NASCAR BLOG

The right call in the pits has made the No. 11 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing driven by Deny Hamlin beat Jeff Gordon despite him starting from the pole position in the Goody’s Cool Orange 500 race at Martinsville Speedway. As both the NASCAR racers went into their final pit stop on Lap 388 Hamlin only loaded his car with fuel whereas Gordon had his four tires and fuel refilled and this made Hamlin to restart the race first on Lap 394 after Ken’s Toyota had oil leaking from his car to register the final caution of the race.

Both the racers had to wade off the traffic in front of them in the closing laps and Hamlin at the end came up trumps at his home state with a 0.398 second lead. Hamlin said that he thoroughly enjoyed his first Virginia race win and made up for the shortfalls of the earlier weeks.

The NASCAR Sprint car drivers Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart will display their personal cars in the auto fair that is coming up at the Lowe’s Motor Speedway from April 3rd to 6th. The two time Sprint car driver Tony Stewart is of the opinion that he is a novice car collector and will display three of the cars, a 1957 model black Chevy; a 1950 Sled coupe and a 1967 model Pointac GTO hardtop which is also black in color, that he had bought at the Barrett-Jackson annual auction last January.

Newman, the other exhibitor, has been in the old car collection business for many years and has a 1936 model Ford three window coupe, 1974 model TR6 roadster, a Dodge D 500 among the many vintage cars that he possesses. The WWE superstar, Cena, is a General Motors fan and has also many collections that will be displayed at the Auto fair. The Food Lion Auto Fair attracts more than 15,000 visitors annually and normally has more than 1,500 cars on display along the 1.5 mile.

David Reutimann has revealed that he is feeling the pressure ahead of the Goody’s Cool Orange 500 race that is coming his way on March 30th at the Martinsville Speedway and is the day when he officially takes over the charge for Dale Jarrett. Reuitmann says that there will always be pressure on any driver who has to drive the 44 number car. Reuitmann said that he is ready to face this daunting task even though it is a lot of pressure on him.

Reuitmann said that sitting behind the wheel of car number 44 that was driven by veteran driver Jarrett is an impossible task for any driver and was delighted that he was chosen by UPS to drive the famed car. Reuitmann admits that Martinsville Racing track is a track in which he has not been able to perform very well so far and he hopes to get a chance to change things in his side when he races on the track on March 30th.

Clint Bowyer won the Nationwide series held in Bristol Speed way. It was his first victory in any series in Bristol. His earlier highest finish was the third position in a Cup car race in 2007 fall. He has recorded his best nationwide finish in the year 2005 with a fourth place. The race was delayed two hours due to rain and the race was stopped just past the half way. According to the NASCAR rules, a race becomes official, only when it crosses the half way point and the driver who reached half point first will be out first, when the race resumes.

So, Bowyer didn’t take a pit till he completed the half point. The 300 lap race was stopped at 171 laps due to rain. Kasey Kahne made tough competition for Bowyer and feels that he had let Bowyer to have the win. Bowyer said that Kahne had the advantage of having the best car and even then he couldn’t win. Bowyer somehow wanted to win at Bristol and was helped by his strategies and rain in getting the elusive victory at Bristol. The race witnessed several accidents at the beginning and Kyle Busch had to end his race after 14 laps due to an accident.

It was such an emotional day for Dale Jarrett at Bristol Motor Speedway that began with his fellow driving competitors giving him a standing ovation for his contribution and achievements in this sport. His fans displayed placards and sign boards that had good bye messages and above all his father waved the green flag signaling the end of the racing career for his son. The last career race ended in disappointment for Jarrett as he finished at the 37th place in the Sprint Cup. Jarrett later told that it was not the exact way in which he had thought of finishing his last race and would have liked to have had a better race for his sponsors. He also said that there is no point in getting disappointment when one looks back at his remarkable career that had a total of 32 Cup wins.

Dale Jarrett was at his racing best between the years 1996 to 2001 when he had won 24 times for his team, Robert Yates racing. The Bristol Racing Speedway also acknowledged Jarrett with gifts that included a replica of a Revolutionary War Rifle, a Bristol Club diamond ring, 668 golf balls which each one representing his career start and a putter as well. Jarrett will now be embarking on a new career, as an analyst for ESPN, the sporting channel.

The best sporting events in the United States like the Major League Baseball, National Football League, and National Hockey League etc all have unions, but NASCAR drivers feel that starting a union among NASCAR drivers will not help in settling issues they face. Jeff Gordon, the four time NASCAR Sprint Cup winner, says that there may be positives that happen with unions in sport, but there are even more negatives like strikers that happen with unions as well. Gordon says that it would good if NASCAR can conduct a quarterly meeting with the drivers to discuss hot issues that crop up during the quarter.

Kerry Tharp, the NASCAR spokesperson is of the opinion that the current system of an open door policy will ever prevail and the drivers, crew, owners, etc can be in regular communication with the NASCAR officials on any issues. It is the system that has been going for sometime now and he feels that it will still work. Dale Ernhardt Jr, another NASCAR driver, is of the opinion that a driver spokesperson should be appointed, who can take up complicated issues with the officials and arrive at an amicable solution. He called on all the drivers to be united in an attempt to make racing still better and interesting.

The 20 year old blonde driving sensation Chrissy Wallace will be the latest addition from the Wallace household to make her debut in the NASCAR race and this avid racer has gone a bit further as she is going to make her debut in NASCAR at the Craftsman truck Series named Kroger 250 at the Martinsville Speedway on March 29th. Wallace will be competing in the NASCAR races for Germain racing and will take part in five ARCA races as well as five Truck races. She was the first female driver in the 57 year old history of Carolina race track to be victorious in a Late Model stock car race.

Wallace says that she is pretty aware that she is competing in the truck race that has been predominantly dominated by males and is happy that the Germain racing team had confidence in her to sign her to race for their team. The Germain racing is the only company to be hiring a father-daughter duo to race for their team. Wallace says that her dad, Mike Wallace, is her coach and her well-wisher and is glad that her father will be there at Martinsville to watch her race. She says that she is pretty close to her dad as both of them are racing and the bond between them is very strong.

Race drivers are unhappy about the tires provided by the Goodyear Company in the Atlanta race. Tony Stewart was the first driver to complain and later three other drivers also joined him. Tony Stewart registered his dissatisfaction in a strong manner but the others were little softer with their complaints. Jeff Gordon feels that Stewart has made his complaint more personal. Greg Biffle, Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman tested the tire on the Darlington Raceway and felt that it is not suited for the driving conditions in Atlanta.

Jeff Stewart went to the extent of saying that Goodyear has provided the most pathetic racing tires in his professional career. Goodyear officials refused to give any comment about the statement made by Jeff and their garage was not open to the media on Monday. Goodyear Company has produced a statement to defend their product in Atlanta and has promised to do re-testing of tires before the next series in October. They added that they have given the best products for the race and their engineering, research and development team is next to none. Stewart was the unhappy among the whole lot as he wrecked in the early two races in Las Vegas also.

David Ragan the racing driver of Roush Fenway has reached the Cup Level in his second year of racing. He is using the No. 6 Ford used by the famous Roush racing driver Mark Martin. It is not an easy task to take up the position owned by Martin said Ragan. Mark Martin has made 82 victories with his No. 6 ford and Ragan has grown up watching Martin as a fan of NASCAR races. Ragan was a rookie last year and reached 23rd in point list and made a couple of top- five finishes. In the last season Ragan had Five DNF officially announced to his name.

In this season’s Daytona 500 he crashed on the 161 lap of the race and was placed 42nd. The Crew chief of Roush, Jimmy Fenning, is expecting much better performance from Ragan in the coming races. In the California NASCAR series, he finished 14th and at Las Vegas he was able to finish at Seventh position. He has given 19th point standing at present. This season Ragan has decided to approach his races with more patience. In the first practice of the Atlanta race, he finished at a speed of 176.755 and in final practice he has made the fastest lap of 179.775 mph.

The paving work going on the surface of the Darlington raceway has been completed. Work has been going on to prepare the race track for the forth coming Dodge Challenger 500 weekend race happening on the 8th to 10th of May 2008. The track president, Chris Browning made the announcement on Wednesday. He further said that with the paving done and completed the focus would shift to the actual preparations for the Dodge challenger 500 coming up. The paving work began in the middle of January on the Darlington race track. It gulped almost 15,000 tons of asphalt. The original race surface was laid in 1994. About 4 million reference points had to be utilized by the construction team to ensure that the new track is exactly as the original design and pattern.

The total reconstruction project was valued at $10 million and included a new infield tunnel. The tunnel was to be large enough to take car haulers, emergency vehicles and motor homes. Safety barriers were also upgraded to make them safer. Interior concrete walls on the back and front stretch were also constructed. “Too Tough To Tame” is a test race. It is a Goodman tire test race, the first race on the new tracks and it would come up on the 10th and 11th of March. Among the expected drivers would be Jeff Gordon who has won the Darlington event seven times. Greg Biffle has won it twice and he would also feature as a driver along with Ryan Newman who won the 2008 event of Daytona 500.