Posts Tagged ‘Kurt Busch’

The Sprint Cup Series had the week off, but it was no time to rest for the Penske team.

Kurt Busch and Bill Elliott two former NASCAR Sprint Cup champions spent some time at Gresham Motorsports Park, a refurbished facility located about an hour northeast of Atlanta.

On Tuesday, Kurt Busch tested his No. 2 Dodge on the newly paved half-mile paved oval, which was previously known as Peach State Speedway.

“This is a great place to test,” Busch said in a press release. “The track is really repeatable. The track is new and it’s and it’s nice and smooth. It has a lot of grip.

“If you can run the bottom, it’s pretty fast. It’s going to be really fast in a year or two when it wears out a little.”

Kurt Busch the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway winner , was testing at Gresham Motorsports Park getting ready for the race at Martinsville later this month. The #2 Penske Dodge had the new spoiler on the rear deck lid. Busch’s Penske Racing teammate, Justin Allgaier, also participated in the test. Allgaier competes full time in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series.

Saturday night Bill Elliott, watched from the spotter’s stand  as his his 14-year-old son, Chase Elliott, finished second in the CRA Super Late Model 125 on the lightning-fast layout.

Augie Grill of Birmingham, Ala. dominated Saturday’s event by leading 110 of 125 laps. His winning pass came on lap 16 when he dove underneath leader Ryan Lawler in Turn 1. Grill would never be seriously challenged for the lead during the remainder of the race.

“I had a lot of fun,” said Grill, who won the pole but started third based on the inversion procedure. “My goal, normally, in a race is to get to the front as quick as I can. That was my goal tonight. We were able to get to the front in 15 laps. I feel safe when I’m out front.

“We had a great car. It was a good night.”

Elliott held off fellow Georgia residents Bubba Pollard, Jason Hogan and Mike Garvey to claim the runner-up spot.

Grill’s victory assured him a starting berth in the track’s signature event, the World Crown 300, which is held each November.

“That’s pretty neat,” Grill said. “Now we can come experiment for the World Crown and see if we can qualify faster.”

Jeff Hood  at
RacinToday.com contributed to this report

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Kurt Busch comes to defend his title at Atlanta in hopes of repeating like he did last year, he dominated it in his familiar No. 2 Penske Racing Dodge Charger, leading 234 of 330 laps. It was the kind of beat-down drivers rarely get to administer on the competition, and Busch clearly relished the victory.

With the high speeds and close finishes the Kobalt Tools 500 should be a great race. Hopefully Atlanta Motor Speedway will provide us with another thrilling finish like in 2005 when Carl Edwards won by just .028 seconds? Or a repeat of 2001 when Kevin Harvick won by just .006 seconds? We could be in for another great race this weekend in Atlanta.

Atlanta Motor Speedway is l.54 mile quad-oval with 24 degrees of banking in the turns. At Atlanta the cars will not have restrictor plates, average speeds is even faster than the superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega. This is a very fast race track that has a history of truly great racing.

The qualifying record in Atlanta is 197.478 MPH making it one of the fastest race tracks on the NASCAR schedule.

Will Jimmie Johnson be able to win his third straight Sprint Cup victory Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway?

The way the 48 team is racing so far it would be a good bet they will. In fact, it’s easy to consider him the race favorite entering the fourth event of the year after he won race two at California and then passing his teammate Jeff Gordon late in the race to a win at Las Vegas last week.

Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus seem to have things going early this season in their search for a fifth straight championship, statistics make success this weekend well within their reach.

Of all current drivers, Johnson is fourth behind only Bobby Labonte (6), Bill Elliott (5) and Jeff Gordon (4) in career victories at AMS.

“We’re excited to have won the last two weeks, but there’s still a lot of work going on,” Johnson said Tuesday. “We’re looking forward to getting on the racetrack and looking for a third.”

Dale Earnhardt JR is looking forward to racing at Atlanta. This one of his best non-resrictor-plate races were won the March 2004 race.

His average finish there is 11.9, and he has 10 career top-10 finishes at Atlanta, his last coming in March 2008 when he finished third.

“We’ve always run pretty good at Atlanta, so I look forward to going there,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s a wide track, and it gets slick. Atlanta is a driver’s track – if one groove doesn’t work, then you can find another one. It’s a fun track, and it’s a fast track.”

This weekend NASCAR honors Wendell Scott, the first African-American to win at NASCAR’s highest level. Scott’s first NASCAR start came on March 4th, 1961 in Spartanburg, SC. Two years later Scott would pick up a victory in Jacksonville, FL on December 1st, 1963

All of the cars this weekend will carry a special decal commemorating the event.

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Kurt Busch captured the pole for Sunday’s Shelby American NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, knocking off Jeff Gordon’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Busch, a native of Las Vegas, had things going his way on Friday afternoon, as his No. 2 Penske Racing Dodge Charger raced for the pole with a track record lap of 188.719 miles per hour. Auto Club Speedway in 2007 was the last pole Kurt Busch had.

Kurt Busch said that the team only made one mock-qualifying run during the practice session, where he failed to make the top 20. Steve Addington and Kurts put their heads together and made the right adjustments to put the Penske Dodge on the pole.

“It was really rough over the bumps, and that was all we focused on,” said Busch. “And I felt like that made the difference in the end. We didn’t really tighten the car up or loosen the car up, we just focused on those bumps.”

“I was getting up on the wheel, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I love Vegas, I love this atmosphere. I just need to get it together for the full 400 miles on Sunday.”

Up until Kurt’s qualifying run it was Henrick’s Motorsports up front.

Dale Earnhardt qualified second in his Hendrick No. 88 Chevy, and beat the track record by more than three-tenths of a second, stunning the field with a lap of 188.173 mph.

“It was a good lap,” Earnhardt said. “We worked really hard to get the National Guard Chevy as good as we could.”

It was looking as though Earnhardt’s speed might hold up and maybe give him his first pole since Texas in April 2008. Jeff Gordon came up later in the day and bumped Earnhardt off the pole with a blistering lap of 188.646 mph.

“I’m a little speechless, so ‘wow’ might be the only word I have,” said Gordon after his pole-winning lap. “That was
a really fun lap. Man, these guys have just done an awesome job. … I got both of ends of it pretty good, but it was on the edge.”

But Gordon’s didn’t stay on the pole for long, as Busch knocked Gordon off the pole putting him on outside of Row 1 with a lap that was .011 seconds quicker than Gordon.

There was a short interruption in qualifying  by a minor generator explosion in the infield. Nobody was reported injuried.

After it was all said and done, Kurt Busch had the pole, followed by Gordon, Ryan Newman, Earnhardt and Kyle Busch, the defending race winner.

The second five consisted of Joey Logano, Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya.

Results: Shelby American Qualifying

Speed TV contributed to this report

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At the Texas Motor Speedway Cup drivers Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle and Brian Vickers became the first to conduct an on-track test with a new aluminum spoiler package that could be implemented for the 2010 season during the Goodyear Tire test at Texas Motor Speedway on Tuesday.

Stewart was the first of the group to test the spoiler in the morning session, which was delayed nearly two hours from its 9 a.m. CT start time due to moisture on the 1.5-mile, high-banked oval from heavy morning dew.

The session kicked off at approximately 10:53 a.m. with temperatures in the 60s as Stewart rolled out with the wing and less than 40 minutes later was utilizing the spoiler. Vickers also got an opportunity to run the spoiler in the abbreviated morning session.

By the reaction of the drivers it seems like NASCAR is going in the right direction with the spoiler change.

NASCAR has not determined the specific dimensions as yet for the spoiler, but the one that was being used as a baseline at Tuesday’s
session was 64.5 inches wide and four inches in height with no contour in the design. Also, the rear quarter panels were extended four inches toward the ground.

NASCAR phased out the traditional spoiler on the rear deck lid of the Cup cars and went to a rear wing when the [new car] was unveiled in 2007. The return to the traditional look provides fans with the ability to differentiate between the four manufacturers more easily and hopefully enhance the passing ability of the cars and overall race action. Tuesday’s tire test was the first opportunity for drivers to test the package and provide feedback on its effects on the car.

Biffle and Busch had to wait until the afternoon session to test out the spoiler, with Busch not getting an opportunity until nearly the culmination of the session.

“With the spoiler on, the car had a looser feel to it,” Busch said. “The car was turning better and it felt like the car was sliding a bit more. ”

Stewart, Busch, Biffle and Vickers will conclude the Goodyear test Wednesday, where they are scheduled to test the spoiler package once
again. NASCAR will conduct another test with the spoiler March 23-24 at Charlotte Motor Speedway another 1.5-mile oval and sister track to TMS that will be open to all Cup teams.

“I think we’re stirring up the pot with the change, but it’s in a positive direction,” Busch said. “A lot of times NASCAR throws changes our way and the drivers and owners grumble about it.   With the spoiler, it seems like a positive reaction has been made already and just driving in it Tuesday, I don’t see any problem with it at all.”

If NASCAR is pleased with the progress and performance of the spoiler, the new package could be implemented for the Samsung Mobile 500 scheduled for April 15-18 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Earlier this year in Concord, N.C, a select number of drivers and NASCAR met at the R&D Center to discuss what would be the best way to move forward in the 2010 season.

At the top of the list from the technical side appears to be searching for a solution to keep Sprint Cup cars from lifting off the track during a spin. Consequently, NASCAR could introduce a spoiler for the new car as early as the Bristol or Martinsville race.

The spoiler change is for two reasons  to keep cars from launching and in response to fans’ dislike of the wing, according to NASCAR.

Ryan Newman, who was involved in a horrific crash at Talladega on Nov.1, said  he would welcome the change.

NASCAR.com

Fox Sports

contributed to this report.

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