Trucks -- Bowyer Dominates at Kansas

Image via Wikipedia

Kansas native Clint Bowyer dominated Saturday's O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway.  Bowyer led 124 (of 167) laps and cruised to a 1.695-second victory over Johnny Sauter.

Bowyer picked up his third career victory in just his eleventh start in the Camping World Truck Series.  It was his first start at Kansas Speedway.  It was his first victory in front of his hometown crowd in any NASCAR national series.  He has two second place finishes at the track -- one in the 2007 Cup race and one in the 2008 Nationwide race.

Bowyer's only real snag occurred on a restart on Lap 112.  Bowyer pitted and took four tires and enough fuel to finish the race.  With the cars that stayed out and those that took just two tires, Bowyer was mired back in 11th position on the restart, but he moved quickly through the traffic and regained the lead on Lap 122.

Bowyer led the final 46 laps.  He briefly battled for the lead with Sauter on the final restart on Lap 138 before pulling away to the easy victory.

Todd Bodine finished third, followed by James Buescher and Joey Coulter.  (Race results)

Sauter takes over the lead in the series points standings after Cole Whitt's 15th-place finish.  Sauter leads Whitt by 12 points.  Austin Dillon (-30), who finished 12th, moved ahead of Matt Crafton (-32) to take over the third spot.  Timothy Peters (-47) rounds out the Top Five.

NASCAR: Talladega Results

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeNSCS:  Amp Energy Juice 500

It took a few minutes but NASCAR finally decided that Clint Bowyer was the winner of Sunday's Amp Energy 500 at Talladega.  After a review of the videos and loop data, they determined that Bowyer was just ahead of his RCR teammate Kevin Harvick when the race ended under caution.

Bowyer was in the inside lane being pushed by Juan Montoya.  Harvick was on the outside with David Reutimann glued to his back bumper.  As they came to the stripe to take the white flag, Harvick was inches ahead, but a few seconds later, when the caution came out and the field was frozen, Bowyer was just ahead of Harvick.

It was Bowyer's fourth career win, his first at a restrictor-plate race, and his second of the Chase.  Montoya finished third, followed by Reutimann and Joey Logano.  (Race results)

Bowyer and Harvick almost weren't there at the end.  On Lap 141 (of 188) Bowyer got into the rear of Marcos Ambrose in Turn Two, turning him in front of Harvick.  Both RCR cars suffered front-end damage, but were able to continue.  Harvick made a lengthy pit stop to put tape on the nose of his car.

The race was tame by Talladega standards.  There were just five cautions, and one of those was for debris.  The only accident that would come close to being a "Big One" was the wreck that brought out the final caution and ended the race a couple of miles too soon.  A. J. Allmendinger got the worst of that one.  He spun, flipped up on his side, and slammed hard (still on his side) into the inside wall.  Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Scott Speed, and David Gilliland were also involved.

On Lap 134, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led a race-high 24 laps, tried an ill-timed bump draft on Jeff Burton.  The contact put Burton into the wall, where he collected Earnhardt, finishing both of their days.

Kyle Busch pushed his JGR teammate Denny Hamlin to the front and was in position to win, but got shuffled back at the end of the race and finished 25th.  All of the Roush Fenway Chasers -- Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, and Greg Biffle -- suffered the same fate.  They finished 16th, 17th, and 19th respectively.

Denny Hamlin's day almost became a disaster to ruin his championship hopes.  On Lap 77, while cruising around in the back of the field to stay out of trouble, he lost contact with the pack and fell out of the draft.  Running by himself, he fell behind quickly at the rate of about four seconds per lap and was eventually lapped on Lap 105.  Once he got back in the main pack, he was able to stay up near the front, and eventually got his lap back during the caution for the Bowyer-Harvick-Ambrose incident on Lap 141.

It was a three-man race for the championship coming into this race, and it's an even tighter three-man race now.  In fact, this is the closest race between the top three contenders with three races to go since the Chase format started.  Jimmie Johnson, who finished seventh, increased his lead over Denny Hamlin, who finished ninth, from six to 14 points, but Harvick is now just 38 points behind Johnson.   Jeff Gordon, who finished eighth, jumped back ahead of Kyle Busch to fourth in the standings, but he's 207 points out.  (Points standings)



NCWTS:  Mountain Dew 250

Kyle Busch beat Aric Almirola to the line to gain a controversial win in Saturday's Mountain Dew 500 at Talladega.  Busch's margin of victory was 0.002 seconds, the closest in Camping World Truck Series history and tying Ricky Craven's win over Kurt Busch in a Cup race at Darlington in 2003 for the closest win in the three national series since the introduction of electronic timing in 1993.

Johnny Sauter finished third, followed by Matt Crafton and Ricky Carmichael.  (Race results)

They came out of the final turn in a single-file line with Busch seemingly ready to just push Almirola to the victory, but Sauter went low and Busch went down to block.  Sauter gave Busch a push, then moved up high and the three crossed the line side-by-side-by-side.  That final push from Sauter got Busch out of shape and his left tires went below the yellow line, out of bounds, as he struggled to keep control.  That had Almirola's team complaining that Busch should have been disqualified.  NASCAR let it slide.

It was Busch's sixth Truck Series win of the season, his second at Talladega, and the 22nd of his career.

The Big One came on Lap 91.  Grant Enfinger bumped series-leader Todd Bodine, turning him and triggering a wild wreck that saw Ron Hornaday's truck flip several times before coming to rest on its roof.   Bodine finished 18th and took a big hit in the points standings, but still has a comfortable 216-point lead over Almirola with just three races remaining.

NASCAR: Fontana Preview

Image by duane.schoon via Flickr
This week's NASCAR action takes place in Fontana, California, at Auto Club Speedway.  There are two races on tap:  Saturday's Nationwide race, the CampingWorld.com 300 (4 p.m. ET, ESPN2) and Sunday's Sprint Cup race, the Pepsi Max 400 (3 p.m. ET, ESPN).  The Camping World Truck Series is taking yet another weekend off; they return on October 23 at Martinsville.

Sunday's Cup race is the fourth race in the ten-race Chase for the Sprint Cup.   Jimmie Johnson took over the lead in the points standings after last weekend's race at Kansas, but Denny Hamlin is just eight points behind and seven drivers are within 85 points of the four-time champ.  Jeff Burton, in ninth place, is just 101 points back.  Tony Stewart (-127) and Matt Kenseth (-149) still have faint glimmers of hope.

Clint Bowyer (-252) is just counting the days until the 2011 season after losing his final appeal of his 150-point penalty after his car failed inspection at the NASCAR R&D Center after he won the first Chase race at Loudon.  NASCAR chief appellate officer John Middlebrook did reduce the fines and suspensions for the No. 33 team though.  Crew chief Shane Wilson's fine was reduced from $150,000 to $100,000 and the suspensions of Wilson and car chief Chad Haney were lowered from six races to four.  Richard Childress Racing competition director Scott Miller will be on the pit box for Wilson beginning this weekend.

The bad news for all the drivers chasing Johnson is that Auto Club Speedway is one of his best tracks.  He leads all drivers with five wins.  Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth, both in the Chase, are the only other drivers with multiple wins at the track; they each have three.  Johnson is the only driver to win back-to-back races at Fontana; he won earlier in the year in February and last year's October race.

Hendrick Motorsports (nine wins) and Roush Fenway Racing (seven) have won 16 of the 20 Cup races at Fontana.  Auto Club Speedway is the only current track where Joe Gibbs Racing does not have a victory.

Jamie McMurray grabbed the pole for Sunday's race in the Friday qualifying session.  McMurray ran a lap in 38.859 seconds (185.285 mph).  It was his fourth pole of the season and the seven of his career.  Elliott Sadler grabbed the other front-row starting spot with a lap of 184.407 mph.  Kenseth starts third, the only Chaser in the top five.  Juan Montoya starts fourth, Kasey Kahne fifth.

Only two other Chasers start in the top ten -- Greg Biffle starts seventh and Johnson eighth.  Bowyer starts 13th, Jeff Burton 15th, Kyle Busch 16th, Gordon 17th, Carl Edwards 20th, Kevin Harvick 21st, Tony Stewart 22nd, Hamlin 34th, and Kurt Busch 38th.

Bobby Labonte claimed the final starting spot by using a past champion's provisional.  Mike Bliss and Patrick Carpentier failed to qualify for the 43-car field.  (Race lineup)

Auto Club Speedway is very similar to Kansas Speedway, site of last week's race.  Both are wide, multi-groove tracks with moderate banking.  Where Kansas was a 1.5-mile tri-oval, ACS is a 2-mile D-shaped oval.  Auto Club Speedway's layout is almost identical to Michigan International Speedway.  There should be a lot of side-by-side racing, but the field might get strung out as the faster cars leave the slower ones behind.  The engines run in the high rpm range all day and one or two usually don't make it out alive.  This year, in an effort to make the race more competitive, NASCAR reduced the race from 500 to 400 miles.

Related articles

• NASCAR's Big Fear Of A Winless Champion May Soon Become A Reality (bleacherreport.com)
• NASCAR Sprint Cup Series number crunching for Auto Club Speedway (espn.go.com)
• Johnson in lead, at 'home track' bad news for other Chasers (cbssports.com)
• Notebook: Busch-Reutimann feud still simmering (sportingnews.com)

NASCAR: Kansas Preview

Image via Wikipedia
The Camping World Truck Series is idle until October 23, so there are just two races on the schedule this weekend -- both at Kansas Speedway, just outside of Kansas City, Kansas.  The Nationwide Series race, the Kansas Lottery 300, takes place Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. ET (ESPN2).  The Sprint Cup race, the Price Chopper 400 presented by Kraft Foods, kicks off Sunday at 1 p.m. ET (ESPN).

The Cup race is the third in the ten-race Chase for the Sprint Cup.  After his dominating win last week at Dover, Jimmie Johnson seems like the odds-on favorite to win his fifth straight Cup championship, but he still trails Denny Hamlin by 35 points.  And six other drivers are still within 83 points of the lead, so a lot can happen between now and Homestead in November.

Two points to keep in mind:  since the Chase format began, no driver who has led in the points after two races has gone on to win the championship, but no driver has ever had as big a lead as Hamlin after two races.

Greg Biffle (-140), Tony Stewart (-162), Matt Kenseth (-165) and Clint Bowyer (-235) are technically still alive for the championship, but on life support.

Bowyer, who had his 150-point penalty upheld Wednesday after failing inspection at the R&D Center after his win at Loudon, still has one final appeal left with NASCAR chief appellate officer John Middlebrook.  Bowyer is convinced that he has no chance of winning that final appeal and therefore has no chance of winning the championship this year.  He is vowing to help his RCR teammates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton, and might end up doing a little research and development on the track for them.  Meanwhile, an analyst who testified for RCR at Wednesday's appeal showed that the wrecker that pushed Bowyer to Victory Lane could have caused the inspection violation.  Dr. Charles Manning of Accident Reconstruction Analysis called NASCAR's arguments against his analysis "a bunch of malarkey."

It will be an all-Richard Petty Motorsports front row Sunday.  Kasey Kahne turned a lap in 30.920 seconds (174.644 mph) in Friday's qualifying session to grab the pole.  His RPM teammate Paul Menard will start in the second spot after his lap of 30.951 seconds.  It will be the first time two Petty cars will lead the field to green.  It's the 19th pole in Kahne's career and his third for the season, tying Jamie McMurray for the series lead.

Jeff Gordon starts third, followed by Joey Logano and Greg Biffle.  Only four Chasers start in the top 10 -- in addition to Gordon and Biffle, Kenseth starts eighth, and Kurt Busch starts ninth.   Hamlin starts 12th, Stewart 14th, Kyle Busch 19th, Johnson 21st, Burton 23rd, Harvick 24th, Bowyer 27th and Carl Edwards 31st.

Joe Nemechek, Mike Bliss and Jason Leffler failed to qualify for the 43-car field.  (Race lineup)

Kansas Speedway is a 1.5-mile, D-shaped tri-oval.  There are several tracks of differing sizes with a very similar layout on the Cup circuit.  When the track first opened, the racing was fairly boring because drivers could only run in one groove and it was so hard to pass.  As the surface has aged, the track has become multi-grooved and the passing is much easier.  There have only been nine Cup races at Kansas Speedway.  Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart lead all drivers with two wins each. 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Kasey Kahne edges teammate Paul Menard for pole at Kansas Speedway (sports.espn.go.com)
• Kansas crucial stop for foursome at bottom of Chase standings (cbssports.com)
• Bowyer says his title hopes are over (msn.foxsports.com)
• Kansas track could offer surprises (canada.com)

Clint Bowyer's Devastating Penalty

After Clint Bowyer's exciting win last Sunday at Loudon in the first Chase race of 2010, he vaulted from twelfth to second in the points standings, just 35 points behind Denny Hamlin.  Now, after a 150-point penalty from NASCAR, he is back in twelfth again, 185 points behind Hamlin and 49 points behind Matt Kenseth, who is eleventh.  It's a devastating penalty that has almost killed Bowyer's title hopes for 2010.

We heard some rumblings early in the week.  NASCAR announced that the car Bowyer drove in the final race of the "regular season" at Richmond was close to being illegal.  That is, the car was legal, but was flirting dangerously close to the tolerance of one of the many, many measurements NASCAR checks.  NASCAR officials met with Richard Childress Racing representatives to discuss the problem.

At the time, many NASCAR commentators dismissed this as not a very big deal.  It is the job of the crew chief to push the edge of the envelope.  If they can do that without going over, they are doing their job.  Turns out that it was a very big deal.

“When we work with the teams, when [we] see them heading in a direction that could wind up bad for everybody, we get together and we talk about it,” NASCAR vice president for competition Robin Pemberton said.

“As we’ve done in the past and will continue to do so in trying to regulate the sport, a big responsibility of NASCAR is to work as hard to keep people out of trouble as it is to write penalties,” Cup Series director John Darby said. “Obviously, when it gets to the point that we have to write a penalty, it’s not fun for everybody. So if we can take steps in the interim or in the in-betweens to put something to rest and not have it be an issue, well, by all means we’ll exhaust every effort that we can to do that.

Rewind to last Sunday at Loudon. With the white flag in sight, Tony Stewart ran out of gas, relinquishing the lead to Clint Bowyer, who was running on fumes and trying to hold off Denny Hamlin. Bowyer won the race, then ran out of gas just as he started doing his celebratory burnout.  His car had to be pushed to Victory Lane by a wrecker.

The car passed the post-race inspection at the track, but was one of several that was taken back to the NASCAR Research and Development Center near Charlotte for a more detailed inspection.   There the car was found to be illegal.  NASCAR declined to explain what the violation was or even to state if the violation could have given the #33 car an unfair advantage.

It was left up to Richard Childress to explain that the violation was related to how the body is hung on the frame.  The car was too high in the rear, exceeding specifications by less than 1/16th of an inch.  Childress claims that the car was legal when it left the shop and that the violation could have been caused by the wrecker that pushed the car to Victory Lane.  Also, several cars gave Bowyer a congratulatory tap in the rear on the cooldown lap.  Childress has vowed to appeal the penalty.

NASCAR doesn't agree with Childress's assessment.

“We looked at a lot of different things and we have a lot of documentation from cars from the last four years, and we understand that we have had cars with some severe body damage and cars without, and we don’t feel that the incidental contact from a push of the wrecker helped push this car out of tolerance at all,” NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said.

Childress also said that they were informed by NASCAR that the car would be taken to the R&D Center after the New Hampshire race because they had come so close to failing inspection the week before.

“It doesn’t make any sense at all that we would send a car to New Hampshire that wasn’t within NASCAR’s tolerances. I am confident we fixed the area of concern and the New Hampshire car left the race shop well within the tolerances required by NASCAR.”

Richard Childress was also docked 150 owner points. Crew chief Shane Wilson was fined $150,000.  Wilson and car chief Chad Haney were also suspended for six weeks.  Wilson and Haney can continue in their appointed roles until appeals are exhausted.  Bowyer is still credited with the win at Loudon. 

With Bowyer now back at the bottom of the 12-man Chase field, move the other Chasers up a spot in the points standings.  Denny Hamlin's lead is now 45 points over the new guy in second, Kevin Harvick.

The penalties, though excessive, are in line with those handed down to Brian Vickers's team for a similar violation in 2008.  No problems have been reported with the other RCR cars of Harvick and Jeff Burton.

An interesting side note:  Robin Pemberton, one of those charged with handing down the penalties, was once on the other side of the issue.  In 1990, Pemberton was the crew chief for Mark Martin when the team was docked 46 points for using an illegal carburetor spacer plate in a victory at Richmond.  Martin eventually lost the championship to Dale Earnhardt that year by just 26 points.

NASCAR: Loudon Results

Image via WikipediaNSCS: the Sylvania 300

Clint Bowyer's fuel gamble paid off.  Tony Stewart's did not.

Coming out of Turn Four with the lead on Lap 299 (of 300) with the white flag in sight, Tony Stewart ran out of gas.  Clint Bowyer, who was also running on fumes, flew past him on the frontstretch and held off Denny Hamlin over the final lap to win the first race in the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sunday's Sylvania 300 at Loudon, New Hampshire.

Bowyer ran out of gas while doing his victory burnout and had to be pushed to Victory Lane by a wrecker.

Bowyer didn't back into the win.  He dominated the race, leading seven times for a race-high 177 laps, but a sputtering carburetor gave him problems on restarts, forcing him to drop back until he could get the car up to speed.

Denny Hamlin also had issues.  On Lap 214, Hamlin was rolling through Turn Four when Carl Edwards slid up the track into him causing him to spin.  That dropped Hamlin from third to 22nd, but sent him to pit road, allowing him to avoid the fuel issues of the cars that were ahead of him at the end.

Bowyer crossed the finish line 0.477 seconds ahead of Hamlin.  Jamie McMurray finished third, followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Kevin Harvick struggled all day with handling problems and slow pit stops, but rallied to finish fifth.  Stewart coasted around to finish 24th, the last car on the lead lap, a swing of 94 valuable points in the championship race.  (Race results)

The win snapped an 88-race winless streak for Bowyer dating back to the May 2008 race at Richmond.  It was Bowyer's third Cup win and his second at Loudon.  His first Cup win came in the 2007 Sylvania 300.

Kurt Busch had an ill-handling car and was involved in two incidents.  On Lap 221, he got together with Jeff Burton and they both spun.  That resulted in Jimmie Johnson getting into the rear of Kyle Busch, causing those two to spin as well.  Later, on Lap 241, Kurt Busch slid up the track into Joey Logano, putting him into the wall.

Johnson later developed a vibration and had to make an unscheduled stop for tires, putting him a lap down.  He couldn't get the lap back and finished 25th, worst of the Chase drivers.

Burton ran out of gas seconds before Stewart, but got it re-fired enough to finish 15th.

Matt Kenseth struggled mid-pack all race and was spun by Brad Keselowski  .  He finished 23rd.

With one Chase race down and nine to go to crown a champion, Hamlin stretched his lead in the point standings to 35.  He now leads Bowyer, who moved up ten spots into second place.   Harvick (-45) remains in third.  After finishing ninth, Kyle Busch (-62) remains in fourth.  Jeff Gordon (-75) finished sixth and moved up three spots to fifth.  Johnson (-92) dropped five spots to seventh.  Stewart (-124) dropped five spots to eleventh.


NCWTS:  TheRaceDayRaffleSeries.com 175

Kyle Busch drove into James Buescher and the wall to win Saturday's Camping World Truck Series race at Loudon.

The race was a battle between Busch and Kevin Harvick, but Buescher snuck in there at the end and almost came away with his Truck Series win.

On Lap 166 (of 175), Harvick forced Busch up the track and Buescher dove underneath the two to take the lead.  Busch took the lead and the race on a restart on Lap 174.  Buescher restarted on the outside and led Busch into Turn One, but Busch battled ahead coming out of Turn Two.  Before he was clear, he moved up the track into Buescher's left front, then slapped the outside wall.

Busch beat Buescher to the finish by 0.280 seconds.  Harvick, who traded the lead with Busch fourteen times, finished third, followed by Matt Crafton and Austin Dillon.  (Race results)

After the race, Buescher took exception to Busch's tactics:

"He just went to the fence," Buescher said. "He wasn't clear at all. He drove like he had no truck on his outside, and he hit my left front and ended up in the wall. He just drove us dirty and got the win, and we hung in for a second-place finish."

 Todd Bodine finished ninth and has a commanding 257 point lead over Aric Almirola, who finished eighth, with just six races to go.  (Point standings)