Nascar Racing Online

Archive for September, 2010

Friday morning at Dover, Clint Bowyer took the unusual step of absolutely unloading on NASCAR for their ruling on his Loudon car, a decision that cost him 150 points and likely any shot at the championship. It was a remarkable tirade, and you can’t read this and come away without any questions about how BowyerGate was handled. Here’s the complete text of Bowyer’s initial statement:

"You always want to win races. You’re veryproud to win races and I’m still proud of that win. I don’t believethat we did anything wrong. I guess I’ll go on record and say that,first and foremost, in my opinion. I want my fans to know that. Thereis a lot of integrity that goes into this sport. I’m damn proud ofbeing a part of this sport. I love this sport and I wouldn’t cheat towin a race in this sport. We have a lot more integrity for myself andour race team at RCR. Hopefully I only have to do this once. I woke upabout 6 o’clock this morning, which is uncharacteristic for me. I justgrabbed a notebook and wanted to make some notes. You know, for myselfand for you guys. I know a lot of you guys have a lot of questions;trust me; there are a hell of a lot of questions that I have too. AndI’m going to go through them. I like to have facts when something likethis comes down. I’ve got a timeline of facts.

Read the facts below.

"I’m going to start with number one: We werewarned after Richmond that the car was too close to tolerances. Numbertwo: We were told by NASCAR they were taking the car after NewHampshire, no matter what; first or 43^rd. Number three: The carpassed pre and post-race inspections at the race track. Number four:Monday, the rumors started about all this and in my opinion, forcedNASCAR’s hand to do something about it. Number five: Wednesday came andit was a 150-point fine. And the sixth thing, and at least an answer,you know, I’m looking for answers too. There are several things but oneof them is a two-ton wrecker pushed me to victory lane.

"I’m going to elaborate on them. I think thefirst one (is) we were warned that both sides of the car were highafter Richmond. Both sides. After the race in New Hampshire, after itgot back to the Tech Center or whatever they call that place, just theleft side was high. I think this shows that we definitely had it fixed;something within that race happened.

"Number two: after being told that they weretaking the car, we made double-sure before it went to New Hampshirethat that car was right. Who in their right mind, knowing that they’regoing to take that car, wouldn’t have made triple sure that thing wasright before it went to the race track? I could have hit the wall doinga burnout, I could have done a lot of things that other drivers havedone and that other teams have done in a post-race celebration thisyear. I didn’t. We didn’t want to push that in NASCAR’s face. Weappreciated them warning us on the fact and we tried to fix thesituation. They told us about that situation Wednesday. Wednesday thecar leaves. We had about two hours to jump on that car and make surethat thing was right.

"And number three:  The car passed pre andpost-race inspection, and three days later get such a huge fine? Theytake the car apart, completely apart to measure this thing and in myopinion that’s not the way the car was raced on the race track. I thinkthat’s something to be said.

"Number four: Once the rumors started itwasn’t long before the penalty. I think NASCAR has a lot of problemswith a lot of cars on the race track being out of the box and I thinkthey needed to set an example with something.

"Number five: I don’t think the penalty fitsthe crime. Sixty-thousandths of an inch, folks. Grab a quarter out ofyour pocket (holds up a quarter). That’s sixty-five thousandths of aninch thick. Less than the thickness of that quarter right thereresulted in a 150-point fine. Before or after this, grab that and askyourself if that was a performance-enhancing thing right there.

"And the last thing, my question is, is itpossible that a two-ton wrecker could bend the quarter panel of thisthing sixty thousandths of an inch? You have to ask yourself that. Igot hit during the race, turned a couple of times; racing is tough. Nowif this thing was knocked out a half of an inch, I could see somethingbeing made. But if it passed the height sticks afterwards, the veryheight sticks the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) and the No. 11 (Denny Hamlin)did not pass, then miraculously enough when that same pit crew pushedit back around after 20 minutes it passed, that was pretty amazing. Youknow it passed those same sticks.

"And, you know, my dad owns a towingbusiness and has since I was born in 1979. I know a little somethingabout wreckers. About 15 years ago they took them push bumpers off thefront of them for this very reason. I remember back when people used tocome (during) a snow storm and (say) please, push me out of the snowbank. You push them out of the snow bank and two days later they’d showup with a body shop bill in their hand, wanting you to pay the bodyshop bill for the damage you did to the back of their car. This couldhappen. That’s the only question I had for you guys (media) is to askyourselves if it is possible for that to happen. That’s all I’ve got tosay."

Bowyer went on to express regret that this situation has taken the attention off the work of his team and the cars of teammates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. And clearly, this is not over. After reading this, your thoughts?

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In case you missed it here is a clip of what the Brother’s Waltrip had to say about The Chase, Jimmie Johnson, and whether Dale Jr will be staying with Hendrick Motorsports.

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All right, NASCAR fans. Time for what our grandparents used to call a come-to-Jesus moment.

Clint Bowyer has been nailed with penalties that have, for all intents and purposes, demolished his Chase hopes. Maybe he and the #33 team cheated in their setup of the car, and maybe they didn’t. The end result is the same; it’s only a question of whether you feel bad for Bowyer or not.

Oh, but that hasn’t stopped a very loud segment of the NASCAR fanbase from screaming that Bowyer’s penalty is definitive proof that NASCAR is fixed, that the Chase stinks, that NASCAR wants Jimmie Johnson to win a fifth title, that nothing about this sport has ever been the same since they stopped driving on sand.

There’s a state of mind called "confirmational bias," and it envelops a segment of NASCAR fandom like kudzu. Confirmational bias is basically this: you have an established mindset, and you give weight to everything that confirms that mindset and dismiss everything that runs counter to it.

So if you think that NASCAR is rigged and Jimmie Johnson is a cheater who’s allowed to prosper by NASCAR, if you think the Chase is a horrible abomination with no possible good qualities, no amount of facts are going to shake your mind. Jimmie Johnson loses a race? That’s because they don’t want it to look suspicious! The drivers themselves say they’re fine with the Chase as long as everyone runs under the same rules? They have to say that or they’ll be forced out of the sport! The media speaks positively of Johnson, or doesn’t buy into the "NASCAR is worse than it’s ever been" nonsense? How much is NASCAR paying you, Busbee? Jimmie Johnson actually wins a race? SEE? See what we’ve been saying? It’s all true!

Look, I get the desire to hang onto the past. I really do. When I was a wee lad, somebody pressed a copy of Van Halen I into my hands — no, not in the crib; I’m not that young — and imprinted me with a fanatical devotion to Eddie Van Halen that lasts to this very day. I still listen to and love new music, but The Hold Steady and Mastodon still don’t match up, in my mind, to "Unchained" or "Eruption."

But here’s the thing. As good as that old Van Halen stuff is, it’s also horribly dated. I love listening to it now and then, but not to the exclusion of anything new. That kind of myopia stunts your brain and makes you miss out on what’s happening now, which can be as good as the old days and maybe, possibly, even better.

The Chase is here. It’s not a perfect system, but absolutely no system that has to meet all the many needs of 21st-century NASCAR – fan-friendly, driver-friendly, sponsor-friendly — could be. NASCAR has some huge flaws, but focusing only on those blinds you to the very good racing still happening almost every week on the track.

NASCAR is different from when you first became a fan. Maybe it’s better, maybe it’s worse. But it’s different. Deal with that. Find the good that’s there, and if you can’t do that, hit the bricks. No need to keep telling the rest of us how upset you are. We get it.

Either buck up and recognize that times have changed, or move on down the road. We’ve got nine races in a wide-open Chase to run, and I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

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Cup and Nationwide To Move to 6-Man Pit Crew in 2011

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When the hammer drops in NASCAR, it drops hard and without mercy.

Wednesday afternoon, NASCAR levied points penalties and fines against the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing team that may, for all intents and purposes, eliminate Clint Bowyer from Chase contention.

For apparent alterations made to the rear of the vehicle used in Sunday’s win at Loudon, Bowyer was penalized 150 points and Richard Childress was penalized 150 owner points. Crew chief Shane Wilson was also suspended for six races and fined $150,000.

Despite the penalties, Bowyer will keep the win from Sunday’s race. The penalty knocks Bowyer from second in the points standings, 35 points behind Denny Hamlin, to 12th, last place in the Chase and 185 points behind Hamlin.

The car passed its initial inspection at New Hampshire on Sunday, but was taken by NASCAR back to its North Carolina research and development center. It was there that NASCAR ruled that the rear end of the car had been manipulated by Richard Childress Racing.

Earlier Wednesday, AP/Yahoo! Sports’ Jenna Fryer reported that NASCAR was taking a closer look at Bowyer’s New Hampshire car, a day after Fryer reported that NASCAR had warned RCR about Bowyer’s Richmond car.

In a statement, Childress fired back at NASCAR, saying that the rear of the car was less than 1/16th of an inch outside the range of engineering tolerance. While crews can make numerous minor alterations to a car in order to improve its handling or fuel mileage, it’s not yet clear what advantage the alterations to the rear of the 33 would have provided Bowyer. And that, in itself, is reason enough for Childress to question why the team would take such a risk.

"We feel certain that the cause of the car being out of tolerance by sixty thousandths of an inch, less than 1/16 of an inch, happened as a result of the wrecker hitting the rear bumper when it pushed the car into winner’s circle," Childress said in the statement. (For comparison’s sake, a fingernail is about forty thousandths of an inch thick.)

"The rear bumper was also hit on the cool down lap by other drivers congratulating Clint on his victory. That’s the only logical way that the left-rear of the car was found to be high at the tech center. We will appeal NASCAR’s ruling and take it all the way to the NASCAR commissioner for a final ruling, if need be."

After Sunday’s race, Wilson said that the team’s status as the 12th seed at the start of the Chase was "going to allow us to race a lot looser than some people." Now, that quote may have another meaning besides fuel mileage. Bowyer won Sunday’s race after Tony Stewart ran out of gas as he approached the white flag. Bowyer and Stewart had last pitted on lap 208 of the 300-lap race.

If his appeals are unsuccessful, Bowyer now faces a near-impossible task to climb back into the Chase, snuffing out what had been an unexpectedly hopeful time for the entire 33 team.

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There’s no name in racing that has anywhere near the reach of Petty. And this week sees the release of the DVD of "Petty Blue," a comprehensive look at the four generations of Pettys — Lee, Richard, Kyle and Adam — who all competed in NASCAR. Here, dig on a preview:

Petty Blue was produced in a joint effort between NASCAR Media and CMT Media Group, the folks responsible for the previous documentaries "Dale" and "The Ride of Their Lives."

Narrated by Kevin Costner, the documentary was made with the Pettys’ complete cooperation. The title refers to that famous color blend that was created by accident and became a worldwide symbol. Special features include interviews with David Pearson, Bobby Allison and many others. 

The DVD is on sale now for $19.99, and if you’re too cheap to buy it, you can see it on CMT on October 8. It’s well worth catching. 

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It’s the Chase, and that means it’s time for some serious, no-screwin’-around, get-down-to-bidness NASCAR chatting. Come by to talk Denny, Kyle, Jimmie and all the rest of those wacky Chasers. Who’s the favorite? Who’s already out the door? Have your say here!

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Denny Hamlin’s victory at Richmond International raceway closed out NASCAR’s regular season and signaled the start of the Chase for the Championship.

The win also gave Hamlin ten additional bonus points, placing him at the top of NASCAR’s version of the playoffs, just ten points ahead of four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson.

With 12 drivers starting the playoffs within 60 points, wins are still a priority in NASCAR’s closest Chase format yet. Hamlin enters as the favorite but any of the other 11 still has to feel confident about their standing going into Homestead-Miami at the end of the season.

Your contenders can be found after the jump!

Denny Hamlin: The Midlothian, VA native led the Cup Series with six wins in the first 26 races and will lead the series entering New Hampshire. Mechanical failures and several accidents dropped Hamlin to seventh in the regular season standings and the Gibbs’ driver will have to overcome this type of problem if he wants to win his first championship. If Hamlin has any modicum of luck, he leaves Miami as a NASCAR champion.

Jimmie Johnson – The fourtime and defending champion has to enter the Chase as the favorite. The preseason media championship pick won five races in the first 26 and delivered an average finish of 14.9 (the worst of his career) and tassels with his teammate Jeff Gordon may have taken the luster off of “Four-Time”. But make no mistake, the Chase belongs to Johnson  and crew chief Chad Knaus and 2010 should be no different. The Chase runs through the 48 team this fall.

Kevin Harvick – The regualar season champion (we really need a bonus point for this feat) enters the Chase in third place and really finished the first 26 races strong. Harvick is powerful on superspeedways, the bulk of the Chase, and seems to have found right balance between winning races and consistency. It’s almost unfair to label Harvick as a dark horse but that’s exactly what he’s become against Johnson and Hamlin.

Jeff Gordon – Poor Jeff Gordon. Could you have ever imagined saying such a thing entering the start of the decade? After four championships from 1996-2001, Gordon has been absolutely robbed of two titles by the playoffs. Restarts haven’t been kind for Big Daddy. Neither in the standings or individual races. Gordon must overcomes both if he’s to finally end the Drive for Five with a title in November.

Kyle Busch – The Chase for the Championship was designed for a man like the younger Busch. The take off the gloves and go for broke will suit the brash Busch well over the final ten. Busch’s problems in the past has been making the Championship. With four series victories, Kyle has to be considered a strong favorite in ending Hendrick’s dominance or his teammate’s ambitions.

Kurt Busch – The elder Busch has been here before. In fact, he won the very first Chase for the Championship back in 2004. But times have changed. Busch won the Championship, winning only the opener in Loudon. He average an eighth-place finish and won what was easily the most compelling Chase format in history. But Busch has conceded that wins and a top-5 average is what it takes to win in 2010. Don’t count out Busch and owner Roger Penske as championships just come natural to the two.

Carl Edwards – Edwards has to have the most boring and consistent productive season in the history of auto racing. Leading only a handful of laps in 2010, Edwards still managed a fourth place regular season standings finish. But make no mistake, this won’t cut it over the final ten.

Tony Stewart – The final half of the season has been very good for Tony Stewart, as it has accounted for 11 of his race victories and both of his Cup Series Championships. It’ll take another of his patented late-season charges if he’s to win his third career title.

Matt Kenseth – The Chase for the Championship is often called the Matt Kenseth rule as the format was adopted after his mildly consistent, one-win, championship season. As such, the Chase has been mostly a dissapointment for Kenseth and the no. 17 team. It’ll take the one thing that most said he needed back in 2003 to win the championship in 2010 – wins.

Jeff Burton – It’s said that the mark of a champion is an athlete who manages to do most with very little. That’s Jeff Burton in a nutshell. Both Roush Racing and RCR has been guilty over the years of underwhelming the South Boston, Va. native with surrounding talent. Yet Burton keeps chugging on. Burton is no closer to a championship in 2010 then he has ever been. He’s a poor man’s Jeff Gordon in this Chase while a rich man’s Matt Kenseth. No buys.

Clint Bowyer – Oh Bowyer. Late Charger en route to the Chase and an early riser inside the playoffs. If this team can ever nail their timing and hit their stride, they’ll be real championship contenders. It just won’t be this year.

Greg Biffle – What’s to be said of Greg Biffle that hasn’t already been said. It’s an almost insulting line toward a driver that just doesn’t have much said of him already. Biffle is annoyingly consistent, racking up top-10s without winning or even contending for wins. It’s the type of career that has made him an owner’s favorite, a sponsor safe pick and a perrenial Championship non-contender. The affable Biffle is going to have to get tough if he’s going to make a run at his first Cup Championship.

So what is my take? How does the Chase for the Championship end after the dust has settled in Miami? Here’s a surprise: Kevin Harvick, the ‘Right Blend’ as I have dubbed him will do what he’s done all year long and drop consecutive top-fives and occasional wins right into the NASCAR history books. Harvick will edge Denny Hamlin and Jeff Gordon and etch his name as one of the all-time greats.

My final Chase for the Championship standings:

1. Harvick
2. Hamlin
3. Gordon
4. Bowyer
5. Johnson
6. Ku. Busch
7. Ky. Busch
8. Stewart
9. Edwards
10. Kenseth
11. Burton
12. Biffle

These standings are likely jarring, even for those accustomed to reading ‘ridiculous’ all weekend long leading up to New Hampshire. That being said, I would be more than comfortable placing money, or at least a month’s supply of cat food on this.

Warning: My cat eats…a lot.

So much like Fearless Leader asked in his earlier post, what’s your take? Any grivences?

Matt Weaver is the Sports Editor for the Vanguard (USA) and can be reached at jmatthewweaver(at)aol.com

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Now that’s how you begin a Chase! Sunday’s Loudon race showed that there’s absolutely nothing we can take for granted; when a guy who wasn’t even in the Chase one week before is upsetting his way to a win and second place in the standings, you know something’s afoot. The Chase pushed the reset button on the season, and so we push the reset button on the season storylines. Here are five sparkly new stories that could determine how this Chase turns out:

A brand-new rivalry: With less than 100 laps left in the race, Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin got together. Well, more to the point, Edwards slid up the track and sent Hamlin into a spin. It looked like the end of the day for Hamlin, but amazingly, he not only dodged a Chase-killing wreck, he came back to nearly win the race. Edwards claimed it was an accident, but Hamlin was having none of it, and given Edwards’ track record, you can see why he doesn’t exactly have a well of goodwill in the garage to draw on.

Kyle vs. his team: Another sign that the regular season is done and everybody’s serious: when Kyle Busch badmouthed his team, crew chief Dave Rogers basically told him to shut the hell up and drive better. Busch isn’t really accustomed to that kind of pushback, and it’s yet to be seen if that will spur him to greater heights or send him into a pouting fit.

Kenseth vs. mediocrity: Let’s not take anything away from Matt Kenseth. The man is a former champion, after all. But let’s not give him anything, either. He ran an uninspiring mid-pack race all afternoon long. Yes, he earned his spot in the Chase, and no, I’m not suggesting a whole new Chase system. But the fact that Kenseth is in and Jamie McMurray, who’s far more of a threat to win every week, seems to indicate something’s a wee bit amiss.

Jimmie vs. The Field: Coming into the Chase, there were two camps: the underestimating-Jimmie crew and the don’t-underestimate-Jimmie crew. After week 1, it’s clear: Johnson is going to be very, very tough, but he’s most certainly not invulnerable. The Jimmie-vs.-the-field betting proposition isn’t as open-and-shut as it might have been at this point in the past.

Chase fans vs. old-schoolers: The NASCAR Chase for the Cup could run right into fans’ driveways, with the drivers jumping out and delivering pizzas, beer and wings, and some fans would whine that the wings were too hot. In other words, no matter what NASCAR does, certain fans are going to complain, and complain loudly. But we’re on the cusp of what could be the most wide-open Chase in years. So let the whiners whine. The rest of us are going to enjoy a postseason whose ending nobody can predict.

And there you have it. Some outstanding storylines to begin the Chase. How about you? What did you learn from Loudon?

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In what should be a non-issue, NASCAR is meeting with RCR on Tuesday as a precautionary measure in regard to the no. 33 team. It seems that Clint Bowyer’s team did just about everything they possibly in order to have their driver represent the organization in the Chase for the Championship.

They did so much in fact, that it appears they nearly violated several NASCAR infractions on their way to snagging the final spot the playoffs in last week’s Air Guard 400 at Richmond International Speedway.

There’s more after the fold.

The meeting has been schedule for this morning and NASCAR competition chief Robin Pemberton has decided that NASCAR will keep the car until a meeting has concluded.

“They were in the box, but getting close to some of the tolerances and we asked them to come in to see if they aren’t getting off on one of their build sheets,” NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton told The Associated Press.

“We have had their cars in quite a bit, and they were always spot-on. This one just seemed to be different, and we felt we owed it to them to make sure they just aren’t off in one area.”

Now I appreciate NASCAR’s diligence and consideration toward the no. 33 team but if this meeting is meant to scold the RCR team for building a competitive while legal car, then I have some questions.

This is a typical NASCAR move to someone building a car that’s just outside of their pencil-written rule-book. My guess is that the over-used ‘actions detrimental to stock car racing’ will come up several times today, if not getting a full rewrite in the coming days due to Bowyer’s team.

If this is indeed just a fair warning by the league meant to aid one of their most loyal competitors, then kudos to NASCAR.

But the sanctioning body has had a history trying to one-up their best crew chiefs. They’ll never beat a Chad Knaus so I fear that it makes Shane Wilson an easy target. On the flip side NASCAR could easily be trying to avoid a public relations nightmare, dealing with a team that potentially stole a playoff berth.

But Pemberton shot down speculation that RCR was given a pass because NASCAR didn’t want to spoil the build up to the Chase opener.

“If there was something more to this, we would move the car under the dark of night and hide it in a crypt somewhere where nobody can see it,” he said. “We’re going to get criticized for everything we do anyway. People are through here all the time (R&D Center) and can see what’s here. There are no shenanigans.”

Regardless of the final outcome, a penalty against Bowyer  wouldn’t likely have made a difference. The penalty for failed inspections runs anywhere from 50-to-100 points, and Bowyer had a 142-point lead over Ryan Newman at the end of the Richmond race.

But whatever the final outcome may be, just stay consistent NASCAR. Yes Bowyer’s team is in the Chase. But If Wilson beat you, then praise him for his ingenuity. If he cheated the system then a fine and penalty to the crew must come. Just be consistent.

Matt Weaver is the Sports Editor for the Vanguard (USA) and can be reached at jmatthewweaver(at)aol.com

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