze	179.292	40.158	-0.973
39	34	Travis Kvapil	Ford	Long John Silver’s	178.975	40.229	-1.044
40	7	Robby Gordon+	Toyota	Warner Music Nashville / Whitney Duncan	176.302	40.839	-1.654
41	38	David Gilliland+	Ford	Taco Bell	176.207	40.861	-1.676
42	26	Boris Said+	Ford	Sacred Power / Southern Pride Trucking	-	-	-
43	13	Max Papis	Toyota	GEICO	180.501	39.889	-0.704
Did Not Qualify
44	190	Casey Mears	Chevrolet	Keyed-Up Motorsports	179.915	40.019	-0.834
45	135	Johnny Sauter	Chevrolet	Tommy Baldwin Racing	178.940	40.237	-1.052
46	46	Terry Cook*	Dodge	Whitney Motorsports	178.064	40.435	-1.250

+ Set by Owner Points
* Denotes Rookie

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[Editor's note: Kim McAllister, better known in the comments section as "KimRN," recently got the chance to hang with the reigning Daytona 500 champ as part of a special ticket promotion put on by Infineon Raceway. And this is her story.]

It couldn’t have been a nicer day in San Francisco. The early morning fog gave way to a warm, windy, sunny day. The plan was to meet Jamie McMurray at Vista Point, on the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge. But first, those of us on the two motorized cable cars gathered on the Willie Mays Plaza at AT&T Park. I went by myself, but you know how NASCAR fans are, I was most definitely not alone!

We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and pulled into Vista Point, hopped off the trolley and waited. We didn’t wait long — there was Jamie in front of the first cable car, taking pictures and signing autographs for the CHP officers who were to be our escorts through the city! No red lights or waiting for THIS two-trolley motorcade!

We were able to get a professional group shot of about 10 of us in front of the trolley with Jaime and somehow I wound up right next to him! This is good because when we get the photo from Infineon, I can crop out everyone else and it will look like just Jamie and me! (Sneaky, eh?). He was autographing everything, but he had autographed some Daytona 500 portraits for us ahead of time and that was good enough for me. The next stop: Fisherman’s Wharf.

This was a chance for Jamie to taste some famous Fisherman’s Wharf crab, but he had to work for it! A quick lesson in crab-cracking, a round of crab cocktails for everyone and we where whisked away to Ghirardelli Square.

The folks at Ghirardelli were ready! Jamie was presented with a huge basket of chocolates and hot fudge sundaes were served, and then it was back to Willie Mays Plaza for the rally and press conference.

And let me tell you, this was a whirlwind tour — all this took less than a half-hour!

Chairs had been reserved for the fans at the press conference and I managed to get third row center with a straight shot at Jamie. An executive from Infineon presented Jamie with three things: (a) a sign that said "right turn ahead" so he wouldn’t forget when he got to Sonoma, (b) a "can" of Sonoco fuel so he wouldn’t run out of gas on the last lap like he did in 2007 and (c) a magnum-sized bottle of wine with a special Daytona 500 label. This was funny, almost like a little "mini roast". A representative from the San Francisco Giants presented Jamie with a Giants baseball jersey with his name and number (and told Jamie not to be late for spring training the next day!) One of the original directors of Infineon, back when it was Sears Point Raceway, said some words and then Jamie talked briefly.

Jamie said he slept two hours the night of the race, two to three hours in New York and managed a full night’s sleep in San Francisco the night before, though he did not look the least bit tired. I think he’s running on pure adrenaline. He said that he had his images and memories from Daytona, so he didn’t want to watch the race and have those images conflict with his experience (I’m paraphrasing here). He said he rarely watches the races. He added that he and Greg Biffle are good friends.

The best part was the actual press conference. Not a lousy question in the bunch (Tony Stewart would have been proud). The best question was from a gentleman who asked Jamie to take us through the last lap from his vantage point, from inside the car, what he thought, what he saw, what he felt. I wish I could replicate what he said here, but I wouldn’t do it justice. I wish I had a tape recorder or a video camera with me. You could have heard a pin drop in the plaza. Hearing that answer will rank as one of my favorite NASCAR moments. 

And then it was over, and now Jamie is in L.A.

I am so happy I took advantage of this opportunity. NASCAR only comes around to northern California once a year, so when this landed in my backyard I figured I’d better take advantage of it. It was so much fun and it was over all too quick.

You know, we all had our different drivers. For me it’s Kasey, and I met Tony and Jimmie fans and Junior fans and Busch fans. But every one of us left that rally today with Jamie McMurray ranking as one of our favorites. I know I did.

[Thanks to Kim for the story. If you've got a NASCAR driver encounter of your own, hit us up at jay.busbee@yahoo.com.]
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FONTANA, CA – FEBRUARY 20: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 Z-Line Designs Toyota, celebrates on the track with the checkered flag after winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series Stater Bros. 300 at Auto Club Speedway on February 20, 2010 in Fontana, California. (Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Considering Joe Gibbs Racing entries had won the last four Nationwide Series races at Auto Club Speedway, it was no surprise that, yet again, JGR would be celebrating in victory lane following Saturday’s Stater Brothers 300. The identity of the driver, however, was maybe a little bit of a surprise.

It may sound odd to consider Kyle Busch in victory lane following a Nationwide Series race a surprise. After all, he’s the reigning Nationwide Series champion. On the other hand, he wasn’t the JGR driver that was dominant throughout the race. Instead, it was JGR driver Joey Logano who was at the point for 130 laps of the 150-lap event.

After claiming both front row starting spots for the Gibbs organization — Logano on the pole and Busch starting second — the two drivers were near the front all evening, except for a short time around the midway of the race when several cars stayed out under caution when both Logano and Busch came down pit road.

Busch did lead a few laps early on in rare moments when Logano wasn’t at the point. Things got testy, though, when Brendan Gaughan spun late in the race to create a green-white-checker finish situation.

In the final two-lap shootout to end the race, Biffle got by Logano on the restart to assume the lead. Logano then got shuffled back just slightly as Biffle, Busch, and Brad Keselowski fought it out for the win. Busch would get by Biffle on the final lap to claim his third win in the last four Nationwide events at Auto Club Speedway and give JGR its fifth-straight Nationwide win in Fontana.

Biffle finished in the runner-up position, and Keselowski claimed third. Logano, on the other hand, spun and wound up with an 11th-place finish. Meanwhile, Carl Edwards, a three-time Nationwide winner at ACS, finished fourth, and Steve Wallace rounded out the top-five.

To read more from this author, visit NASCAR Nationwide Examiner, follow her on Twitter, or become a fan of NASCAR Examiner on Facebook.

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