Posts Tagged ‘Auto Racing’

The debuted of Matt Kenseth and Todd Parrott show over the weekend at least the internal reviews were good. Everybody on the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing team seemed satisfied.

Kenseth said “It sounds dumb me saying that since we won the first two last year, but to get out of Daytona with all the troubles we had and finish eighth, and then to come here in Todd’s first weekend and finish seventh is pretty good. We ran a little worse than some of our teammates at times and a little better at times, and it seemed like we ran as good as most of the Fords did. I still think
we’ve got some work to do to get all of our cars better as a group, but I thought overall that our team did a good job.”

Crew chief Parrott  “I was very, very happy. I would have liked to have gotten the car closer

for Matt, but we just tweaked on it all day long. It wasn’t too bad. We’ve got some work to do. Those guys up front, obviously, have some really fast race cars, but I think we made some huge gains from where we were over the winter, so I think we’re heading in the right direction.”

The battle of two teamates  Brian Vickers and Scott Speed of Red Bull Racing finished closely 11th and 12th respectively. But their out look of the day was not as close.

Scott Speed “Awesome weekend. I mean, I can’t say enough. I didn’t think we would run as good as we did, honestly. We legitimately ran in the top-10 for the last half of the race, once we got track position. For this being the beginning of my second year here pretty much, I’m really, really happy.”

Brian Vickers “It was disappointing. We had a good car. I think we had a top-five car. A couple of times – just pit strategy, two tires or four tires got us off base. The one time we stayed out because it was raining, we kept running and everybody short-pitted.

They should have thrown the caution because it was raining pretty hard, and they didn’t. And we lost a lot of ground with everybody short-pitting. They had new tires. That pretty much got us behind the rest of the day. They threw the caution out right after that and on pit road they made the wrong adjustment by accident, and we were just way, way, way too loose.”

Speed Tv Contributed to this article

Videos From California

Related articles by Zemanta

• Matt Kenseth switches crew chiefs after just one race (sports.espn.go.com)
• Roush’s Kenseth to have new crew chief this weekend (cbssports.com)
• Kenseth says needed change became obvious (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Kenseth on crew chief switch: Team needed boost (cbssports.com)

Now that the Daytona 500 dust has settled for most of the cup teams, it’s time to head to California.

All the time, effort and changes the teams have put into their race teams is about to show. Not day Daytona wasn’t important but stats show that the past couple of winners, Ryan Newman in 2008 and Matt Kenseth in 2009  didn’t make the Chase for the Cup championship. Kenseth even made it two wins in a row at California and struggled the rest of the season to finish 14th in the points.

Kevin Harvick won the big race in 2007, finished 10th in the standings and hasn’t won a Cup race since.

On the other hand, a bad day in the 500 isn’t a disaster, either.

That’s the reason that four-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson isn’t all that worried his fourth
consecutive bad start at Daytona. This time, it was a flat tire late in the race that relegated Double J to a 35th-place finish.

No worries. He’s got 25 more races to make up for that bad day and put himself among the 12 drivers who qualify for the 10-race Chase. And Johnson goes into this season as the only driver to have made it into the Chase every year since it began in 2004.

Denny Hamlin, who hopes to be the driver to unseat Johnson as champion, got off to a so-so start at Daytona, finishing 17th. But he’s looking forward to starting to find the groove in California.

“Why is this race at California important? “ Hamlin said. “All of our hard work over the off-season is going to show up right here in California. This is the first real race track that we go to where the setups are going to matter, the driving and all that is a lot different.

“This is our first real race of 2010 that’s not a superspeedway. It’s a big one for us because it kind of gives everyone a gauge of if we were heading in the right direction during the off season or not.’’

McMurray, who won Daytona in his first race for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, is anxious to see how the team stacks up on the intermediate tracks that make up the bulk of the Cup schedule. Teammate Juan Pablo Montoya was solid on the 1 ½ and 2 mile ovals a year ago, racing well enough to make the Chase.

“Certainly going and running well at Fontana is the goal from here on out,’’ McMurray said. “As far as putting any thought into what the previous three (Daytona winners) have done, I’m not really paying any attention to that kind of stuff.’’

Now teams need to considerate on the rest of the season and let the past be the past.

Dale Earnhardt JR. had a great finish in the 500 and hopes to keep the momentum going into to this week at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. Hopefully he can show to his fans and doubter that he can drive a race car.

“That’s great, but we have to see what happens at California, Las Vegas and Atlanta,’’ Junior noted. “If we run good at a couple of those races, then we’All know all that work that was done, all the changes that were made over the winter, are paying off.’’

But the Daytona 500 is a season of it’s own. And it’s over.

Speed TV contributed to this report.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Power Rankings: Body of work from Speedweeks factored in (cbssports.com)
• Daytona 500 win no guarantee of success (canada.com)

Todd Parrott has been named crew chief of Roush Fenway Racing’s No. 17 Ford, effective immediately.

Drew Blickensderfer, who has served as crew chief on the No. 17, driven by Matt Kenseth, since the start of the 2009 season, will assume a role in Roush Fenway’s research and development department.

Blickensderfer replaced as crew chief of No. 17 Ford

T. Parrott takes over after team finished eighth at Daytona

Kenseth finished eighth in the season-opening race at Daytona on Sunday.

Parrott, who won the Cup Series championship with Dale Jarrett in 1999, has the third-most wins — 29 — among active crew chiefs in the Cup Series.

Blickensderfer and Kenseth came out of the box hot in 2009, winning the first two races of the year, at Daytona and Fontana. However, that success was short-lived.

Kenseth, the 2003 Cup Series champion, struggled throughout the remainder of the season — only 10 top-10 finishes in the final 34 races — and posted a 15.4 average finish and also missed the Chase for the first time since the system was implemented in 2004. He finished 14th in points.

Parrott was given his first opportunity as crew chief in fall 1995, when he accepted a position at Robert Yates Racing to lead Ernie Irvan’s team. Parrott teamed up with Jarrett for the 1996 season.

Parrott also served as general manager for Robert Yates Racing briefly in 2003, then resumed crew chief duties for Elliott Sadler, David Gilliland and Travis Kvapil while with Yates.

Last year, Parrott was the crew chief for Bobby Labonte and the No. 96 team. The duo also worked together at Petty Enterprises.

NASCAR.com contributed to this report.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Matt Kenseth switches crew chiefs after just one race (sports.espn.go.com)
• Roush’s Kenseth to have new crew chief this weekend (cbssports.com)

It Looked like Dale Earnhardt Jr of old. Coming from 10th place to 2nd on the final lap of the biggest race of the year.

He won one race and made the Chase in 2008, but finished 12th in the points. Last year, while teammates Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon finished 1-2-3 in the championship, Junior failed to win a race and wound up 25th in the points.

Team owner Rick Hendrick has said repeatedly since the end of last season that he and the team were going to do whatever it took to get Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet turned around this year.

You could tell it wasn’t the finish Earnhardt was looking for. It was the first time in awhile JR was dejected taking second place.

“I feel good about the finish,’’ Earnhardt said. “It’s just frustrating coming that close. You’re mad because you just want to get a top 10. When you get a top 10, you’re pissed off because you can’t get in the top five. Then when you’re running second it gets you mad because you didn’t get a win. That’s how race car drivers are, I hope.

“We worked hard all week. I felt foolish about what happened to us in the 150 qualifying race. We beat the fenders off the car and had to drop back and punt. I just didn’t like racing that way. We ran pretty hard today. We had a car that got ill handling and we faded a bit. We worked on it. We had all kinds of messes going on there.

“When it got cool,’’ he added, “everybody’s car gripped up. The outcome, I don’t know. We worked hard. I’m pretty happy for my team. They needed a good finish.’’

But plate racing at Daytona and Talladega is very different from the rest of the season and Earnhardt knows he and the 88 team still have a lot to prove.

“This is not a true gauge on what the changes are going to do to our team,’’ he said. “The next couple racetracks will definitely give us a better understanding of where we are and If we can go to Fontana, Vegas, be competitive at any point during them races, it would be a little more validation.’’

“It was all a blur,’’ said Earnhardt, whose finish was reminiscent of his father’s last victory at Talladega, when he sliced through traffic and drove from 18th to first in the last 10 laps. “I was just going wherever they weren’t.

“I really don’t enjoy being that aggressive. But if there was enough room for the radiator to fit, you just kind of held the gas down and prayed for the best.’’

You could tell in Earnhardt eyes that this was the most fun he’s had on a plate track in while.

“Yeah, I had a hell of a time tonight,’’ Earnhardt said. “When you got a good car, one that will make some moves and don’t wreck. I wrecked out of the last couple 500s. I figured, `What do I have to do to finish one of these things and finish it good?’ I might have been a little too careful (in the past), you know.

“Tonight, I just let it all hang out. If there was a hole in the middle, I went there, wherever it was.’’

I think this is just what Earnhardt need, hopefully this will give him a kick start to have a year.

Speed TV contributed to this report.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Power Rankings: Body of work from Speedweeks factored in (cbssports.com)

He has always been a fan favorite and for good reason, he is such a low key mellow guy but when it comes to racing he is all or nothing.

Joe Nemechek and Bill Elliott know what it’s like to miss the Daytona 500, so it was no surprise how happy they were on Saturday after making the field for next Sunday’s Great American Race.

Elliott, Nemechek and Scott Speed were the three fastest drivers not already guaranteed a starting spot in Saturday’s qualifying, and thus they will take the green flag Feb. 14 at Daytona International Speedway.

With 35 drivers locked in based on 2009 owner points, the 43-car field is filled by two spots from each of the two 150-mile qualifying races next Thursday and then three spots from the time trials, with a final spot available to a past champion or the next fastest on speed.

Bobby Labonte can use a past champion’s provisional, if needed. That meant that three drivers could breathe easier after qualifying on Saturday. Elliott, and Nemechek were fast enough that if they don’t run well Thursday in the qualifying races, they can rely on their time-trial speeds for spots in the 500.

Elliott, who was fourth-fastest at 190.573 mph, wasn’t much of a surprise. He did the same thing a year ago after missing the 2008 race.

“It’s still always nerve-wracking because when you roll in here it’s one thing, but once you do everything you’ve got to do [through inspection] and then you leave pit road on your qualifying run, it’s a whole different world,” Elliott said. “Two years ago there’s no comparison [in this program]. Last year, [crew chief David] Hyder started turning things around about this time and I feel like last season was a tribute to the Wood Brothers and the way their team should be.”

Related articles by Zemanta

• NASCAR: Daytona 500 Qualifying (fdtate.blogspot.com)
• Daytona 500 Qualifying: Mark Martin Secures Pole Position (huffingtonpost.com)