Posts Tagged ‘Bristol Motor Speedway’

I don’t think your going to see another charity race featuring old NASCAR drivers being held at Bristol any time soon.

Last Saturday at Bristol when Larry Pearson and Charlie Glotzbach crashed during a Legends race for retired drivers. Both were reportedly knocked unconscious and transported to the hospital. Pearson was treated for a compound fracture of a broken ankle, fractured pelvis and broken hand.

Pearson, a two-time Nationwide Series champion, is 56 years old. Glotzbach, who won 12 Sprint Cup races and raced at the front so often in the 1960s and 1970s he picked up the nickname “Chargin’ Charlie,” is 71.

Pearson slid across the track in the second turn near the end of the 35 lap exhibition race. Pearson’s car appeared to have a rear tire problem, causing it to slide up the track, hit the outside wall and drop down off the banking.

Several seconds passed before Glotzbach drove into the area and hit Pearson at near full-force.

The crash was a stark reminder of why a “Legends Serious” proposed a couple of years ago never got off the ground.

It’s too dangerous.

Racing even on a small track at relatively slow speeds is never entirely safe. There’s always an element of risk involved. At any moment, on any lap, disaster can strike.

To think that such legendary racers as Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison and others of their era would participate in such competition is absurd. They’re too smart to even consider it.

Racing is dangerous. It always has been and always will be.

NASCAR has done a great job of making its Sprint Cup cars as safe as possible – witness such recent tumbles as Brad Keselowski’s upside-down flight at Atlanta – allowing drivers to walk away without a scratch.

But anybody who thinks it’s safe to speed around concrete walks in any type of race car is kidding themselves.

A few years ago a “Celebrity Race” was held at Nashville Speedway. Several country music stars competed, along with members of the media and a couple of area football coaches. They drove deceptively-toy-like Legends cars.

A few laps into the race a TV sports director crashed into the wall. He suffered a severe head wound and almost bled to death en route to the hospital. He spent weeks recovering from the near-fatal crash. That was Nashville’s final Celebrity Race.

There will never be a Geezer’s Tour in racing for the same reason why there’ll never be a Senior League in pro football: Too much hard contact for brittle old bones.

I think it’s a great idea to pay homage to retired drivers by keeping them in the spotlight. Bring them to the track and let them sign autographs. Let them meet the fans. Let them tell stories and ride around the track and wave. Let them do anything but race.

I think we’ve seen our last Old-Timers race. What happened at Bristol could happen anywhere and any time a retired racer climbs into a car. Pearson’s close call should scare some sense into them.

The drivers raced in Late Model cars from the United Speed Alliance Racing tour.

Larry Woody from RacinToday.com contributed to this report

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Jimmie Johnson scored his 50th Sprint Cup victory of his driving career making his way to the front late to win the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Johnson led the final six laps after taking the lead from Tony Stewart.

The final 10 laps of the race were run under green. During the last caution period, Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Stewart pitted for two tires; Kurt Busch and Johnson took four.

The four-tire cars were clearly stronger. Johnson sprinted from sixth to first in only three laps and beat Stewart to the finish by .895 of a second.

“We have worked so hard for this,” Johnson, a winner at Bristol Motor Speedway for the first time, said in victory lane. “I thought we were in trouble. But the four tires were everything.”

Kurt Busch finishing third after leading 278 laps was clearly dissapointed were he finished. On the final restart, he was bottled up behind two tire traffic and didn’t get a shot to challenge for first.

“We were solid all day,” Busch said. “We just got beat by the luck of the draw on the restarts. It’s luck on which lane is going to go. I thought we had them beat. I’d rather lose to any of the other 41 teams but that 48 team.

“I feel exhausted. I feel disappointed.”

With the win, his third in five races this season, Johnson tied Junior Johnson and Ned Jarrett at 50 career wins. They are at 10th on the all time list.

Busch had a one second lead over Johnson with 18 laps to go when debris in the fourth turn caused the race’s last caution, putting teams in the difficult position of deciding between two tires and four.

Clouds framed the racetrack virtually all day, and brief rain showers forced a pair of caution flags.

A green flag on lap 412 ended the second rain caution and produced a brief battle for the lead between Penske Racing teammates Brad Keselowski and Busch.

The race stage was scrambled on lap 343 when contact between former teammates Greg Biffle and Mark Martin sparked a 13 car wreck in turn three.

Racing in the top five, Martin tapped Biffle, causing both cars to slow. That created an accordion effect behind them not unusual thing at Bristol, and several other lead group cars piled into the melee. Among those impacted were Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Juan Pablo Montoya and Edwards.

The contact ruined a strong performance by Martin, who later returned to the track 91 laps down.

Montoya’s car had been particularly strong all afternoon, and he appeared to be on his way to challenging for his first NASCAR oval-track victory. Instead, he limped around in mid-pack with right-front damage and finished 26th.

Among those Dale Earnhardt Jr. was caught speeding, dropping him from the top five to the rear of the field after the seventh caution. It turned out to be a positive penalty for Earnhardt Jr., who possibly would have been a part of the 13 car wreck on lap 343 if he had been close to the front. He finished seventh.

The race, the fifth of the Sprint Cup season, developed in front of a crowd estimated at 120,000, the first time in 56 races BMS has failed to produce a sellout.

Race Day Notables:

Roush Fenway Racing:

Greg Biffle finished fourth; Matt Kenseth was fifth and Carl Edwards sixth for the organization in one of its best overall efforts of the season. Biffle led five times for 78 laps to boot.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.:

After working his way all the way up to fifth, Earnhardt Jr. was flagged for speeding on pit road on lap 326. As a result, he restarted the race 26th, but settled down and drove his way back to a solid seventh-place finish. The result gained him five spots in the point standings, where he’s now eighth.

Jamie McMurray:

After winning the Daytona 500, the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing driver finished 17th, 34th and 29th in the next three races. His eighth-place run at Bristol seemed to signal that the team has gotten its game back.

Kyle Busch:

Horrible in practice, just as bad in qualifying, and contact with the wall during the race seemed to just about sum up the weekend for Busch, who won both Cup races here last year. But somehow, the team rallied and Busch worked his way back into the top 10 late in the race to score a hard-earned ninth-place finish.

Speed Tv contributed to this report.

RESULTS: Food City 500 – BRISTOL

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Justin Allgaier was able to hold off his teammate Brad Keselowski in the closing laps of the Scott’s Turf Builder 300 to get his very first Nascar Nationwide win at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Keselowski, the pole-sitter who led 73 laps, finished second to give team owner Roger Penske his first 1-2 finish in the Nationwide Series.

It was a great day for Penske Racing Nationwide program. Allgaier took to the lead on a restart with 27 laps to go and stayed in front the rest of the way to get his first series victory.

“I’m happy for Justin,” Keselowski said. “There’s nothing like a first-time winner in NASCAR.”

Keselowski could have used the famous Bristol bump and run on Allgaier to take the lead towards the end of the race but chose not to. I think mainly because they’re teammates, and they are both are up top of the Nationwide Series points.

“On the restart there he ran me up pretty high, but I really had no room to be angry at him because I wrecked him here before,” Keselowski said. “I lifted and let him in. I thought I had a shot at getting it back, but I didn’t catch the right breaks as far as lapped traffic.

“I erred on the side of caution. The last thing I need is to wreck either one of us. It’s still a relatively new program. That’s the last thing we need.”

Allgaier called the win “unbelievable. That battle with Brad was awesome. I couldn’t be happier to see two Penske cars up there running for the win.”

Although Keselowski, chose not to push Allgaier from the lead in the final laps Saturday, Kevin Harvick had other thoughts in the fight for fifth place. Harvick pushed Joey Logano’s car in the left rear in the final turn on the final lap, sending Logano into the wall and dropping him from fourth to 14th.

“He kept chopping me and chopping me,” said Harvick, who had tried to pass Logano for a long series of laps. “I got into him a little bit. I hate that it happened. You got to do what you got to do.”

Logano clearly upset with the contact with Harvick stomped off after the race without comment.

On lap 91, contact between Scott Wimmer and Brian Scott resulted in a spin by Colin Braun, and Braun’s car was slammed in the rear by the following car of Steve Wallace. The impact shot Braun’s car into the air, and Wallace’s car came to a stop partially underneath it as fire erupted. There were no injuries.

A few laps later, James Buescher tapped Trevor Bayne’s car in the second turn, and both cars slid through the turn. Coleman Pressley spun out as

he slowed behind them.

Kyle Busch led 59 laps and finished third. Edwards came home fourth and retained the series points lead by 26 points over Keselowski. Allgaier is third in the standings, 31 points behind Edwards.

Speed Tv contributed to this report.

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Joey Logano turned in a near-perfect lap Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway and won the pole for Sunday’s Food City 500.

Logano’s lap of 124.630 mph edged Busch (123.857) by .096 of a second.

It was Logano’s first Sprint Cup pole in 44 races.

“That was a big deal for us, to get our first pole,” Logano said. “I never thought it would come here.”

Following Logano, widely considered to be one of NASCAR’s next stars, and Busch were Dave Blaney, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

Crew chief Greg Zipadelli said he wasn’t surprised by the pole run by Logano, who led Friday’s practice.

“We qualified eighth here last fall then got wrecked six laps into the race, so we really didn’t have a chance,” he said. “We felt like we had a top-10 car. With the progress Joey has made, this year has allowed us to make some changes.”

The focal points of the weekend – Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski – qualified far apart. Edwards will be racing on probation for the next three events after spinning Keselowski two weeks ago at Atlanta. Edwards will start eighth Sunday, and Keselowski, who almost lost control of his car on his first qualifying lap Friday, will start 36th.

“I was trying real hard to put up a good lap and didn’t quite pull it off,” Keselowski said.

Sprint Cup point leader Kevin Harvick qualified 33rd.

Toyotas took four of the top 10 starting spots for the first short-track race of the season.

Casey Mears in his Juice Air Fresheners / SmellMyCar.com Chevrolet was able to qualify for his first Sprint cup race thi year with a      15.823 second lap putting him 34th for Sundays Food City 500.

Mike Bliss and Max Papis failed to qualify.

Speed Tv contributed to this report.

>QUALIFYING RESULTS: Food City 500 – BRISTOL

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When the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series cars return to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend, two of the corners on the half-mile oval may feel like they’re missing something about three feet of something.

It won’t be an illusion. Bristol Motor Speedway is extending the Steel and (SAFER) barrier 84 feet coming out of Turns 2 and 4,  a move that will narrow those transition areas by about three feet each, which should make for tighter racing at the 160,000-seat facility.

Kevin Triplett VP. of Public Affairs at Bristol Motor Speedway said “We know it’s three less feet coming off that transition. How the drivers will adapt to that, we don’t know.”

“What we’re hearing from folks who aren’t renewing their tickets, from the majority of them is, it’s economically related, and there’s not a lot we can do about that. But we are hearing from a lot of folks who say, Bristol has been known to be tight, and you guys have given them so much room.

“There’s an element out there that loves three- and four-wide racing, and there’s an element out there that would love it to be a little bit tighter. So we looked at how we could do it keeping the element of safety in mind. We decided, well, we could extend the SAFER barriers. And adding SAFER barriers, we think, is always a good thing.”

The alteration, which Triplett said would be completed in time for this weekends race, will not affect Turns 1 and 3. It also does not involve moving the concrete wall, but rather extending the barrier into parts of the frontstretch and backstretch that had previously been uncovered. Some traditional race fans have grumbled about a perceived lack of action on the otherwise popular short track since a 2007 resurfacing which widened the racing surface by about four feet.

“This will take some of that back,” Triplett said. “It will narrow it up. It will tighten the transitions in the turns.”

Triplett said the idea arose in a meeting a few weeks ago, and that the track’s operations team assured management they could get the work done before Bristol’s spring NASCAR weekend. Triplett said he wasn’t sure how the change would ultimately affect the racing at the facility, which has sold out 55 consecutive Cup Series events yet still has tickets available for its upcoming race.

“Honestly, it’s one of those things where, how do we respond to some of our fans and still have what we have?” he said. “We don’t know what the result will be. We know it’s three less feet coming off that transition. How the drivers will adapt to that, we don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.”

David Caraviello, NASCAR.COM contributed to this report.

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