Happy Monday. Today In Nascar History Oct. 26, 2002: Two weeks after winning his first Cup race in his second start, Jamie McMurray wins his first Nationwide Series race, the Aaron's 312 at Atlanta. He leads only the final lap -- when race leader Joe Nemechek runs out of gas -- and wins by 10.796 seconds over Michael Waltrip. Quote of the Year There's an unwritten rule in NASCAR: Thou shalt not take on Dale Earnhardt Jr. --Terry Blount/espn Vote for your driver! www.chexmostpopular Bits and Pieces Eury Jr. Takes Over No. 5 Car at JR Motorsports JR Motorsports announced Thursday it has mutually agreed to release Brian Campe from his contractual duties as crew chief of the No. 5 team in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, effective immediately. Tony Eury Jr. will serve as the team's crew chief this weekend in the Kroger "On Track For The Cure" 250 at Memphis Motorsports Park. Richard Boswell, a developmental driver in JRM's late model program, will drive the No. 5 RCCA Chevrolet this weekend in his Nationwide Series debut. The Kroger "On Track For The Cure" 250 is slated for a 3 p.m. start. Michael Waltrip involved in POV accident By Greg Engle, CupScene.com Editor, NASCAR Examiner
Michael Waltrip was involved in a crash with a motorcycle Thursday night and officers at first suspected alcohol night have been involved. According to a report from the Mooresville North Carolina police department, Waltrip was given a field sobriety test after officers who responded to the scene suspected him of being under the influence of alcohol. Waltrip passed the field sobriety test at the scene, and was later given a Breathalyzer that registered a .06, under the North Carolina legal limit of .08, the report states. Waltrip was attempting a U-turn around 7:49 p.m. when his Lexus collided with a Harley Davidson motorcycle. The motorcyclist was transported to Lake Norman Regional Center. No word on the motorcycle rider's condition. Waltrip, who was not injured in the accident, was cited for failure to yield. The popular NASCAR Sprint Cup driver and team owner was involved in another accident in 2007. In that accident the North Carolina Highway Patrol charged him with reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident after officers found his SUV upside down near his home. Those charges were later dismissed. Waltrip drives the No. 55 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota and lives in Sherrills Ford. (more below) Almirola files papers against EGR: Aric Almirola has filed paperwork in North Carolina Superior Court indicating that he has a breach-of-contract dispute with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc. Almirola, who competed in seven Sprint Cup races this year for the team before his [#8 Chevy] car was parked because of a lack of sponsorship, filed the notice in the Charlotte court last Friday [10-16], asking for 20 days to file a complaint in the matter. This type of request results in a summons to the other party and typically is filed to start a civil action but the person hopes the matter gets settled before having to file the lawsuit specifics. Almirola indicates that the nature of his claim is breach of contract and unfair and deceptive trade practices. Almirola filed two notices, one against EGR and DEI and another against Chip Ganassi Racing and team co-owner Teresa Earnhardt. Almirola had a contract with DEI, which merged its Cup operation with Chip Ganassi Racing at the end of the 2008 season to form Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. He has until Nov. 5 to file an actual complaint. "We're disappointed at the situation with Aric but are hopeful that we will come to an agreement soon," EGR spokesman John Olguin said. Almirola has 26 career Sprint Cup starts, with a career best finish of eighth at Bristol in March 2008. He drove in 17 races in 2007 and 2008 as he shared the ride with Mark Martin in the #8 Chevy at DEI.(SceneDaily) Michael Waltrip involved in accident, is OK: #55-Michael Waltrip crashed into a motorcycle Wednesday night while trying to make a U-Turn and was given a field sobriety test by a Mooresville police officer, a report states. Waltrip was attempting a U-turn on Perth Road around 7:49 p.m. when his Lexus collided with a Harley Davidson motorcycle. The motorcyclist was transported to Lake Norman Regional Center. According to the police report, Waltrip was suspected of being under the influence of alcohol, but passed a field sobriety test at the scene. Waltrip was given a Breathalyzer and blew a .06, under the North Carolina legal limit of .08, the report states. Waltrip was cited for failure to yield. He was not injured in the accident. The Sprint Cup driver and team owner was involved in an accident in [April] 2007. The North Carolina Highway Patrol charged him with reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident. Those charges were later dismissed.(WCNC) Stavola back in NASCAR? MORE: Friday's Sports Business Daily is reporting - Semi-retired driver Terry Labonte and former team owner Bill Stavola are both getting back into NASCAR full-time as co-owners of a new race organization. StavolaLabonte Racing will field cars in the Sprint Cup Series, possibly next year, with Labonte driving initially.(Sports Business Daily, need subscription) MORE: Former NASCAR Sprint Cup champion [1984, 1996] Terry Labonte, who is preparing to run his fifth race of the season this weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway, hopes to compete in as many as eight to 10 events in 2010. Labonte as back this weekend in the #08 Carter/Simo Toyota, which is running a partial schedule this year. Labonte finished 24th in the Daytona 500 for Prism Motorsports and has run three races this year for Carter/Simo Racing. "If I end up running some more races next year, I felt like there are some tracks I haven't been to in years, and I don't have as much experience in these cars," said the 52-year-old Labonte. "If I run eight, 10 races next year, I need to get as many laps as I can. I've got to learn as much as I can about these cars." Labonte said he and former car owner Billy Stavola have tossed around the idea about starting a team. "He's a good guy and was in the sport for a long time and had a good reputation," Labonte said. "He would be a good guy to be associated with. We're kind of kicking around the idea. On the one hand, it's the perfect time to get in because you would be able to hire people today that you would not have had a chance two years ago. On the other side of the coin, I've never seen it so hard on the sponsorship side." As far as running a full season, Labonte said he doesn't think he has it in him. As far as the remainder of this year goes, Labonte said if the team has a good run in the NASCAR Banking 500 this weekend, he might run the car again later this year.(SceneDaily) Montoya, Sabates Make Light of Griese's Comment By Reid Spencer, Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va.—After finishing third in Sunday's Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Juan Pablo Montoya made light of an inappropriate comment made by ESPN football analyst Bob Griese during Saturday's Ohio State-Minnesota game. During a promo for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup that highlighted the top five drivers, Griese answered broadcast partner Chris Spielman's query, "Where's Juan Pablo Montoya?" with an ill-conceived attempt at humor. "He's out having a taco," said Griese, who played quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. Montoya is a native of Colombia and a Miami resident. After the race, Montoya dismissed the remark with humor of his own. "I don't really care, to tell you the truth," Montoya said. "Yeah, I don't. I could say I spent the last three hours eating tacos, but I was actually driving a car. But that's OK, I don't care." Griese apologized for the remark Saturday. Cuban-born Felix Sabates, who owns an interest in the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team for which Montoya drives, also made light of Griese's comment. Sabates, who lived in Miami before moving to Charlotte, N.C., considers Griese a friend. "I think he was just joking," Sabates said. "I didn't take it too serious. He needs to get his geography corrected, because they don't have tacos in Colombia. Other than that, I don't see anything wrong with it. He was just trying to be funny. "I know Bob—well, well, well, well. Bob would never say anything like that, that is a racial slur. That's just not him. Bob is not the funniest guy in the world, but he's straightforward. I think he probably tried to put some humor into it, and it backfired on him. No big deal. No harm. No foul." JTG Daugherty Racing-Michael Waltrip Racing alliance to continue By Bob Pockrass/scenedaily MARTINSVILLE, Va. – JTG Daugherty Racing has extended its technical alliance with Michael Waltrip Racing for another season, JTG Daugherty co-owner Tad Geschickter confirmed Saturday at Martinsville Speedway. The two organizations began a technical alliance this year with the JTG Daugherty crew working out of the MWR shop. MWR builds the cars, and then the JTG Daugherty team works on them there. Officials from both teams have been saying for weeks that they wanted the alliance to continue. "Being a single-car team without a strong technical alliance is next to impossible," Geschickter said. "This one is working, so why fix it?" JTG Daugherty driver Marcos Ambrose, in his first full season, is 17th in the Sprint Cup standings. "Toyota's influence and the support they give us is big," Geschickter said. "The personalities of the people involved – everyone gets along. We've imbedded our folks into their shop, so every meeting that goes on, we're a part of and has made it more seamless than most." Window World Returns to #34 Chevy: The blue-and-white paint scheme of Window World will be back on the Front Row Motorsports #34 car when it hits the high-banked, 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway this weekend. After making its motorsports sponsorship debut earlier this season in NASCAR's Daytona 500 and its Indy Racing League debut in the Indianapolis 500 America's largest window replacement company is ready to go racing again with John Andretti in Sunday's AMP Energy 500. In addition to the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500, Window World sponsored Andretti's ride in five other Sprint Cup races in the 2009 season. "I really can't think of a smarter company in the sport right now," said Andretti, driver of the #34 Window World Chevrolet. "I've gotten to know a lot of people in the Window World family and I'm really impressed with their commitment. They saw an opportunity to get their name in front of a whole new audience and they've really taken advantage of it." Goodyear to test 'Big' Tire again: Goodyear is set to test the larger tire it is developing on Dec. 8-9 at Phoenix International Raceway. Roush Fenway Racing, which did the test at Richmond earlier this month, will again do the test since it has a car to accommodate the larger dimensions. (Roanoke Times) New crew chief for Kyle Busch? Joe Gibbs Racing is looking at several things to improve the performance of #18-Kyle Busch's team in 2010, including the possibility of replacing crew chief Steve Addington. "There's not a lot we can say on it," team president J.D. Gibbs said before Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway. "We just want to evaluate on what makes us the best, how do we capitalize on the resources we have, personnel, technology? How do we utilize that? You look at everything. It's frustrating because we know ... we've had some good runs. We just should be better than that week in and week out." Busch failed to make the Chase for the first time since his rookie season in 2005. He has only one win over the last 21 races and nine finishes of 20th or worse after winning three of the first 10 races. He has only 11 top 10s on the season after registering 21 a year ago and 20 in 2007. "Rarely do you go from running OK to now all of a sudden you're out of the box," said Gibbs, reminding no decision has been made on Addington's future. "Tony [Stewart] when he missed the Chase [in 2006], he was coming on strong consistently at the end of the season." Asked if the performance of Busch and Addington over the final four races would determine whether they stay together, Gibbs said, "It probably has more to it than the next four weeks."(ESPN) Gibbs has no plans to return to Redskins: Hall of Fame former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs said Sunday he has no plans to return to the struggling team. Gibbs laughed when asked at Martinsville Speedway about rumors and Internet reports that he could return to the team as an adviser or even general manager. "That's what it is. Talk," the owner of three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams said. "Right here's where I'm GMing."(Associated Press) McMurray close to signing new deal? UPDATE: hearing that Jamie McMurray is close to signing a deal to drive the #1 Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Chevy in 2010, announcement could come the week following Martinsville. UPDATE: It's not etched in stone, but the speculation surrounding Jamie McMurray-to- Keselowski to test for Penske: Brad Keselowski will continue to gain Sprint Cup Series seat time with the #12 Penske Dodge during the Goodyear tire test at Daytona International Speedway on Nov. 2-3. This will be the second time Keselowski gets to work with his future employers since he was signed by the team on Sept. 1. Keselowski joined the #12 team and crew chief Roy McCauley last month at Daytona along with David Ragan, Clint Bowyer, Joey Logano and Marcos Ambrose. Goodyear officials used that test to help establish a baseline for the November test. Goodyear has opened testing to the entire Cup garage and hopes to attract at least 30 teams in an effort to set up drafting to closer simulate race conditions to prepare for the 2010 Daytona 500. In Keselowski's absence, Kelly Bires will test the #88 Chevy for the Nationwide Series test at Talladega Superspeedway. Lake Speed to be inducted into Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame: The six-member class, which will be honored at the 48th annual BancorpSouth Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Weekend July 30-31, 2010: Lake Speed: Jackson native and most prominent driver in state history; 18-years on the NASCAR circuit that produced one win (Darlington, SC 1988) and 75 top ten finishes; six-time U.S. Karting Association Champion and World Karting Champion prior to NASCAR competition. Others include: Henry Armstrong (Boxer), Allen Brown (NFL), Bob Coleman (track), Frank Dowsing (college football), Ken Toler, Sr. (tennis).(Hattiesbu Ask.com? Menards to #07 team? Sources say Ask.com could come aboard the fourth [Richard Childress Racing #07 Chevy] car for a partial schedule, but [Casey] Mears could just as easily lose the ride to Paul Menard, who can bring a full sponsorship. Doug Randolph [the new #07 crew chief], coincidentally, was Menard's crew chief at Dale Earnhardt Inc. And hearing John Menard is pushing for his son to drive for RCR in 2010, but Paul [#98 Menards Ford] wants to remain in his current situation.(FoxSport Where may some of the drivers looking end up in 2010? Those drivers looking for rides in 2010 #07-Casey Mears, #96/71-Bobby Labonte, #43-Reed Sorenson and #12-David Stremme qualified sixth, eighth, ninth and 11th, respectively at Martinsville. How their futures pan out could depend on the status of Jamie McMurray, who remains the top candidate for the #1 Earnhardt Ganassi ride. Mears could stay put in the #07 if sponsorship can be found. Labonte is a strong candidate for one of the two TRG [#71 team] Racing rides. Sorenson is the favorite for the vacancy at Braun Racing [Nationwide Series ride] and Stremme's name has been mentioned for the #34 Front Row Motorsports car[currently a Chevy] (where he would be reunited with crew chief Steven 'Bones' Lane) or in a Nationwide car with Rusty Wallace Inc.(FoxSports) Mayfield Injunction likely to be rescinded: The U.S. District Court judge who initially granted an injunction that lifted driver Jeremy Mayfield's suspension for what NASCAR says was a May 1 drug test that was positive for methamphetamines now likely will be the one who rescinds the injunction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decided Friday to send NASCAR's appeal of the July 1 injunction back to District Court Judge Graham Mullen, who has since indicated that he would rescind the injunction based on new evidence and injunction standards. That, according to court filings, would be fine with Mayfield, who never did get back on the track after obtaining the July 1 injunction and having his suspension lifted. The appeals court granted NASCAR's request for a stay of the injunction July 24, and Mayfield has been suspended since then and has sold his team. Mayfield has asked to have the injunction issue sent back to Mullen so it could be dropped and the case can move quickly. The earliest a trial would be is September 2010, and the only consequence for not having the injunction is that Mayfield would not be able to race in NASCAR until a decision is made at trial.(see full story at SceneDaily) Matt McLaughlin's Thinkin' Out Loud Tom Bowles · Frontstretch. Martinsville The Key Moment: Denny Hamlin held off repeated charges by Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, and Juan Pablo Montoya during a flurry of late race restarts to claim another win in front of his partisan, home state fans. In a Nutshell: There's no problem so big with this sport that a great little short track can't fix it… at least for a week. Dramatic Moment: The first 350 laps were about as close to vintage stock car racing as newer fans are likely ever to see. What They'll Be Talking About Around the Water Cooler This Week I noticed this doing my pre-race prep this week prior to Martinsville. Under the current points system, Jimmie Johnson led second place Mark Martin by 90 points and third place Jeff Gordon by 135. But under that tired old classic points system we used to use until it provided too many runaway champions, Tony Stewart would have been leading Jimmie Johnson by 117 points (27 more than the new system's gap between first and second) and third place by 139 points. (Just four more than the current gap between first and third in the standings.) So tell me again how the Chase spices up the title hunt? If a faltering Stewart was losing points to a resurgent Johnson down the stretch, there might actually be some interest in the series. Yeah, yeah, I'm beating a dead horse. The Chase is here to stay. But a dream lives on forever. Maybe, just maybe, we can adopt a more reasonable points system down the road, and maybe, just maybe, someday Michael Waltrip and Brian France will be sharing an eight by ten residence, blasting out "Statesboro Blues" on their harmonicas while they serve DWI sentences. Wake up, mama… Oh, and for the record, after Martinsville the gap between Stewart and Johnson under the old points system would be 80. What is it cynics like me want from a stock car race to stop our incessant whining and negative hyperbole? Side-by-side racing for the lead, with tires smoking, fenders banging, and tempers fraying. We want to see the best drivers making seemingly impossible catches as their cars get out from under them or get shoved aside by a competitor. We want to see a handful of cars racing hard for the win in the fading sun of an autumn afternoon at a track so rich with history, it makes the White House look like a Taco Bell. Sunday's race is what we want. Please, sir, could I have some more? We, the fans, hold this truth to be self-evident: a bunch more short track races and a bunch less cookie cutter parades would greatly improve our sport and perhaps even arrest the declines in TV ratings and attendance. It sure did sound like Denny Hamlin shares the opinion Kasey Kahne offered up two weeks ago that NASCAR is throwing bogus debris cautions late to add some excitement to the finishes of the Cup races. Will the last person to care about the 2009 Cup season kindly shut off the TV and the lights when you leave? Once again, there was a stricken car parked sideways across the start/finish line on the final lap of the race. (This time, it was John Andretti.) Once again, NASCAR didn't throw a caution, though in other events they've waved the yellow hanky for debris the size of a gnat's 'nads in similar circumstances. It comes down to credibility and NASCAR's account is overdrawn, in receivership and subject to foreclosure with all due prejudice. A tempest in a teapot beats the doldrums, I suppose. Some folks are ready to form a lynching party for ESPN football analyst Bob Griese after an allegedly racist remark made during a promo for Sunday's NASCAR race. The promo featured the top 5 guys in the points and someone asked, "Where's Juan Pablo Montoya?" (Apparently unaware Montoya fell out of the top 5 after last week's race.) "Probably out getting a taco," Griese said in response. Insensitive? Yep. Uncalled for? Absolutely. Racist? Would everyone be in a huff if Griese had said Jamie McMurray (who might be Irish) was out grabbing a brew? If nothing else, it will be interesting to see if they can form a Politically Correct Lynching Party quickly enough to cost Griese his job for an ill-considered remark that reflected insensitivity but not hatred. Sometimes, I hate the times we live in… It's bad enough Michael Waltrip can't seem to finish a single race without running into an innocent bystander, but he's once again taken his show on the road. Earlier this week, Waltrip made an illegal U-turn and turned into the path of a rider on a Harley Davidson. The Harley struck Waltrip's luxury Lexus SUV in the driver's side door. (What is so wrong with Toyota's lineup of cars and trucks that all its drivers opt for a Lexus rather than the base model when selecting a program car? The LX570 Waltrip was operating while impaired stickers out at 95 G. I drove one last week. It's a big, stupid truck. A nice one, but a big, stupid truck.) In a bit of a surprise, unlike the last time he rolled a Lexus SUV late at night, this time Waltrip remained at the scene. He was able to pass roadside sobriety tests, but a breathalyzer scored his BAC at .06. In North Carolina, like almost every other state of the Union, .08 BAC is the standard for Driving While Intoxicated, a felony. But Police investigators concluded that alcohol played a major role in the incident, and thus Waltrip was cited with the lesser charge of DUI, or driving under the influence. At police discretion, a driver can be issued such a ticket even at a BAC as low as .01 if the officers determine that alcohol was a contributing factor to an accident. My guess is the folks at NAPA are burying their heads in their hands, but consoling one another knowing they've only got five races left with this lunkhead. I've never liked Michael Waltrip. I like him even less now. I ride a motorcycle too, by chance a Harley. It's bad enough trying to avoid collisions with distracted drivers without factoring in those who have been drinking and thinking that the size and price of their vehicles allows them to violate traffic laws the rest of us have to follow. When I'm on my bike, I'm not out there to show off, piss you off, and take off: I'm just riding my scoot. Please keep an eye out for me and my brothers in the wind, just as I give your learning teenage driver a little extra space when I'm in the pickup even if I'd win that battle. When you see a motorcycle in motion, don't think of it as a machine: think of it as a human being. As for Waltrip, it's time the idiot hires a chauffeur. He's obviously no good at this driving crap. You know one way you can always tell a stock car race is being held in the Southeast and not somewhere else across the country? When the Preacher finishes the invocation, the crowd responds, "Amen" — not "Wooooo-hooo" or "Johnson sucks." Isn't it getting a little ridiculous that in the AT&T pit crew of the year voting, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and the No. 88 team remain atop the standings? They routinely cost Junior spots in the pits, and Earnhardt himself is a train wreck on pit road week after week. Do you think the fan vote portion of the balloting is keeping the No. 88 bunch at the top of the standings? The Hindenburg Award For Foul Fortune They could have shoveled what was left unbent or unbroken on Kasey Kahne's No. 9 car into an empty pack of smokes, with plenty enough room left over for his title aspirations. They tell me Elliott Sadler will be driving a Ford for RPM next week at Talladega. It's no wonder, as the team has to be nearly out of Dodges thanks to attrition over the last three weeks. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and the No. 88 team bought a brand new car and a fresh attitude to Martinsville this week. But they left with the usual half-ass finish after a string of blown right front tires. The "Seven Come Fore Eleven" Award For Fine Fortune Hard pit road contact with the No. 88 car bent up the right front of Hamlin's No. 11 car and could have easily ended his day early. The Fed Ex Toyota wasn't going to win any car shows, but it went on to win the race. Starting 41st at Martinsville is usually a harbinger of a grim day at Martinsville, but Kyle Busch drove from 41st to a fourth place finish despite some problems in the pits. A longish pit stop late in the race seemed to doom Jimmie Johnson's chances at winning, but he drove on to a hard-fought second place finish. It seemed Juan Pablo Montoya and Jeff Gordon were more determined to take one another out than win the race at times, but they cooled off and drove on to a third and fifth place finish, respectively. Maybe it won't be the same ratings bloodbath this week for NASCAR, with many NFL football contests that ran against the first three-quarters of the race decided by gaps of more than 28 points. Worth Noting · Ford's worst winless drought was 35 races in 1982-1983. This year, they've gone 30 races without a win. Buddy Baker broke the streak of futility for Ford at Daytona in July of 1983. Does anybody else out there recall which Ford driver won two of the next three Cup races to restore some hope to the Ford faithful? · Say it ain't so, Auntie Em! Chevrolet drivers claimed seven of the top 10 finishing spots, with two Toyota drivers and a single Ford rounding out the order. The top finishing Dodge was Kurt Busch in seventeenth. · Denny Hamlin's third Cup victory of the year makes this his most successful season. · Jimmie Johnson is averaging a 2.3 finish in the first six Chase races. My guess is that's going to be kind of hard to beat. · Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon have swapped fourth and fifth several times in the unofficial finishing results since the Martinsville race ended. As of right now, Busch is shown as the fourth place finisher. Either way, Kyle Busch scored his first top 5 finish since NHIS. · Either way, Jeff Gordon scored his fourth straight top 5 finish. And he's losing ground to his teammate. That's got to be depressing. · Jamie McMurray's sixth place finish was his best of the 2009 Cup season. This gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark… · Ryan Newman's seventh place finish matches his best of the Chase. · Kevin Harvick's tenth place finish is his second top 10 in the last six races. Harvick also finished ninth at Richmond this fall. · Dale Earnhardt Jr. (28th) has now gone seven straight races without finishing better than twentieth. But as our old bud Kenny Mayne might point out, he remains popular. · Joey Logano's twelfth place finish was the best by a rookie at Martinsville Sunday. What's the Points? Jimmie Johnson continues to lead the points with Talladega next week, the final hurdle he must clear en route to a fourth straight title. He is now 118 points ahead of Mark Martin, who remains second in the standings and 150 points ahead of Jeff Gordon, still in third. Tony Stewart remains fourth in the standings, 192 points out of the lead, meaning that unless he won and led the most laps, he couldn't take over the top spot even if Jimmie Johnson decided to stay home next week. So it's now officially a three man battle for the title… and not much of one at that. Further back, Juan Pablo Montoya wrested fifth place honors from Kurt Busch. Ryan Newman took over seventh place honors from Greg Biffle. Denny Hamlin moves up two spots in the standings to ninth. Carl Edwards holds on to tenth in the standings, while Kasey Kahne dropped down to 11th. Brian Vickers remains the Chase's cellar dweller in 12th. Kyle Busch prevails in this week's battle with Matt Kenseth in the "Best of the Rest" honors, regaining 13th spot in the standings. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. lost a further two spots in the standings and is now 24th. The combined points position of his three Hendrick teammates is sixth. Medic! Overall Rating (On a scale of one to six beer cans with one being a stinker and a six pack an instant classic) — I'll catch some static, but given this season's racing I'll give Martinsville five ice cold bottles of Corona for a good, old-fashioned race. In fact, I might have given it six bottles, but Michael Waltrip filched one as a roadie for his ride home. Next Up: It's off to Talladega for the Halloween weekend show. Plate tracks typically offer up a lot more tricks than treats, and real horror is always just a shot away, just a shot away. With all the safety advances in our sport, flight and fire remain the drivers' biggest two fears. Get ready for the Battle of Icarus next weekend. UNOFFICIAL Sprint Cup CHASE Standings Race and Commercial Breakdown of the 2009 Tums Fast Relief 500: Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson satisfied with second-place run at Martinsville By SceneDaily Staff MARTINSVILLE, Va. – It's not often that one hears Jimmie Johnson talking about a chance to take the lead that slipped away, but such was the case following his runner-up finish in Sunday's race at Martinsville Speedway. Johnson felt like he had one good shot at leader Denny Hamlin in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Tums Fast Relief 500, but he wasn't able to capitalize on that. Despite several late restarts, including one that pushed the race to a green-white- But could it have been one position better? "I had one chance," Johnson said. "He caught the curb with about 40 to go and lost some drive off of [Turn] 2, and I got inside of him, and I thought, 'Man, I've seen this movie before.' I got inside of him and he came to block the position like he did in the spring, and I thought, 'Man, I didn't try to hit him last time here, and that time he was coming again.' I wasn't in there far enough to stay in there like I did in the spring, so I backed out of it, and I think I actually hit the curb and screwed up my line and all that kind of thing. That was my one chance. "After that I could match his laps, but he would just start inching away from me and had the best car there at the end. If I had a chance to pass him and to get to his bumper and work him over, I would have. But I wasn't just going to come in with the second place car and take a cheap shot and pass him that way. If I felt like I had a car to win the race, I would have been up there leaning on him some." At times, he clearly had the best car on the track. Johnson led 164 laps, second only to Hamlin, during the 500-lap race. Crew chief Chad Knaus said that the team was pleased to finish second, especially considering how many incidents there were in the short-track race that saw 15 caution periods for 77 laps. "We had a good car," he said. "We had a great car in practice and thought we had a car that was capable of winning the race and we did. We didn't get it just right at the end of the race. There were points in that race where we were by far the fastest car. You just can't win them at all, as much I would like to beat the person that had to have said that. "You can win them all, for sure. But it's very difficult to do. For us to come home second, another top-five, I'm really pleased." In the opening six Chase races, Johnson has a worst finish of ninth and three wins. Clearly, the three-time defending championship team is on track. But as well as they are running, Knaus and Johnson are still learning week to week and trying to focus on continuing to find ways to gain even more ground, something that could be a source of concern for those trying to catch them in the final four races. "We were up front most of the day," Knaus said. "The pit crew did a decent job. We've got some stuff we've got to work on there. These guys have caught us just a little bit here, but we didn't want to deviate a whole lot from what we've run in the past because our past record here has been pretty good. We've got to get to work just a little bit." Juan Pablo Montoya finishes third at Martinsville but can't gain ground in Chase By SceneDaily Staff MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Juan Pablo Montoya must be getting tired of earning top finishes but losing ground to Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson in the standings, but one wouldn't know it to hear his comments on the issue. Kyle Busch rallies to finish fourth; J.D. Gibbs addresses potential 2010 changes By Jared Turner - SceneDaily Staff Writer MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kyle Busch has been flying under the radar since missing NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup, but he certainly made his presence felt on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway. Busch used a late call for two tires to rally to fourth and match his best career outcome at the .526-mile track. "I'm real proud of the effort," said the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who netted his second consecutive top-10. "The guys had awesome pit stops all day. The guys worked hard. We made a lot of changes today. … Tires were the name of the game. We just seemed to be on the right strategy when we could come get tires and drive back through some guys. We had a good enough car to do that with." The handling of Busch's car suffered during a lengthy green-flag run between the race's 11th and 12th cautions and he eventually fell a lap down. But the team opted to pit under green before leader and teammate Denny Hamlin, hoping to gain back some of the time that it had lost. The strategy worked as Busch netted just his second top-10 finish in the last five races. Busch got back on the lead lap and then later pitted for right-side tires with a host of others when a caution flag waved with 16 laps to go. "That helped out a lot and just put us in the position to come get tires and make a run at those guys," crew chief Steve Addington said. Busch lined up eighth on the subsequent restart with 12 laps left and managed to pick off four positions despite the race being slowed once more for the wrecked car of Red Bull Racing's Scott Speed, which set up a green-white- Busch said the decision by Addington to take tires "probably gained us about eight spots." The crew chief was equally pleased with his driver, who qualified 41st and methodically worked his way toward the front. "Kyle was real patient at the beginning of the race – he picked his way through traffic – so just a real good job from everybody," Addington said. "I appreciate everybody's hard work this weekend on that car." Busch has four wins this season, but hasn't performed as well as the team did in 2008. That has led team owner J.D. Gibbs to consider changes for next season, though he didn't provide a definite answer after the race when asked to address the possibility of Addington being replaced. "I think as a whole, I think, for Kyle just right now, a lot of it is just the confidence," Gibbs said. "The reality is he's really gifted, and as far as the Addington crew piece, from our standpoint, we just want to make sure we have the right tools, the right people in the right place at JGR. We think we do; we think we have a great group of crew chiefs to engineers to guys on the shop floor across the whole board. "So I think for us, our goal is to make sure we have those right pieces in the right parts, in the right places. That's kind of what we're looking at as far as in the future, but we do that every year with every team. So I think for us it was encouraging, and we're looking forward to hopefully keep the momentum going in the future." Fifth-place finish at Martinsville keeps Jeff Gordon third in Chase standings By Jared Turner - SceneDaily Staff Writer MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Jeff Gordon overcame an early dustup with Juan Pablo Montoya and a car that didn't handle to his liking on short runs to finish fifth in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway. The bad news for Gordon was that he lost more ground in the standings to Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, who finished second in the Tums Fast Relief 500 and stretched his advantage over the four-time champion to 150 points. Gordon remained third and pulled within 32 points of second-place Mark Martin while losing 15 points to Johnson. "If they continue to run like that and finish like that, then there's really nothing we can do," Gordon said of Johnson's No. 48 group. "Even if we would have won the race today, it was only going to cut into it slightly. But that's our goal. "That's what we work hard to do and we come out of here at least with them in sight. We didn't give up a lot of points, which at one point it looked like we could have." Gordon started second, but spent most of the first half of the race just hanging onto the top 10 as he struggled with his Chevrolet on the shorter runs. Among the challenges Gordon faced was contact with Montoya around lap 100, after which he was none too pleased. "I don't know what's wrong with Montoya, but I'm pissed," he said over the team radio. Gordon later spoke with the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing driver about the incident. Montoya went on to finish third. "He was better than me at the time, so I wasn't really trying to battle with him at that time," Gordon said. "It was way early; I was just trying to get in position to go. So I really don't know what the deal was. "I said congratulations to him and I told him I hoped that whatever I did to make him mad was done." Montoya, who moved up a spot to fifth in the Chase For The Sprint Cup standings, said he and Gordon "were good" following a postrace discussion. "If you give me room, I'll give you room," Montoya added. "He wasn't giving me any, so I played the same game." Gordon benefited greatly from a 137-lap green-flag run between the 11th and 12th cautions to move into the top five in the final 150 laps. He lined up third on a restart with 12 to go, but lost two positions in those laps as another caution flag waved, setting up a green-white- "We were really gaining on them on the long runs and towards the end of that one long run, the green-flag pit stop and all that, that's where we made all of our gains," he said. "To me, we actually lost positions on those last couple runs. I would liked to have finished third and maybe had a shot at Jimmie for second." Gordon had hoped to recapture his winning ways at Martinsville, a place where he has scored seven victories, but none since the fall 2005 race. Instead he dropped even further out of title contention with four races left in the 2009 season. Are Gordon's title hopes now history? "It's never over," he said. "It's far from over. I mean those guys [Johnson and his team] are certainly putting themselves in a great position and they're outrunning us and they've got to make sure they keep doing that because it's not like we're finishing 15th or 20th or 30th. "We're not going to give it to them. Just keep fighting." Roush Fenway Racing's Jamie McMurray earns best finish of season at Martinsville By SceneDaily Staff MARTINSVILLE, Va. - On a day when teammate Carl Edwards bounced off the wall late and Matt Kenseth had a relief driver at the track, Jamie McMurray carried the banner for Roush Fenway Racing. Teammates Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart take different routes to top-10 finishes By SceneDaily Staff MARTINSVILLE, Va. - Stewart-Haas Racing's Ryan Newman enjoyed a strong outing at Martinsville Speedway Sunday, starting from the pole position and finishing seventh in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Tums Fast Relief 500. Hendrick Motorsports' Mark Martin says title hopes dimming with Jimmie Johnson's incredible run By Bob Pockrass/scenedaily MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Mark Martin has said people shouldn't handicap NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup until after the race next week at Talladega Superspeedway because of the chances of the field getting shuffled by a major wreck. But Martin admits he's lost a lot of ground the last two weeks with finishes of 17th at Lowe's Motor Speedway last week and then eighth Sunday at Martinsville Speedway. He went from 12 points behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson with six races remaining to now being 118 points behind leader Johnson with four races to go. Martin has held onto second in the points, though, with a 32-point edge on teammate Jeff Gordon and a 74-point cushion on Stewart-Haas Racing's Tony Stewart in fourth. "After next week, we'll know for sure, but we certainly don't look as good as we did two weeks ago," Martin said. "We were really looking good two weeks ago, and we've lost points for two weeks. We didn't give them away. We got beat. With the kind of performance the 48 [of Johnson] is putting up, it's just pretty incredible. "It's pretty incredible to expect to beat that. I think that we're holding our own very well against the rest of the Chase guys." Johnson has an average finish of third in the six Chase races. "What are you going to do when the leader's average finish is [that high]," Martin crew chief Alan Gustafson said. "If … you need to make up points on him, I'm thinking you're going to need to win. That's pretty self-explanatory." Martin ran in the top five most of the day at Martinsville but got shuffled back to eighth during a 138-lap green-flag run that ended on lap 444. Martin then couldn't gain any ground during the final 57 laps. "The guys that beat us turned the center and got off the corner," Martin said. "We spun the tires all day. We could turn the center, but we couldn't get off the corner and we couldn't fix that. So we earned everything that we could get today. "We raced as hard as we could. We had the one long run and lost a few spots toward the end of that run and obviously we weren't good enough to recover from that. We got shuffled out of the top five. I'm very satisfied with the effort. We gave it our all, and we got beat by a few and we beat a few. If we could have led the most laps and won, we sure would have. We gave it our all, and therefore, I'm satisfied." Gustafson wasn't satisfied, but he wasn't disappointed. "I'm not happy, but we're not there right now," Gustafson said. "We're working hard, and we just haven't been able to do it. We've just got to find some places to get better. It's going to be tough, but that's what we're going to have to do. "I'm not disappointed, and I'm not looking around thinking we shot ourselves in the foot here. The cars drive pretty good and the pit stops are really good and the strategy has been good, but it just hasn't been good enough. So we've got to find some more." Martin's season has been incredible if not a little inconsistent. He was 34th in points just four races into the season but he rattled off four wins to crack the top 12 and make the Chase. He then opened the 10-race, title-determining segment of the season with a win at New Hampshire. "I don't want having an incredible year cause us to be disappointed by not scoring more points than everybody in the thing," the 50-year-old Martin said. "We will win it if it's meant to be. But if it's not, we won't. We're giving it everything we've got." Penske Racing's Kurt Busch struggles at Martinsville as title hopes virtually end By Jared Turner - SceneDaily Staff Writer MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kurt Busch endured another setback to his fleeting NASCAR Sprint Cup title hopes in Sunday's Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway on what turned out to be a tough day for the entire Penske Racing organization. Busch considered his run on Sunday to be "actually a pretty good race for us at Martinsville," but finished 17th after losing a lap early, but getting that back courtesy of the free pass during a caution period. Busch, the 2004 Cup champion, dropped one spot to sixth in the standings and trails leader Jimmie Johnson by 240 points with four races remaining. "It was a tough day for our [team]," said Busch, who started 37th. "We started at the back and made it all the way up inside the top 10 for quite a few laps. Because of our qualifying position, we didn't get the best pit stall … On a pit stop with about 200 laps to go, I had to get too close to the wall to squeeze into our pit box and that really did us in. We lost about 15 spots and got caught up way back in the pack." By the time Busch got his lap back, he had just 12 laps in which to move toward the front. He gave up four positions to pit for tires when Red Bull Racing's Scott Speed wrecked to bring out a caution with five laps to go. Busch lined up 18th on the subsequent green-white- "We had nothing to lose by coming [in to pit]," crew chief Pat Tryson said. "If there were a few more laps, we would have gained some more spots. We just didn't have enough time." The fortunes of teammates David Stremme and Sam Hornish Jr. were no better. The two spun together on the backstretch on lap 176 and Hornish spun alone to bring out the next caution on lap 196. Stremme had further contact as well. Stremme finished 33rd while Hornish was 36th. "I think the 55 [car of Michael Waltrip] got back to the power too quick, got loose and hit us," said Hornish, in reference to his second accident. "And then just before that, I had the earlier spin with the 12 [of Stremme], which set us back a bit. "It's a tough deal because we were just out there trying to just get some laps under our belts and then we got run over." Denny Hamlin holds off challengers in closing laps to win Martinsville Cup race By Kenny Bruce/scenedaily. MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Denny Hamlin's Chase For The Sprint Cup chances may have gone up in smoke with back-to-back poor finishes at Auto Club Speedway and Lowe's Motor Speedway. But that doesn't mean the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has thrown in the towel where wins are concerned. Hamlin, who began the Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway 11th in points, outdueled points leader Jimmie Johnson to score his third NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win of the season and the seventh of his career. Two late cautions gave fellow Chase drivers Johnson and Juan Pablo Montoya the opportunity, but neither could make either subsequent restart pay off. Hamlin sprinted away from the field on both occasions with less than 15 laps remaining, including a final green-white- "I just want to thank all the fans that have been sticking with me, [I] hope that last two weeks are in the past," Hamin said. "I knew all those guys were going to be aggressive, trying to get a win. It feels great." Trailing Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet were Montoya (Earnhardt Ganassi Racing), Kyle Busch (Joe Gibbs Racing) and Jeff Gordon (Hendrick Motorsports) Just prior to the day's 12th caution flag, Johnson and Montoya made their final green-flag pit stops on 435, with Hamlin giving up the lead to duck onto pit road a lap later. The caution, the result of a spin by John Andretti in Turn 2, appeared to set up a final, 52-lap run to the finish. But that was far from the case, as the yellow continued to appear and bunch the field back up. Hamlin, who led 205 laps, had wrestled the lead away from Johnson on lap 364, nearly 50 laps after Johnson had regained the top spot following the day's 11th caution, running down and passing David Reutimann on lap 321. "I wish we could have won, but I just didn't have anything for the 11 [of Hamlin] on that last run," Johnson said. Johnson, the three-time series champion, continues to lead the points standings, and exited Martinsville with a 118-point lead over Mark Martin, followed by Gordon, Tony Stewart (10th) and Montoya. Montoya made his intentions known early, rubbing with Jeff Gordon to take the position as the two battled for a spot in the top five. "I don't know what the [expletive] is wrong with him, but I'm [expletive] pissed," Gordon told crew chief Steve Letarte via radio. Moments later, following a restart after the day's fourth caution, Montoya took the inside line away from Johnson and rocketed into the lead on lap 140. He led 37 of the race's 501 laps. "I don't know where that extra pace came from when the Chase started," Montoya said. "We stepped up. It's nice to see." Johnson, who had qualified 15th, made his way to the front for the first time on lap 59, darting underneath Gordon at the start/finish line. A four-car pileup in Turn 4, involving Matt Kenseth, Robby Gordon, Marcos Ambrose and Derrike Cope brought out the day's first caution on lap nine. The Fat Lady has Sung By Greg Engle, CupScene.com Editor, NASCAR Examiner There was a large woman standing in the pit area of Roush-Fenway Racing's Greg Biffle at Martinsville Sunday. She began singing just after the halfway point of the Tums Fast Relief 500, signaling the end of the 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup for Biffle and the No. 16 team. Not that it ever really got off the ground. After two poor finishes in the opening races of the Chase, the only highlight for Biffle came at Kansas when he finished third. Then came California and a 20th followed by a 17th at Lowe's. Those two strikes didn't bode well for Biffle as he headed to Martinsville. The third strike came Sunday and now Biffle is officially out of the game. Biffle's stats heading into Martinsville weren't exactly promising. He had one pole and a top-five finish at NASCAR's shortest track, but those came in the Camping World Truck Series. Prior to Sunday his best finish in a Cup car was seventh. But just like the spring race here, rain put a damper on the weekend. Rolling off 20th, Biffle did have some highlights Sunday. After being lapped by Jimmie Johnson on lap 84 he was able to fight his way back onto the lead lap. Unfortunately he was lapped again on lap 122, but was able to catch a break on lap 157 when he got the free pass. Mike Lovecchio · Frontstretch. Martinsville ONE: How many teams have a shot at the title after six races? With yet another top 5 finish in the Chase, Jimmie Johnson has opened a healthy 118-point lead over teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon this weekend. His unbelievable consistency has now awarded him a gimme, which could be used in the Chase's wild card race next weekend at Talladega. IF Johnson can survive the madness next Sunday, I would say it's pretty safe to start etching his name on the Sprint Cup. But because he does have to survive the wild card next week and there are two drivers within 150 points, I'll go ahead and say that Mark Martin (118 points back) and Jeff Gordon (150 back) are the only two guys who have a realistic shot at slaying the giant if he indeed slips up. TWO: Is starting and parking bad for the sport of NASCAR? Brought up as this week's field of start and parkers started falling by the wayside, fans and Frontstretch panelists involved in the Frontstretch live blog voted that the recent epidemic of start and parkers is indeed bad for the sport. The question is, what hurts the credibility of the sport more: not having full fields, or having cars start and park to collect a few dollars? Both are signs of a troubling economy, but if I had to pick my poison I'd much rather see a field of 35 or so cars actually competing. Will NASCAR ever address the issue? Not in the near future; but for its sake, they better hope the number of start parkers does not get out of hand and dip into double digits next season. THREE: Which short track do you most enjoy watching? In the midst of a fairly entertaining 500-lapper at the paper clip in Martinsville, fans were asked what their favorite short track was. Surprisingly, Martinsville didn't get any votes, with Bristol topping Richmond 67 percent to 33 percent. Again, I have to agree with the fans. Martinsville has on occasion the tightest racing and Richmond is one of the more unique tracks on the circuit, but the high banks and blistering lap times at Bristol make it one of the more exciting short tacks in the country. You certainly can't go wrong with any of the three, and I wish we had more tracks shorter than one mile of length on the schedule. FOUR: Should Martinsville get two dates in 2011? Adding to my claim above about wishing there were more short tracks on the schedule, I think it would be a travesty for Martinsville to lose a date when the 2011 calendar is released next season. NASCAR lost a number of fans when North Wilkesboro was taken off the schedule, again when Rockingham lost its dates, and once again when Darlington lost a date. Taking a Martinsville race off the calendar would be the tipping point for another wave of NASCAR purists, but the fate of the half-mile may rest in the wallets of those Virginians who pay to go to the races. If you put butts in the seats, there is no way NASCAR would ever take Martinsville off the schedule; however, I saw too many openings on Sunday for my liking. FIVE: Should NASCAR do more to police pit road speeds? In the mid-part of Sunday's race, Chase contender Juan Pablo Montoya claimed the points leader was speeding on pit road. It sparked an interesting conversation in both the ABC booth and the Frontstretch blog. With the way NASCAR currently detects pit road speed limits, there are small areas where drivers can push the limit and make up critical ground getting on and off pit road, and Jimmie Johnson appeared to be doing just that — speeding in between the timing lines before slowing down to the limit. Is it just me, or does it seem like there should be enough technology to track each car's speed from line to line on pit road? NASCAR fans tend to be conspiracy theorists, and it's "gray area" rules like this that spark controversy. Remember, this isn't the first time the pit road speed limit has been brought up this year… Notes to Ponder: Tagliani in Texas: Open-wheeler Alex Tagliani will make his first start at Texas in a Nationwide car later this season. He'll be back in the same No. 81 MacDonald Motorsports Dodge that he drove to a 26th place finish in Montreal. Virginia homecomings: Virginia natives Timothy Peters and Denny Hamlin both won at their home track this weekend at Martinsville. McMurray's audition?: Quick question: who was the highest running Roush Fenway car this weekend? Surprisingly, it was Jamie McMurray (6th) whose name has been rumored for the No. 1 Earnhardt Ganassi ride over the last few weeks. Is NASCAR playing it too safe? Ed Hinton/espn. I shall now ask you the fans the toughest, touchiest, most personal, most politically incorrect question I have ever asked you: Is racing dangerous enough for you anymore? This bears asking, in light of your massively expressed discontent and growing apathy toward NASCAR. I wonder if the radical reduction of danger in the safety revolution isn't at the root of it all. Don't get me wrong. I never have been one of those who believed the masses came to motor races to see people get killed. But I have always believed you came, in some measure, to sense that death and serious injury were being narrowly avoided before your eyes. I could hear it in your thunderous cheers whenever a Dale Earnhardt or a Tim Richmond would climb out of a demolished car and wave to the crowd. Or a Rick Mears would rise laughing out of a pile of rubble at Indy. Before Jimmie Johnson rocketed from obscurity at the lesser levels to astounding success in Cup, his entire career highlight film lasted less than a minute: one horrific crash at Watkins Glen, head-on into a barrier that exploded; he jumped right out of the wreckage and onto the roof of his Busch car, and thrust both arms skyward. Both he and the crowd were clearly exhilarated by his triumph over near-disaster. I wonder if your current apathy toward him is, in part, because he's had no moments like that in Cup. I'm not pushing you onto a psychiatric couch here. I'm just asking about human nature, the anthropological fact of fascination with, say, the high-wire artist, the matador, the Navy SEAL, or -- in the analogy once drawn for me by NASCAR president Mike Helton -- the fighter pilot. Atop that list of the daring, for more than a century between the first automobile race in 1894 and this, the fruition of the racing safety revolution, was the racing driver. These past few years you have told me in droves that NASCAR has become boring -- "BO-ring," you often spell it -- via e-mail and comments on the ESPN Conversation pages. Yet NASCAR publicists bombard me constantly with computer-acquired "loop data" meant to prove, mathematically, that there's more passing, closer racing, fewer runaway wins than ever before. So all I can rely on are my own eyes and memory, and I cannot for the life of me see that the racing is any more or less boring than it ever was whenever fields get strung out, and someone leads and leads and leads. Johnson does it, but so did Richard Petty. You roundly say you despise the Car of Tomorrow because it's awkward and further dampens the racing, and because it is essentially a kit car neutered of make. The new car is aesthetically ugly beyond question, and drivers tell us it's a handful and a clunker. Beyond that, I can't see how it has necessarily hurt the racing -- unless we're constantly watching the driver, inside the car, fighting the wheel and the brake pedal. As for brand identification, they all looked the same to me a decade before the COT came along. It started in 1997 when NASCAR let Ford get away with a racing Taurus that looked nothing like a street Taurus, and the aerodynamics war went out of control from there, until they were all prototypes, none recognizable from the showroom namesakes. I wonder whether the real issue with the new car, conscious or subconscious, is that its purpose has been too thoroughly fulfilled -- that it is too safe. You say the drivers, including Johnson, are mostly vanilla. I wonder if it's more that you don't detect that distinct aura of swagger in men who knew and accepted, whenever a starting grid rolled off the pit road, that they might not make it back. For the record, no journalist was more vocal than I on behalf of the HANS, soft walls, safer seats, moving the driver more toward the center of the car, and energy-dissipating materials in the cars. It had gotten to the point that the price of the occasional reminders of the danger was too dear. I'd written too many accounts from too many racetracks where the pall of death or career-ending injury lay palpable and miserable. I still feel that way. I still applaud, standing, NASCAR's adoption of every single safety measure, and more, advocated by the experts I brought into the discussion in the terrible outbreak of death by basilar skull fracture in 2000-01. Most of those Ph.D.s and M.D.s are now paid consultants for NASCAR. Still I wonder whether, in doing the right thing -- the only thing, given the scientific capabilities -- racing has had to remove a rudimentary element of its electrifying appeal: the intangible edge on the human spirit during an event that involves high risk. For a few months after the day Earnhardt didn't climb out, Feb. 18, 2001 at Daytona, NASCAR's television ratings spiked to their highest levels ever. They have declined, pretty much steadily, ever since. In death he finally made the cover of Sports Illustrated, a place I'd failed to get him in life, during the nine years I worked there, through the prime of his career. Its sister magazine, Time, put him on the cover too, with a story that contained some information I'd written in SI stories that didn't make the cover, information now deemed more interesting to the masses because he was suddenly dead. Driving the TV-ratings spike in the Earnhardt aftermath were male viewers ages 18-34, the demographic advertisers covet most. After the TV roller coaster, I kept getting this image of youth in droves, parking their dirt bikes and skateboards and saying to one another, "Man, dudes actually die at this NASCAR stuff, so I better check it out." Then, HANS devices in place, soft walls under construction, danger radically reduced, the youths apparently returned to watching the X Games. But throughout the aftermath of Earnhardt I felt this: He himself wouldn't have been disgusted by it all, for nobody understood the mass appeal of danger more than Earnhardt. It made him, he knew. And it would destroy him, he seemed to sense all along. And he accepted that. He once showed me a letter from a woman asking him to drive her husband's hearse from the church to the grave. It had been the man's dying wish. I knew how Earnhardt was -- he wouldn't go to funerals even for close friends such as Neil Bonnett and Davey Allison. Death was too real, too looming in his own life, too clear and present a danger to Earnhardt all the time. Knowing this, and having been the victim of his chops-busting humor many a time, I went right back at him over the hearse-driving request. I dropped the letter onto the coffee table between us and asked, "Well? Did you do it?" "Shee-ee-ee- And then he muttered: "I'll be in one of them bitches soon enough." This was six-plus years before his death. Only months before it, amid much driver unrest over the deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr., Earnhardt famously admonished his skittish peers: "Put a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up there and eat your candy ass." I wonder if that isn't what you miss most about him, the seven championships and 76 wins just being the rationale on which you would have rioted had he been left out of NASCAR's very first Hall of Fame class. But Earnhardt was the paradox of indescribable enormity in NASCAR. A realm always on the bittersweet edge of danger due to the occasional reminders, the deaths of lesser names, could not bear the death of its biggest, its literally most-worshipped star ever. This was too much. Something had to be done. It was a flashback to what had happened in Formula One in 1994, when its own man deemed invulnerable to dying in a race car, Ayrton Senna, was killed at Imola, Italy. The very next race, at Monaco, I sat with F1 czar Bernie Ecclestone in his motor coach in the paddock on race morning, saw the urgency in his face as he looked me in the eye, and heard him utter the words that would begin the worldwide safety revolution that, by now, has changed the electrifying nature of motor racing everywhere forever: "It is necessary to give out the message to the world that we're not people who don't care." They had to end the image of blood sport, even in the one so long regarded as the most dangerous -- and therefore somehow romantic -- sport of all, Grand Prix racing. That they did. The high-tech safety revolution began, though it would not reach NASCAR for seven more years, and the very real death of its own perceived immortal, Earnhardt. By 1997, Jacques Villeneuve, soon after winning the world driving championship, got into big trouble with the FIA for telling the BBC that Formula One was losing its appeal because it just wasn't dangerous enough anymore. This was not from a cavalier driver in youthful denial. Nobody in F1 understood death on the track better, more personally. His father, Gilles Villeneuve, had been killed when Jacques was only 11, during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix in 1982. Yet what Jacques said was terribly incorrect politically, because F1 was in the third year of its massive safety and public-relations overhaul. That didn't mean he wasn't right. Joey Logano's recent wreck at Dover is a prime example of how we in the media grasp at any remaining straw of the danger element, try to magnify it, bring it back. The very idea that Logano could have been seriously hurt in that car, in that seat, wearing that helmet and HANS, in that simple rollover, was -- well -- borderline absurd. But he said it scared him -- of course it did, in a generation of drivers who seem to sense they're playing video games until the simulator jars them enough to remind them that crashing really can hurt. The commentators were breathless as the replays of Logano's roll went on and on, in slow motion and real time, ad nauseam. See? Grasping at a straw of something fleeting, nearly gone, trying to bring it back. We all are human and we all are mortal and we all are trying to deal with that, and seeing the nearness of death is somehow a part of our preparation. My longtime friend and writing guru, Frank Deford, broke his career-long silence on the subject of auto racing -- he'd often kidded me about the garishness of it -- in the aftermath of Earnhardt. NASCAR, Deford concluded, is indeed "a slice of American life … and death." Our greatest living novelist, the enigmatic Cormac McCarthy, slipped out of seclusion a couple of years ago for one TV interview, in which he said he does not understand writers who do not deal in matters of life and death. Given racing today, I wonder if the man who gained fame and fortune by being the most overtly human and mortal of us all, Ernest Hemingway, would have said what he said: "There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing and mountaineering, all the others being games." I wonder if he'd have listed only two. He's not around to ask, so I'm asking you: Have science and society and their mandates to do the right thing, the humane thing, and the pundits like me who preached it … Have we reduced your once-deadly, once-electrifying sport to just another game? Junior Nation makes some noise Ryan McGee Blog Junior Nation is taking it to the streets. Or, more accurately, the information superhighway. Distraught, disillusioned and just flat-out disappointed all season long, you could feel the fans of Dale Earnhardt Jr. reaching their collective breaking point during last weekend's events at Lowe's Motor Speedway. They have watched patiently as the six-time Most Popular Driver went oh-fer this season, free-falling to No. 22 in points, while his teammates sit 1-2-3. Now, they're done being patient. They are demanding change, spurred on by the disaster at Lowe's. First, there was Thursday night's horrible qualifying effort. Then Friday's stunningly depressing news conference, which was originally intended to be a lighter-than- Then Earnhardt broke a transmission during Saturday night's race, leading to yet another brutal finish. That was followed by David Newton's Wednesday story that included comments from another former crew chief, Tony Gibson. Among Gibson's comments: "He just needs a change, a whole package change. Listen to his voice. He's asking for that. I've been around him for a long time. I know." That quote was apparently the tipping point for fans. On Wednesday afternoon an online petition went up, asking Rick Hendrick not to make small changes or keep things as-is, but rather to blow the No. 88 team up and start over in 2010. The plea atop the signature page reads: We have suspected for quite some time now that there is a problem somewhere within the 88 team, either in the shop or at the track. The statements released today from Tony Gibson have proven that our gut feelings were accurate. The fans would like this to be taken care of immediately! We the fans thought our equipment would be first class at Hendrick Motorsports. Please act now. The goal is to reach (of course) 8,888 signatures. As of 9:20 p.m. ET that night it was up to (of course) 88 signatures. They came in from Canada to the Carolinas, from Connecticut to California. Is Mr. H listening? We'll see. After Further Review ... In Wednesday's blog I recounted the story of the mystery surrounding Bobby Allison's career wins total. In that story, Allison argues that NASCAR doesn't want to give him credit for his 1971 win at Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., because it would take away from Richard Petty's magical total of 200 career wins. Petty finished second and I incorrectly stated that he was credited with the Cup win. (Though, in my defense that's published in multiple places.) Shortly after the story was posted, NASCAR statistical guru Mike Forde tracked me down. "Good stuff as usual, but I wanted to correct a myth that seems to be going around about this Allison 85-win issue. Petty was NOT credited with a win for that race. There were a full 200 occasions where Richard Petty crossed the finish line first." As always, the king of the Driver Rating had the numbers and the spreadsheet to back up his argument. And I, a lifetime member of the Richard Petty Fan Club, exhaled knowing that his 200 wins were in fact, 200 wins. Throttle Linkage •With the images of the sparse Lowe's Motor Speedway crowd still burned in our brains, here's a great story in the Sports Business Journal about sagging ticket sales. The Magic Bus Caption Contest On Monday, I posted this photo of a very sweet, uberpimped school bus-turned-rolling- @KSRaceFan2448 And you said nobody would notice we painted up the bus ... @becbeat555 If you think riding around in this bus will get you [lucky] you might be a redneck @ronfrankl Yeah, this is my work ride. You should see what I ride around in on the weekends. And this week's winner comes from the PR director for JR Motorsports, Mike Davis: @MikeDavis88 THESE COLORS DON'T RUN! No really, they don't run. Clete, gimme a jump? For Your Viewing Pleasure In the spirit of our Magic Bus Contest I give you this video. Keep an eye out for the rig that looks suspiciously like our dude from Lowe's, the guy who has an on-board camera and the "Godspeed Benny [Parsons]" painted across one of the roofs. God bless America. Truck Stop The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is back in business this weekend after nearly a month off, dropping the green on Saturday as the lead-in to Sunday's Cup race at the Martinsville Speedway. As I was going through a stack of pre-Martinsville press releases, I found a stat that I was certain had to be a typo. "Ron Hornaday has never won at the Martinsville Speedway ..." What? How can that be? The all-time series leader in championships (3) and wins (45) has won on 29 (!) different tracks in the NCWTS, but is 0-for-14 on one of the original 18 tracks from the series' inaugural 1995 schedule. "They've run 20-something races there [21, actually], and I've run two-thirds of them," said the 51-year-old, as he salivated over the track's traditional trophy. "I've finished close enough to the front that I had to watch someone else get their grandfather clock. I was leading one year ago and ran out of gas, pretty much lost the championship that day. I was second back in March and I finished second to Kevin Harvick, and he's my boss." So, what will he do with the clock if he finally wins it on Saturday? "Probably get some bungee cords and strap it to the back of my truck and drive all over town with it." Season's Tweetings From Kevin Harvick, posted Tuesday afternoon while on the way home from an elk hunting trip in New Mexico with Clint Bowyer and Bobby Labonte. We preface this with a very serious disclaimer: Don't try this at home unless that home includes a Daytona 500 trophy on the mantel. @KevinHarvick http://twitpic. Fiery Keselowski enthused about driving for Penske next season Tom Bowles/si.com As the Chase hits the halfway mark, it might as well be named the Hendrick Memorial Parade. Their cars hold the top three spots in points, with Tony Stewart's HMS-supported Chevy a solid fourth. Barring a major catastrophe, driver Jimmie Johnson will win his fourth straight title -- which would be the ninth overall for the organization since 1995. It's the type of dominance that should keep anyone signing on the dotted line for years to come, right? Except if you're Brad Keselowski. The Nationwide Series driver and top-level prospect will make this offseason's biggest switch, leaving the JR Motorsports/ "I know more pieces of the puzzle than anyone else does," he says of a departure that raised eyebrows, considering his soon-to-be-former car owner was keeping a full-time ride open for when Jeff Gordon or Mark Martin scaled back. "Unfortunately, I can't unveil those pieces. That makes that decision a smarter decision than what some might think." Many believe the move may be only temporary, as Hendrick himself declared in August. "Wherever he goes, he'll always be close enough for me to get him and bring him back." The owner told ESPN, "I've said all along I want him to have the best opportunity, and we have several options, but the one thing I told him is, 'Look, if you decide to do something different, I want you to have the best opportunity, and whoever you go to drive for just tell them don't get pissed off when I come after you.' " But for now, the bottom line is he'll be racing somewhere else next season, finishing up his Hendrick tenure with a 12th at Charlotte, his fifth top 15 in 11 Cup starts this year (in comparison, Rookie of the Year Joey Logano has just 11 in 31 starts, respectively. Add in that Talladega upset, where Keselowski sent Carl Edwards flipping en route to the checkered flag, and this rookie's earned the label of a hot young talent to watch in 2010. And with Penske, it's not like he's taking a major step backwards in equipment. After all, it's an organization whose chassis are currently second-best on the circuit (driver Kurt Busch is fifth in points), and the lone organization Dodge will focus its funding on after losing Richard Petty Motorsports to Ford. Yet after three years of working with Hendrick equipment, Keselowski demands excellence. That's why it's no surprise the young rookie told Penske he needed at least 100 people, if not more, to compete against the Hendrick juggernaut after touring the shop and telling his car owner they don't yet have the depth to succeed. "We've both got to change," the driver says unequivocally, wielding power most rookies don't ever get when dealing with a 72-year-old racing legend like Penske. "We're going to have to work together, and it can't be on one end. It can't be where I change and adapt to them, and it can't be where they adapt to me. We have to be in the middle and work together that way." Where Keselowski hopes to make the most impact is behind the walls of the Penske shop. Known to run a tight ship, the open-wheel owner hasn't exactly had perfect success in getting teams to work together (Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman were the greatest example, teammates who barely spoke to each other during their five years under the same roof). But after two years of watching the demeanor of superstars Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and others, he's convinced that proper teamwork with Kurt Busch and Sam Hornish will be the one and only way to catch up. After all, it's what he learned from watching the Hendrick stars. "Their teams believe in them," Keselowski says. "It's really awe-inspiring. I think of the 24 and the 48 as being like Santa's Little Helper's shop. Everybody works together, singing songs while they're working." "The code and the morals that goes along with making that happen, I think that's probably the biggest thing I'll take from [my years there]." That ethical blueprint makes the Hendrick teams themselves an open book off the racetrack. But perhaps the one place Keselowski always differed from those teammates was with his fiery, independent style on it. Gaining a reputation as one of NASCAR's most aggressive drivers, he's been known not to take his foot off the gas in any situation. That led to perhaps the biggest break of his career: holding his line instead of backing off left Edwards in the catchfence while Keselowski wound up in Cup Series Victory Lane this April, cementing his status as the sport's top prospect. But it's also left him embroiled in controversy, with a late-race accident with Denny Hamlin in a Nationwide race at Dover followed up by a verbal warning from NASCAR at Kansas, where Keselowski was beating and banging in the Cup race with Chasers as if his own championship bid was on the line. "Brad Keselowski is a young driver with limited experience as it relates to Sprint Cup Series racing," officials said after he roughed up Juan Pablo Montoya, among others. "In NASCAR's opinion, there were several instances in the early stages of a 400-mile race that he was being overly aggressive, and NASCAR communicated that to his team." But it's not just officials sounding the alarm, as his peers also wonder if the young driver should be dialing it back a bit on the race track. "Brad's an amazing racer. He's got a ton of talent, and he's out there trying to prove himself every week," Hamlin said. "But he's not doing anyone any good if a wreck happens with one of the Chasers." As for Hamlin, there's no love lost between the two as he got involved with a post-race shoving match with Keselowski after his wreck. Last weekend at Charlotte, Hamlin said winning the respect of your competitors is critical as you move on to the next level. "I've communicated through text message, phone calls, and I've said, 'What do you expect from me as a competitor?' But Keselowski says the elder star shouldn't be holding his breath for a call. "I got poor phone service," Keselowski joked in response to those methods. "I'm looking forward to changing that with my sponsor for next year. Maybe then I can make one of them phone calls." "[Seriously] And so Keselowski trudges ahead, carving his own path of taking no quarter in a series in which other drivers fear to tread. It's an old school mentality in what he says has become a "new school" brand of competition -- a change he claims is due to a sudden influx of open-wheel drivers crossing over into the sport. "This used to be a deal where all the race car drivers who didn't want to race side-by-side went to IndyCar World," he said. "And all the race car drivers that got some dirt under their fingernails, raced hard, dug hard, ran hard, went to stock car racing. [But] when the IndyCar Series went away, for some reason NASCAR racing picked up all the open-wheel race car drivers, that don't want to get their hands dirty, that aren't engaged in the lifestyle of the sport. So they're naturally against conflict." "Well, I grew up in the sport, where I grew up in it in my level was the hands dirty, if you gotta fight you gotta fight type of world. So there's a large difference between us two groups, and there's only a few of us that are in [the stock car one]. I look and I look at the guys like Marcos Ambrose, I put him in my group. But there's a large part of the group [competing today] that's not. And it's changed some of the makeup of the sport." Such remarks show the differences between the driver and his new car owner, who is the winner of more Indy 500 championships than anyone else. Will teacher and student be able to get along? "So far, that's gone very, very well," Keselowski said. "I turned him down [for a ride] probably four or five times. And every time I did, he came back. How could I say no to somebody that wants me this bad? That's going to tell me how well it's going to work in the future, how well it's working right now to where we're going to be able to work together, and I'm going to be able to come to him and say, 'This is what we need.' And that's what we've got." In the meantime, he'll go back to spending the rest of the season gaining as much experience as he can from the team that molded him (JR Motorsports) and a crew chief in Tony Eury, Sr. who's one of the few people always capable of keeping his ego in check. "I never think of myself as only having one thing to improve on, ever," Keselowski says humbly, looking forward to the next step. "I always think of myself as a constantly evolving artist. And you think, what do I need to do better? Well I could restart better, I could do a little better at giving feedback, I could do a little better at engaging my team. But those are always going to be there, whether you're a rookie or not. It's like you start out a six out of 10, and maybe two years from now I'm an eight out of 10, but I'm still not a 10." "So I'm still going to continue to engage those things and face those problems, whether I'm a rookie or not." It's that passion to get better that gives an athlete his best chance to succeed. And if the pieces fall into place, it could make Hendrick's No. 1 enemy in next year's Chase the very driver it helped create.
Well, that's all for today. Until the next time, I remain, Your Nascar Momma Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
"Don't come here and grumble about going too fast. Get the hell out of the race car if you've got feathers on your legs or butt. Put a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up there and eat that candy ass." -Dale Earnhardt - 1998 |
knowyournascar-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To post message, send an email to:
knowyournascar@yahoogroups.com
-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To post message, send an email to:
knowyournascar@yahoogroups.com
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
No comments:
Post a Comment