NASCAR BLOG

Jeff Gordon leads the official Sprint Cup lineup right now, having garnered 634 points over the first few races of the season. Clint Bowyer, a little-known name, is presently in second, and then comes Kurt Busch with 588 points. His brother Kyle is down at #7 right now. However, keep in mind, this is still very early in the season. It’s doubtful that Jimmie Johnson was going to win the cup ultimately last year. But we will have to watch the Busch Bros. Kenseth, Gordon and a couple of other racers over the course of this year. It’s also possible that this works more like a long horse race where there are some horses that automatically start off well and then fall off towards the end and others that hit their stride on the back stretch. The season is only just beginning, but it looks like a good one!

Fans of Denny Hamlin will be relieved to find out that NASCAR officials will not punish him further when he intentionally brought out a late caution when he raced at the Richmond International Raceway. Earlier at the race on Saturday, he has to race two additional laps as penalty when he halted on the track with a cut tire. During that time, he has less than ten laps remaining before the race ended. NASCAR translated that move as a way to allow Hamlin’s team mate Kyle Busch the upper hand to overtake Dale Earnhardt Jr.

In related news, Michael Waltrip will also not be punished for purposefully wrecking Casey Mears’ car.

Both fans and NASCAR racers will be glad to know that Lowe’s Motor Speedway will soon feature a reliable SAFER barrier lining the inside wall of its backstretch. The proper installation process is expected to be completed right before the track opens its doors to crowds coming for the NASCAR race come May 2008. SAFER, an acronym for Steel and Foam Energy Reduction barriers is a great form of safety and protection for racers. For this matter, Lowe will soon boast an extra 340 feet of SAFER barriers. Humpy Wheeler, responsible track president for Lowe, said that even though this entire project will cost them a whopping $110,000, the wellbeing of NASCAR racers are still number one priority.

The move came about after Jeff Gordon suffered from a terrible crash at Las Vegas last March. He criticized Bruton Smith, owner of both Las Vegas and Lowe’s Motor Speedway on live television for failing to install adequate SAFER barriers.

NASCAR officials have revealed that they are going for an added test session for all the Sprint Cup racing teams during the 5^th and 6^th May at the Lowe Motor Speedway. The NASCAR Vice President for competition Robin Pemberton said that the new test session has been added keeping in mind the interests of several racing teams and with the intention of bringing in more interest among the spectators and fans. The extra test session will help the teams to know more about the new cars and their performances.

The Sprint Cup teams are slated to race twice at the Lowe Motor Speedway circuit, the All Star Sprint Race on May 17 and Coco-Cola 600 race that is slated for May 25. Many of the drivers believe that an additional test session is always important as it will help them when they race their new cars at these intermediate tracks.

Jimmie Johnson acquired his first NASCAR race of the season when he opted not to make a pit stop to fuel his car prior to the closing laps at the Phoenix International Raceway recently.

Johnson managed to gain pole positions three races so far into the current season but has not been able to grasp the champion’s cup until last Saturday. He finally crossed the finishing line in first place after over taking Clint Bowyer who also made the gamble and skipped the fuel.

Johnson’s exact words after clinching the title were “I just tried to be smart with the fuel”. He added that he was lucky the car finally ran out of fuel on the back stretch minutes after the race ended. Crew Chief Chad Knaus was also quick to add that they enjoyed good mileage the entire race making the win possible.

After Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin came in third place followed by Carl Edwards and Mark Martin.

The Richard Childress Racing will be unveiling a NO.33 Hamburger/ Cheerios Helper Chevrolet for the 2009 Sprint Cup season and the driver for the car will be announced later. This new venture has the backing of General Mills and the new racer will join the likes of Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. Richard Childress has said that expansion is very vital in order to sustain in this modern NASCAR world and will have to have good cars to compete with rivals such as Roush and Hendrick.

Childress said that his team has shortlisted about four to five drivers to race in the next season and did not give a clue on who will be racing for his team. The RCR has about 10 months to prepare for the big race next season and Childress is of the opinion that the ample time in his stride will help his team come up with a really competitive race car.

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 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.