Sorenson to replace Mears at Red Bull Racing
Red Bull Racing officials confirmed Wednesday afternoon that Reed Sorenson would replace Casey Mears as interim driver for the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota start at New Hampshire on June 27. Mears was named the interim driver after the Darlington race when Brian Vickers was diagnosed with blood clots in his legs and around his lungs. It was later announced that Mattias Ekstrom would drive the car at Sonoma.
“Our unique situation has afforded us the opportunity to try some different things, and we’re continuing to do that with Reed,” Jay Frye, RBRT’s vice president and general manager, said. “We appreciate Casey’s work and everything he’s done the past five weeks.”
23-year-old Reed Sorenson has made 185 Cup Series starts since his series debut in Atlanta in 2005. He has five top-five and 14 top-10 finishes in the Sprint Cup Series.
Mears was involved in an incident with the other Red Bull Racing driver, Scott Speed, last weekend in Michigan. Speed, who was very upset with Mears after the race, questioned his talent by referring to past teams Mears have driven for and been unsuccessful with.
“Both of us were struggling but [Mears] wrecking us like that — I mean is ridiculous,” Speed said. “Whenever you’re at Hendrick [Motorsports] and Richard Childress Racing and then you still don’t have a ride and haven’t done anything there’s no real excuses after that, but whatever.”
The incident may have been the final straw for Mears, who hasn’t been performing well since jumping in the car.
Mears has an average finish of 27.5 in his four starts with Red Bull Racing. The No. 83 Toyota has dropped to the 25th owner’s points position. The team was position in 20th after Darlington — the last race Vickers was able to drive.
Vickers is out for the remainder of the season due to the blood thinners used to try and dissolve his blood clots.
Red Bull kicks Mears out of No. 83
When Red Bull Racing announced that Casey Mears, who is subbing for injured driver Brian Vickers, would not be in the car at Sonoma, it was said to be a once race deal. However, the latest reports from “Sirius Speedway” indicate that Mears may be gone for good.
Messages sent to a Red Bull Racing spokesperson have not yet been answered.
Mears was involved in an incident with the other Red Bull Racing driver, Scott Speed, last weekend in Michigan. Speed, who was very upset with Mears after the race, questioned his talent by referring to past teams Mears have driven for and been unsuccessful with.
“Both of us were struggling but [Mears] wrecking us like that — I mean is ridiculous,” Speed said. “Whenever you’re at Hendrick [Motorsports] and Richard Childress Racing and then you still don’t have a ride and haven’t done anything there’s no real excuses after that, but whatever.”
The incident may have been the final straw for Mears, who hasn’t been performing well since jumping in the car.
Mears has an average finish of 27.5 in his four starts with Red Bull Racing. The No. 83 Toyota has dropped to the 25th owner’s points position. The team was position in 20th after Darlington — the last race Vickers was able to drive.
The team announced that Mattias Ekstrom would race this weekend at Sonoma for his Sprint Cup Series debut, however no further plans were announced for the Swedish driver.
The “Sirius Speedway” report follows confirmation from Red Bull Racing on Tuesday that director of competition Elton Sawyer will leave the organization after this weekend’s race at Infineon, in what can best be described as a cost-cutting move.
Vickers was forced to leave the seat of the No. 83 for the rest of the season after he was found to have blood clots in his legs and around his lungs.
The Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service contributed to this report.
Stewart will make the Chase—but what about Montoya?
Tony Stewart is a lock to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Big deal, you say. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to make that prediction.
After all, consecutive top-five finishes at Pocono and Michigan have moved Stewart to 11th in points, and his program is on the upswing at the time of year when performance usually picks up for the Rushville Rocket.
It might surprise you considerably more, however, to learn that Juan Pablo Montoya—currently 20th in the Cup standings—also is a likely Chase driver for many of the same reasons Stewart is a shoo-in.
The schedule favors both drivers, and that’s why Stewart isn’t the least bit nervous about his Chase prospects.
“I’m not as panicked about the top 12 right now as I think some of the guys that are close to that bubble,” Stewart said after Sunday’s strong fifth-place run at Michigan. “We’ve just got to keep going out, and if we keep riffling off top fives like this, we won’t have to worry about it. We’ll be there.”
Stewart has ample reason to be confident. First of all, he has at least one victory at each of the 11 racetracks the Cup series will visit before the Chase starts. Further, 25 of his 37 career wins have come at those racetracks.
Stewart has won twice at the Infineon Raceway road course, the next stop on the Cup tour. At the series’ other road course, Watkins Glen, he has five victories in 11 starts. Stewart has taken the checkered flag three times at Daytona, all in July when the track is slicker and much to his liking.
At the vaunted Brickyard, he has won twice and finished in the top 10 in seven of 11 starts. And at Richmond, the venue that hosts the cutoff race for the Chase, Stewart has three victories.
Stewart’s enhanced prospects have coincided with improved performance from the Stewart-Haas Racing team he co-owns.
“I’m pretty excited about it,” Stewart said after Sunday’s race. “That’s the best car we’ve had in a long time, so I’m really proud of our guys. We’re definitely gaining on it. I felt racy today.”
Montoya’s path to the Chase is much more challenging, with very little margin for error, but the remaining schedule should give him more than a glimmer of hope.
At Infineon in 2007, Montoya picked up his only Cup win. At Indianapolis last year, he dominated, only to be foiled by a pit-road speeding penalty. Astute strategy from crew chief Brian Pattie has helped Montoya to three straight top 10s at Pocono.
Last year, starting at Infineon, Montoya ran off a string of nine straight finishes of 12th or better, including a runner-up finish in the August race at Pocono.
True, Montoya is 20th in the standings. Last year at this same juncture, he was 14th and 43 points behind Jeff Burton in 12th. Far more daunting is his current deficit to 12th-place Mark Martin—189 points. And to make the Chase, Montoya will have to pass eight drivers.
In reality, the two road courses alone should enable him to leap-frog past four or five of the drivers ahead of him in the standings. The critical part of the schedule for Montoya starts with the return trip to Michigan, followed by visits to Bristol, Atlanta (arguably his best intermediate track) and Richmond.
If Montoya can get past the two short tracks with decent finishes, the schedule favors a Montoya rally. The rest is up to him.
To make the Chase, Montoya will have to rediscover the same calculating, methodical approach that got him there last year over this same stretch of races. In Sunday’s race at Michigan, Montoya and his team couldn’t quite find the right balance to race for the win.
“We just couldn’t get where we needed to be at the end of the race, so we’ll take what we’ve learned and move on to the next race,” said Montoya, who finished 13th.
The next race is at Infineon, and for Montoya’s Chase hopes, that’s a good thing.
Kahne: Chase not out of reach
Buoyed by his runner-up finish Sunday, Kasey Kahne said he feels that making the Chase isn’t out of reach for his No. 9 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford team.
“I didn’t make mistakes, we had good feedback, and the adjustments on the car were good and the car stayed together,” Kahne said. “We’ve had a lot of down moments this year, so it was nice to put a full race together and feel like a Cup team and Cup driver.
“It’s something for us to build on. I think we have to keep building on things because I don’t believe we are out of the Chase yet. We’re right on the edge of it, and if we put together some top fives and top 10s, we’ll have a shot.”
Even with consistent top-10 finishes, the challenge is formidable. Kahne is 21st in the Cup standings, 205 points behind 12th-place Mark Martin with 11 races left before the Chase field is set at Richmond.
Earnhardt “pretty happy” with seventh place finish at Michigan
For the first time in over a month, Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished inside of the top-ten, after he recorded a seventh place finish at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday.
He and his No. 88 Amp Energy/National Guard Chevrolet team put up an effort that included no mistakes and no bad luck — the type of race that has become so rare lately that even Earnhardt was in disbelief as Denny Hamlin took the white flag.
“I did (want to pinch myself) when I saw Denny go under the white,” Earnhardt said. “I said ‘I’ll be damned.’ That’s the way it’s been (lately).”
Earnhardt’s first dose of good-luck came on the final caution of the race, when he finally ended up on the good-side of things.
“That caution come out and got me worried; what the hell is going to happen here?” Earnhardt said. “But we were on the good end of it for a change.”
Crew chief Lance McGrew called Earnhardt into the pits during that caution, allowing NASCAR’s most popular drive to take advantage of four fresh tires as everyone in front of him had worn tires.
“We had a good call at the end to get four tires,” Earnhardt said. “That worked out for us; got us a couple of more spots. We had about a tenth-place car today. It was a tough field, though. It was a real competitive field.”
Earnhardt started the race in the 27th position and steadily gained positions as he worked his way into the top-ten on Sunday. He was able to stay in front of an admittedly faster Jeff Burton in the closing laps of the race to remain in the seventh position.
“He (Burton) had a better car right there and I’d been running the bottom but he was coming,” Earnhardt recalled. “So I felt like I could hold my own on the bottom in (Turns) 1 and 2 and run around the middle in (Turns) 3 and 4 and my momentum would keep me ahead of him and it worked.”
With the finish, Earnhardt moved up two spots in the points standings, to the 14th position, and now sets 81 points from the top-12 chase cutoff line.
Earnhardt will need to begin rattling of some more top-ten finishes, starting with next weekend’s race at Sonoma — a track he isn’t necessarily known to run well at. In his last five starts at the track, he has an average finish of 23rd and an average running position of 22.796.
He appeared to be on his way to a career-best finish at the track last year, running ninth with 11 laps to go. However, he finished a disappointing 26th after he was spun in the closing laps of the race.
Earnhardt’s best finish at Sonoma is 11th, which he recorded twice in back to back stops at the track in 2003 and 2004. The Kannapolis, N.C. native has led only nine laps at the track but has completed 1086 of 1109, or 97.9-percent, of the laps he has signed up for at Sonoma in his ten career starts at the road course.
Hamlin wins second consecutive race
After the caution flew to set up a 14-lap dash to the finish, Denny Hamlin’s Toyota ended up in victory lane on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway. It’s Hamlin’s second consecutive victory in the Sprint Cup Series, as he won last weekend in Pocono.
The No. 11 FedEx Toyota led 123 laps in the LifeLock.com 400. Hamlin remained in the third points position, trailing points leader Kevin Harvick by 47 point markers.
“It’s a great accomplishment to win on so many different racetracks for us,” Hamlin said. “To be able to unload and know you’re going to be competitive for a race win week in and week out gives you a lot of confidence. For the first time really in my career, I feel like we’re at this place.”
Richard Petty Motorsports’ driver Kasey Kahne drove his No. 9 Budweiser Ford to a runner-up finish — his best finish of the season.
“Yeah, they (No. 11 team) have been like that for a couple of months now, so I wasn’t surprised they were really strong,” Kahne said. “We made a huge gain and were way better than we have been. I don’t like watching him drive away from me, but I wasn’t surprised when he did. I thought we had a really good car and really good effort by our whole team but the 11 was just a touch better.”
Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart rounded out the top-five finishers. Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Greg Biffle and Joey Logano were the remaining top-ten finishers.
Early in the race, polesitter Busch led the field to green. Before the field returned back to the start/finish line, Jamie McMurray took the lead. Busch, however, quickly regained the lead the next lap as McMurray began falling backwards through the field. He was a non-factor for the rest of the race.
The first caution of the race came out on lap 18 when Marcos Ambrose spun from contact with Regan Smith on the front stretch. All the lead lap cars pitted for tires in fuel before they took the restart on lap 22 with Tony Stewart leading. Joe Nemechek stayed to lead a lap for five bonus points.
The third lead change of the day occurred on lap 23 when Busch rocketed past Stewart, who was also passed by Juan Pablo Montoya to drop back to third.
Busch would continue to lead until the second caution of the event was thrown on lap 48. While Busch and the other lead lap cars pitted, Robby Gordon stayed to grab five bonus points by leading a lap before coming into pit road. Once Gordon pitted, Busch was able to recapture the lead after his team was able to get his No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge off of pit road first.
The green flag flew on lap 51, but by lap 52 Hamlin had taken the lead from Busch. Hamlin would hold onto the lead until lap 92 when his car stalled slightly leaving a green flag pit stop, allowing Busch to re-inherit the lead.
Kasey Kahne grabbed the lead from Busch to record the tenth lead change of the day on lap 96.
Three laps later, on lap 99, teammates Casey Mears and Scott Speed made contact on the backstretch, causing Speed to lose control of his No. 82 Red Bull Toyota to bring out the third caution of the day. As the rest of the lead lap cars went to pit road for service, Sam Hornish Jr. stayed out to take the lead — which he would keep until Busch took it back on lap 106 after a three lap battle with his teammate.
On lap 113, Hamlin came back to take the lead for the 12th lead change of the day. Hamlin would go on to dominate the race, giving up the lead only twice due to green flag pit stops.
Notes: The victory by Hamlin was his fifth win since the spoiler returned to NASCAR ten races ago. … Harvick continues to lead the points over Kyle Busch by 22 points. … This was Hamlin’s first career victory at Michigan in NASCAR.
Notebook: Hamlin: Don’t expand the Chase
BROOKLYN, Mich.—Denny Hamlin doesn’t want to see the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup expanded to more than 12 drivers.
Modifications to the Chase were among the subjects discussed in broad strokes by NASCAR officials, drivers and team owners at “town meetings” Tuesday and Wednesday in Charlotte. Hamlin, however, likes the Chase essentially the way it is.
“The only thing I’d like to see maybe is reward the regular-season champion with something—maybe he gets a certain amount of bonus points,” Hamlin told Sporting News on Wednesday night before Tony Stewart’s Prelude to the Dream charity race at Eldora Speedway in Ohio. “Other than that, it’s tough to say.”
As to the possibility of adding more drivers to the Chase, perhaps by awarding Chase spots to all race winners during the regular season, Hamlin is adamantly opposed.
“If anything, they need to reduce it,” he said. “No more cars need to make it in the Chase. We’ve already got too many as it is.”
In Hamlin’s view, it’s not necessarily a negative when a driver holds a commanding lead entering the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, as Jimmie Johnson has done in recent years.
“Lately, Jimmie’s been the most dominant car, and he’s wrapped it up with a race to go, or something like that. When you’ve got 36 weeks, and it comes down to one week to go, and maybe a guy wraps it up, that’s not unthinkable—especially the way he’s performed.
“It’s hard for me to kind of justify changing (the Chase).”
Early wins buoy Johnson
Johnson hasn’t won since the fifth race of the season, at Bristol. The good news is that he snagged three victories in those first five races, which will stand him in good stead for the Chase.
Only Hamlin, with four wins, has more than the four-time defending Cup champion. Each victory in the first 26 races is worth a 10-point addition to a driver’s total when the Chase starts.
“You think about the win bonus, and as you get close to the cutoff, you really start thinking about the win bonus,” Johnson said. “To know that I’ve got three in the bank so far is pretty comforting. It really, really is. I know I won’t be behind by too much, if at all (when the Chase starts).
“Hopefully, we win some more races and can go in with the lead. Those three wins early were really important.”
Fords find speed in practice
Saturday’s practice sessions for Sunday’s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 at Michigan International Speedway brought more than a glimmer of hope for the Ford teams, which have won once in the past 48 Cup races.
Paul Menard paced the first session in his No. 98 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford and was second only to Johnson in the final practice. Carl Edwards’ No. 99 Roush Fenway Ford was second fastest in the first practice.
“It’s nice that the car is as fast as it is, and the only guy in front of us is one of our Ford teammates,” Edwards said between sessions.
Edwards has not won a Cup race in his past 50 starts.
Johnson leads final Sprint Cup Series practice in Michigan
Four time and defending series champion Jimmie Johnson was the fastest driver in Michigan for the final Sprint Cup Series practice on Saturday. The Hendrick Motorsports driver ran a lap of 39.174 seconds.
Richard Petty Motorsports driver Paul Menard, who was fastest in Saturday morning’s practice session, was second fastest to Johnson.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin, Hendrick Motorsports’ Jeff Gordon and Richard Childress Racing’s Kevin Harvick rounded out the top-five fastest drivers.
Roush Fenway Racing’s Matt Kenseth and David Ragan, Front Row Motorsports’ Regan Smith, Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards and Stewart Haas Racing’s Ryan Newman rounded out the top-ten quickest drivers on Saturday.
All 43 drivers that qualified for the race turned laps on Saturday.
Michael Waltrip Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. turned 50 laps, the most in the field during the session. Truex ended the session 20th on the speed charts.
Kurt Busch edges McMurray for Michigan pole
BROOKLYN, Mich.—The rivalry between team owners Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi may not be as intense in NASCAR Sprint Cup racing as it is in IndyCars—but it’s getting there.
Kurt Busch and Jamie McMurray added fuel to the fire Friday at Michigan International Speedway, where Busch earned the Coors Light Pole Award in his No. 2 Penske Dodge, edging McMurray’s No. 1 Earnhardt Ganassi Chevrolet.
Benefitting from a relatively early draw (12th), Busch streaked around the 2-mile racetrack in 37.898 seconds (189.984 mph) to claim the top starting spot for Sunday’s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400. McMurray, who was the first driver to make a qualifying attempt after rain delayed time trials, will start on the outside of the front row after turning a lap at 189.788 mph.
On May 30, Busch won the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, with McMurray running second. A week later at Pocono, Penske’s Sam Hornish Jr. and EGR’s Juan Pablo Montoya ran 1-2 late in the Cup race.
“It’s always been a genuine rivalry between Ganassi and Penske,” Busch said. “The drivers (in NASCAR racing)—we don’t feel it as much, but with situations that keep coming up like this, and with Roger texting me or patting me on the back, saying, ‘Way to bring it home for the good guys,’ it makes you feel like the rivalry is there—for sure.
“It’s just coincidental that we were running good, and the Ganassi cars are running good, whether it’s my teammate and Montoya or myself and McMurray. It’s good to be on that competitive side, whereas we see the RCR (Richard Childress Racing) cars and the Gibbs cars running into each other a lot—that’s just coincidental as well. It’s just one of those fun times where things are going good for both of our programs.”
Jimmie Johnson (189.668 mph) qualified third, followed by Kasey Kahne (189.623 mph) and Jeff Burton (189.474 mph). Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman, David Reutimann and Montoya will start from positions six through 10, respectively.
“We joked around a little bit on top of the hauler that Kurt … certainly, if we could get rid of him, we would have won Charlotte, and we’d be on the pole here,” McMurray said. “They’re just running really well right now. I think that’s great that we get to have that same competitiveness between the Penske and Ganassi teams that they’ve had in IndyCar racing for years.
“It’s exciting, I think, for the NASCAR team to be able to perform as well as we have, and the same thing for the Penske team. It’s great that we’re not just talking about Hendrick and Joe Gibbs Racing and Richard Childress—that our names are included in that.”
Notes: Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch, first and second in the Cup standings, qualified 31st and 15th, respectively. … Dave Blaney, Michael Waltrip and Johnny Sauter failed to make the 43-car field. … Landon Cassill, 20, in his Cup debut, will start 35th in James Finch’s No. 09 Chevrolet.
Notebook: Kahne to the No. 5? It happened Wednesday
BROOKLYN, Mich.—Those who bet that Kasey Kahne would be in the No. 5 car before the 2012 season, step up to the pay window.
No, not THAT No. 5 car. Kahne said Wednesday before the Prelude to the Dream that his plans for the Sprint Cup Series still aren’t set.
But when Kahne had engine trouble with the No. 9 dirt late model he was driving in Tony Stewart’s charity race at Eldora Speedway, the backup car he was given for the main event was decaled with the No. 5.
Kahne recently signed to drive the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet starting in 2012, when Mark Martin vacates the car. Team owner Rick Hendrick is obligated to find a suitable ride for Kahne next year, but that hasn’t happened yet.
“It keeps getting a little bit later in the year, so I’d imagine it’s coming soon,” Kahne said before the race. “But whenever we find out what it is, I’ll be happy with it and be ready to start working on it for next year and making sure it’s strong when we start the season.”
Given that the Kahne-to-Hendrick deal leaked before the Texas race in mid-April, Kahne said he is surprised something for 2011 has yet to materialize.
“But at the same time, Mr. Hendrick has a lot of patience, and he does things the right way, and he’s just trying to make sure he puts me in the best possible spot that he can,” Kahne said.
“To me, it’s exciting to know that he’s waiting and making sure he does it right. There are so many things with teams and people and drivers and sponsors. There’s just a lot that goes with the whole deal. I think he’ll get it. It’ll be good.”
Kahne took a second look when he saw the No. 5 car he was to drive in the Prelude’s main event.
“I thought it was really ironic, but it is what it is,” Kahne said after the race. “That’s what they pulled out. I had an engine problem in the other one, and that’s what they pulled out. I didn’t mind driving it. That’s the truth.”
Father knows best?
In the aftermath of last week’s fracas at Pocono between Kevin Harvick and 20-year-old Joey Logano, it’s understandable that the drivers don’t see eye to eye.
Apparently, neither do Harvick and Mark Martin, when it comes to a father’s role at the racetrack.
Logano’s father, Tom Logano, was front and center after the race ended at Pocono, where contact between the cars of Harvick and Logano sent Logano spinning and forced the race to overtime. Tom Logano was called to a meeting with NASCAR president Mike Helton after pushing a TV reporter and a crewman out of the way.
Martin, who recognized Joey Logano’s talent more than six years ago, defended Tom Logano on Friday at Michigan International Speedway.
“I loved seeing Tom Logano’s reaction—and I’m a dad,” Martin said. “And anybody who would criticize that, a lot of them aren’t dads. I have a son that competed, not only in racing, but in hockey, too. Heck, I stood up one day, yelled at him, ‘Hit him with your stick,’ when he was playing hockey. And the kid’s dad was standing next to me, and I didn’t care. So, I’m a dad, and I am a Tom Logano fan as well.”
Harvick, on the other hand, believes a father should have no role in a dispute between drivers.
“His father has no place in this,” Harvick said Friday afternoon. “His father needs to stick back and act like all of the rest of the dads and be happy that his kid’s here. This isn’t Little League baseball anymore. He just needs to stay away and act like a 50-year-old man, or however old he is.
“You’ve got to figure Mark Martin—him and the Loganos are buddies—so he’s on whoever’s side that’s most convenient this week.”
Matt Kenseth, who has two children, agreed that fathers should keep their distance.
“Once you’re 18 and an adult, if you are out there racing with adults, you have to be able to take care of your own situations and your own problems.”
Hamlin not sold on spoiler as difference-maker
It’s easy—and accurate—to point out that Denny Hamlin has been a prolific winner in the Cup series since NASCAR returned to the spoiler. It’s equally accurate to point out that Jimmie Johnson hasn’t won since the change was made before the late March race at Martinsville.
To Hamlin, though, it’s not necessarily accurate to assume there’s a correlation.
“It’s tough to say, really,” said Hamlin, who has won four times since the switch. “It’s maybe changed a little bit, but for us, we’re winning with similar setups that we had last year with the wing, and they’ve performed well. It’s tough for me to justify that there’s much difference between the two.”
Harvick Has 20/20 Vision For Logano
Clichés’ earn that designation for a reason. Yes, they might be tired and hackneyed, but they’re also mostly true, which is why they are pulled out, dusted off and shoved up in people’s faces time and again. The final laps of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono served to vividly illustrate that point.
Most of us played the game “Musical Chairs” when we were kids, so we know from experience that two bodies cannot physically occupy the same space at the same time. This also applies to stock cars.
While going for the same line at Pocono, the cars driven by Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series made contact. When that happens, ‘something’s gotta give.’
In this case, it was the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota. Both drivers were running near the front of the field at the time, but the incident spun Logano out. He ended up in 13th, while Harvick went on to finish fourth.
Some call it karma, while others refer to it as the Golden Rule, but whatever name you give it, it is a principle that repeatedly proves its veracity. We’re combining a couple of clichés this time, but most folks agree that ‘you need to give as good as you get,’ because ‘what goes around, comes around.’
Kevin Harvick certainly is having a good year. The driver of the No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet took over the lead in the driver standings at Richmond on May 1. A winner at Talladega in April, Harvick has posted five top five and 10 top 10 finishes and sits just 19 points ahead of second-place Kyle Busch headed into Michigan. Since his first season in the Cup Series in 2001, he has won a respectable 12 races.
Harvick and his wife DeLana have also enjoyed success in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, winning a couple of championships with their Kevin Harvick Inc. team. It is pretty safe to call Harvick a NASCAR veteran at this point in his career.
Until now, Joey Logano’s primary claim to fame was his age. Relative to other drivers in the Cup Series, he’s young. In fact, last year he became the youngest driver in history ever to win a race in NASCAR’s premier series. Now 20 years old, he has nine top 10 Cup Series finishes to his credit, and was the series’ 2009 Raybestos Rookie of the year.
With an aw-shucks, boy-next-door kind of vibe working, Logano has earned a reputation for being a nice, easy-going young man, one who is slow to anger and usually ‘turns the other cheek.’
But following the incident at Pocono, neither cheek was turned. Logano pulled his car onto pit road and came after Harvick full-face and straight on, looking ‘mad as a wet hen.’ At least I guess that’s what he looked like, having never seen a wet hen. Alive.
The result was something a lot of fans don’t care for; a melee ensued. Instead of allowing two drivers to settle their disputes mano a mano, crew members often get in between them, there’s a lot of pushing and shoving and yelling, and nothing gets accomplished.
“You get out of the car, you want to talk to the guy and see what’s going on. And there’s 6,000 crew members around him … I don’t know how you’re supposed to settle something when you can’t even talk to the guy,” Logano said after the race.
Well, ‘with age comes wisdom.’ Harvick’s take on the incident was, “That’s just racing. Hate that it happened and we’ll just go on and keep at it. … You can’t talk to him. He’s 20.”
At 34, Harvick is hardly ready for the front-porch rocker, but in all fairness, Logano did take a shot at DeLana, saying, “His wife wears the firesuit in the family and tells him what to do, so it’s probably not his fault.”
Feisty — and business-savvy — Mrs. Harvick promptly responded by having merchandise produced bearing the phrase “I wear the firesuit in this family,” sure to be a big seller with female race fans. Apparently, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough sell T-shirts.’ I’m paraphrasing that one a little bit, but it was too good to pass up.
Although unfortunate, the entire Harvick/Logano mini-feud has been awfully entertaining, and in the end was chalked up simply as ‘one of those racing deals.’ The Harvicks earned a few bucks at the souvenir hauler, and Logano earned some respect for standing his ground and speaking his mind. ‘It’s a dog-eat-dog world’ out there on the racetrack, and a guy can’t just ‘roll over and play dead.’
Cute little puppies can grow up to become big, fierce dogs, remember. And sometimes, they do bite back.
Burton not expecting immediate changes after NASCAR meeting
NASCAR held another round of “town hall” meetings this past Tuesday and Wednesday. Several drivers joined NASCAR president Mike Helton and NASCAR VP of Competition Robin Pemberton to discuss changes that could be coming to the sport.
Everything from changes to NASCAR’s two-year old testing rule and their six-year old chase were discussed.
However, Jeff Burton said Friday that a discussion on things like possible changes to the chase occurs every year, so the likeliness of a change is minimal.
“Every conversation I’ve ever been in with NASCAR, once a year there’s a conversation about the Chase,” Burton recalled. “Does it work? Could it be better? That’s almost an annual conversation. The money is a weekly conversation. Things like the money’s always involved in trying to figure out how to make it so more money can go further, so the team owners can be more viable. Nothing really like, in my opinion, there was a specific ‘this is what we’re attacking.’ It was more just a big picture look at everything.”
On Friday, Burton — who attended the meetings in Charlotte this week — said he doesn’t expect any immediate changes to the sport.
“I don’t think that there’s anything that’s immediate that’s going to come,” Burton said. “I think they’re pretty comfortable with where the sport’s moved in the last 12 months to where it is today. They’re certainly looking at the future and talking about, what about testing? What do we feel about how the championship battle works? How do we feel about different things? They’re trying to eliminate some costs, trying to make sure that if we spend money, to make sure that it’s effective. You know, those kind of things. It wasn’t really procedural rule conversations, it was more big-picture outlook, perspective of the teams as to where we think the sport can be better. Not in small things, but in big things.”
Fantasy Pick’Em: 2010 Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400
The Sprint Cup Series makes its first trip of the season to the Michigan International Speedway this weekend for the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400. Mark Martin won this event last year, while Brian Vickers (get well soon) won the last Cup event at Michigan late last summer.
For the third weekend in a row, the Cup cars face a grueling endurance event. First came the Coca-Cola 600, the longest event of the year. Last week gave us 500 long miles at Pocono. Now, drivers head to one of the fastest tracks on the circuit, where pole speeds frequently flirt with 190 miles per hour.
So who looks good for this weekend’s tilt?
My personal pick is going to be Jeff Gordon. Last week I took Denny Hamlin as my lead driver, and he rewarded me with a victory, so I’m looking for Gordon to continue my streak. He has two wins and 22 top-10s in 34 career Michigan starts, and is one of only two active drivers with an average Michigan start in the single digits. Last year he finished second in both Michigan races.
My dark horse for the weekend will be Bill Elliott. The Wood Brothers only run a limited schedule nowadays with factory Ford backing, but you can bet that they’ll be looking to impress at the home track of the American manufacturers. Elliott’s Michigan record isn’t too shabby, either – seven wins and 29 top-10s in 59 starts. Both are tops among active drivers.
Who else looks good at Michigan?
I hesitate offering up a Carl Edwards pick, because he’s burned me every time I’ve suggested him all year. He’s done very little to suggest that he’s still the same driver who won nine races in 2008. But Edwards has two wins and 10 top-10s in only 11 Michigan starts. His 6.1 average finish at the track is by far the best of any active driver, nearly four spots better than second-best Matt Kenseth.
Of course, this also makes Kenseth a viable Michigan pick, his last win coming at the track in 2006. Michigan is owner Jack Roush’s home track, and he always does his best to take a win at the track each year. Last year was the first since 2001 in which a Roush car didn’t take the checkers in a Michigan Cup event, and you can bet that the Cat in the Hat will do everything he can to change that.
Finally, it’s time for Junior Nation to get on its feet, because Dale Jr. is my final pick of the weekend. Sure, his one win at the track (and only win in the No. 88) came on fuel mileage, but he has led at least one lap in eight of the last nine Michigan events. In that span, he has all four of his career top fives at the track, and has completed 1734 of a possible 1735 laps. Clearly he can take a car to the front and keep it in the hunt.
Reutimann, Truex making gains towards top-12
In the past six weekends, David Reutimann has gained eleven spots in the Sprint Cup Series points standings, moving from 30th to 19th. That points gain is the largest in the series during the six race stretch.
Since Texas, Reutimann has shaved 72-points from the gap separating him from the chase. He is currently 174 points outside of the top-12 with 12 races to go.
Reutimann’s team came into Pocono after scoring two-straight top-five finishes at Dover and Charlotte, but scored a 15th place finish. Still, Reutimann believes there is an opportunity for him and his team to drive their way back into the chase.
“We lost a little ground at Pocono, but we just have to keep at it,” Reutimann said. “We have 12 more races to gain back 145 points. It’s not impossible. We have some good races coming up for us in Michigan, New Hampshire, Chicago and Daytona, but we also have a couple that historically have not been as kind to us in the road courses. We just have to make up for lost time. It’s hard to play catch up in this deal, but I know the Aaron’s team can gain some ground back.”
Reutimann’s results at Michigan have been subpar for the most part, except for the fall race last year at Michigan, when the driver finished ninth from his 30th starting position.
Reutimann’s teammate Martin Truex Jr., who is in his first year at Michael Waltrip Racing, is also off to a good start this season. Currently, Truex sits in the 15th points position, 65 points from the top-12 cut-off.
The past two weekends, however, Truex’s luck has taken a turn for the worse. He finished 25th at Pocono, after being involved in last lap incident not of his doing, and 23rd in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte two weeks ago. Other than the past two weeks, Truex and the No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota team has finished outside of the top-20 only twice — at Auto Club Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway.
However, Auto Club and Atlanta are often described as tracks that are very similar to Michigan International Speedway, the site of this weekend’s LifeLock.com 400.
Nonetheless, Truex still calls Michigan one of his favorite tracks.
“Michigan is one of those tracks that I like,” Truex said. “I didn’t like it much last year because I didn’t run well, but in the past I’ve has some really good runs. One of the things that makes Michigan fun is it’s really a wide racetrack and has a bunch of grooves available. You can run all the way down to the white line and up to the fence. It’s probably one of the widest tracks we go to. Because of that, I don’t think where you qualify is indicative to your chances to win the race. If your car is good, you can usually catch guys pretty easy.”
Truex’s career at Michigan peaked in 2007, when he finished second in both the spring and fall events held at the track back when he was racing with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. Altogether, Truex has eight starts at Michigan, posting two top-ten finishes.
Pat Tryson, crew chief for Truex, says that the teams needs to start gaining points back from the last two weekends to have a shot at making the chase in September.
“Hopefully we have a shot to win it or a top-five,” Tryson said. “We’ve been running well lately, but still don’t know what happened at Charlotte. Other than that, we have been good so it’s important for us to get some points back this weekend after the wreck last week.”
Hendrick teammates compete off the track for charity
Apparently, Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. don’t get enough competition on the racetrack.
As part of the $20 million Pepsi Refresh Project, the three drivers have entered a high-stakes competition in which, ultimately, children and charity are the winners.
Gordon, Johnson and Earnhardt have designed projects according to their own respective charitable interests. At stake is a $100,000 grant, with fans able to review the projects and determine the recipient through voting at nascar.com/PepsiRefresh.
Gordon wants the money for treatment of physically and sexually abused children at the Child Advocacy Center at Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital in Concord, N.C.
“The majority of the funding will be for staffing with experts in the field, to really be able to sit down with the children, their family members and friends and work them through it—so they can live a happy and healthy life going forward,” Gordon told Sporting News after the announcement of the grant competition last Friday at Pocono Raceway.
Johnson would like to see the money go to assist pediatric transplant patients by assisting with uninsured expenses through the Be The Match Foundation’s Transplant Grants for Kids program.
“I feel like it’s a great fit for this program,” Johnson said. “With $100,000, it can really go toward some important needs. Transplants are expensive, and then there are lot of things the insurance doesn’t cover for the families.”
Earnhardt would like to build a computer lab and provide technology training at Shepherd Elementary near his home in Mooresville, N.C.
“I remember when I was young how limited some of the technology was, even at the Mooresville Senior High School,” Earnhardt said. “I was thinking that, in the mid-’90s, when I started to use computers and started to use e-mail, a lot of people even in my own family didn’t do that stuff. And I was trying to explain to them how this was going to affect and structure everything about your life. Nobody kind of really bought it, but we see where we are today.
“I’ve worked with the school in the past, mainly just helping with the athletic side of it, buying them the proper gear for football, to be safe and everything. This is actually more about improving the experience of their education while they’re there.”
Johnson and Gordon concede that Earnhardt’s status as NASCAR’s perennial most popular driver might give him an advantage.
“It’s certainly something to consider,” Johnson said. “Either way, it’s a win-win. The three of us have a huge fan base, and to make everyone aware of this program and get them involved, not only will they vote, but maybe it’ll inspire them to donate to a cause that we’re interested in or another cause in their own area. When you look at the overall amount that Pepsi’s putting in—$20 million—it’s pretty impressive.”
Gordon has always had a particular fondness for children’s causes.
“I look at my own childhood,” he said, “and feel like I was able to live out my dreams because I was healthy, and I was able to get opportunities to do things I’m passionate about, and I just want to see other kids get those same opportunities and live out their dreams.”
Earnhardt expects “Junior Nation” to come out in full force behind his project.
“My fans are really competitive when it comes to voting and polls and things like that,” he said. “They get really involved when it comes down to this sort of thing. They really like to put their fingerprint on the overall picture and feel like they’re part of the process.
“I really commend Jeff and Jimmie on their ideas. They’re incredibly gracious guys, and they’re projects are really, really close to them and mean a lot to them. So whoever does win the grant, it’s well-deserved.”
Voting for the Hendrick drivers’ projects closes at 6 p.m. ET June 23. The winner will be announced June 25 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
The competition between the drivers is part of the much larger Pepsi Refresh Project, which will award grants of more than $20 million this year to innovative projects that promote social good. To learn more about the project, to propose an idea or to vote for a favorite project, visit www.refresheverything.com.
