Posts Tagged ‘Mark Martin’

Jimmie Johnson has done it again. He played possum most of the day and then turned on the afterburner to pass teammate Jeff Gordon with just 16 laps to go and win the Shelby American NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Gordon led more than 210 laps of the 267-lap event before losing the lead to Johnson, who seems hellbent to win his fifth NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship before Gordon does.

Johnson won last week at Auto Club Speedway and told members of the media leading up to Sunday’s race he could care less about the people who think he’s tainting NASCAR racing with his dominance. “You compete to win. I’m not gonna apologize for winning,” he said.

  

While Johnson drove away for Sunday’s victory, Kevin Harvick also passed Gordon for the runnerup spot. Gordon finished third ahead of fourth-place Mark Martin. And Matt Kenseth edged Joey Logano for fifth. Logano was sixth, a very impressive finish for the young driver. Tony Stewart was seventh, Clint Bowyer eighth, Kasey Kahne ninth and Greg Biffle 10th.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., continued his struggle to compete with the frontrunners by finishing 16th.

Speed TV contributed to this report

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After a bad finish at Daytona Jimmie Johnson bounces back to wins his 48th race in the #48 Lowes Chevrolet at the Auto Club 500 in Fontana California.

Johnson led the last 24 laps of the race to beat out a hard charging Kevin Harvick. Harvick chased Johnson down in the last 20 laps, cutting down a two second Johnson lead. With only five laps to go Harvick slid coming out of turn 4 slapping the wall spoiling any chance to get by Jimmie Johnson.

“Life is good, man,” said Johnson, who is pursuing his fifth straight Sprint Cup championship. “We’re right back in victory lane.”

Luck was on Johnson’s side as with 27 laps to go Johnson pitted for his final stop of the race, and the caution came out for Brad Keselowski when he lost control and spun down the frontstrech, Johnson got  off of pit road just in time, so he would start up front on the restart.

“The fact that we were on pit road when the caution came out gave us track position, and we finally got the car turning,” Johnson said.

Harvick was pushing hard and said he lost control of his car trying to catch up to Johnson.

“The 48 saw me coming and moved up,” Harvick said. “I lost the nose of the car and got in the wall and knocked the right front fender in.”

Harvick who got a pit road speeding violation, putting him to the back of the field drove his car top the front to challenged Johnson at the end of the race.

Completing the top five were Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and Joey Logano.

  

“I think we have a little bit of work to do, although we won the race,” Johnson said. “We’ll just keep working hard. This is a good step in the right direction.”

The race saw a lot of different challengers at the front of the field, that were contributed by NASCAR’s new aero package and a new tire compound that Goodyear brought to the race. It was unbelievable at how many pit road violation there were considering NACAR warned the driver after the Nationwide race. Teams seemed to have more engine failures than normal, mostly thought do to the long green runs and the cooler weather making the engines rev higher and longer.

Kasey Kahne brought out the second caution when he lost control coming out of turn four spinning into the wet infield bending up the left side of the front splitter and right front fender damage.

Johnson, Harvick and Montoya were up front of the field for most of the first half of the race, round half way Montoya’s engine gave way ending the #42 Target’s car day.

A few laps later after spinning his tires on the restart, Ryan Newman blew his engine up big time on the fronstrech ending his day and giving Newman his second DNF of the season.

At lap 70 with bad weather threatening most  of the leaders were forced to make a green flag pit stop.

A light sprinkle bought out a caution with Denny Hamlin leading the race. A few laps into the caution Denny Hamlin was forced to pit giving up the lead to Scott Speed. Speed led a few laps under caution to get his 5 bonus points, hoping the rain would come, but he was forced to pit running low on fuel.

After the rain delay there were only 50 laps to go and Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch lead to field to the green. The crew chief were looking to the sky as more bad weather was threatening.

Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin got together after the restart causing Hamlin’s left rear tire to go flat.

Jeff Burton was showing the strength of the Earnhardt Childress engines with 42 laps to go looking like Burton had the car to beat.  Unfortunately for Burton the handling went away in the closing laps losing the battle with Harvick for second place. The RCR cars were strong all day putting all three cars in the top ten.

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Any NASCAR Sprint Cup driver or crew chief will tell you pretty much the same thing about the Daytona 500, It’s not an accurate predictor of what’s to come in the year. Daytona has its own unique challenges being a restrictor-plate race, and tracks like Auto Club Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway are a better gauge of performance, of who’s fast, who isn’t and who is capable of winning.

No driver, especially those with championship hopes, wants to start the year with a bad race at Daytona. Last year, for example, Mark Martin suffered through two engine failures and a catastrophic tire explosion in the first four races and spent the next 22 races furiously digging out from 34th in points to get back in the top 12 in points.

Several of the top drivers in the Cup series had a disappointing Daytona 500, so they’ll be looking to rebound in a big way Sunday at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California, with the running of the Auto Club 500.

  

Six of the 12 drivers who qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup in 2009 finished outside the top 20 in the Daytona 500: Tony Stewart (22nd), Kurt Busch (23rd), Jeff Gordon (26th), Kasey Kahne (30th), Ryan Newman (34th) and Jimmie Johnson (35th). Certainly, it isn’t panic time for any of them by a long shot.

“It sucks,” Johnson said of his Daytona 500, which ended with a broken rear axle. “But it’s a long season and we came out of here last year with a crashed race car and still came back. We have a little work ahead of us.”

“Daytona was very disappointing – more so than I think a lot of people realize,” said Newman, Stewart’s teammate at Stewart-Haas Racing. “We were just biding our time in the back of the field and, with 10 laps or so to go, we decided it was time to make our move. I don’t really know what happened, but I was the recipient of it. We were seven laps from the end of the race, well before the green-white-checker, and we ended up with a destroyed race car. It was just very disappointing. We wanted to come out of the box strong at Daytona, but we walked away with a 34th-place finish. We had good cars but we didn’t get the finish we wanted.”

Gordon, who finished second at both ACS races last year, is ready for better days, too.

“I’m hoping we can run better and get better as the season goes on,” said Gordon, “I certainly feel that we have that capability. Last year, I think we were the best team during the first 10 races, but we flattened out. We’re looking at the championship differently this year. We want to start the season off right, but we want to build and get better as the season goes along. “And show our strengths at the right time — not only for winning races, but battling for the championship.”

Speed TV contributed to this report.

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.

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Video Courtesy of Speed TV

Man I thought the Gatorade Duels were pretty exciting,  you couldn’t get two much closer finishes that that.

The Roush Racing cars looked pretty strong all day looks like they might be a force to reckon with when Sunday come around.

Not really sure with Dale Earnhardt Jr he didn’t look real impressive but sounded like the car was going to be good in Sunday race according to the interviews he gave. I hope he can do better Sunday than what he has shown the rest of this week.

This from Speed tv.

The Gatorade Duel At Daytona delivered back-to-back thrilling finishes as Jimmie Johnson edged Kevin Harvick at the stripe by .005 seconds – the second-closest finish in the history of the Gatorade Duel since the inception of electronic timing and scoring.

Kasey Kahne, behind the wheel of the No. 9 Budweiser Ford, nipped Tony Stewart at the line in the second Gatorade Duel by .014 seconds to capture his first win on the legendary 31-degree high banks of Daytona.

“It feels great,” Kahne said of his inaugural win on the 2.5-mile tri-oval. “You watch tons of races growing up as a kid. I can remember every Daytona 500, having 15-20 people at my house. Daytona is one of those tracks that has a ton of history. My car owner, Richard Petty, is a big part of that history and it feels good to be in Victory Lane here.”

“As I went by the start/finish line sideways, I looked up and hoped that it was the checkered (flag) because I felt like I was going to spin out,” said Johnson, who posted his first win in the 60-lap event and his third career triumph at the “World Center of Racing”. “Everybody wants this big prize. Everybody wants to win the Daytona 500. I think we sent a message today.”

Johnson, the four-time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, had to start at the back of the pack after his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet was involved in an incident during practice on Wednesday.

The car, which the 2006 Daytona 500 champion raced to a second-place finish here last July in the Coke Zero 400 Powered By Coca-Cola, made its way through the pack and into the top 10 before leading the last seven laps of the race.

Kahne, who gave Ford their first win in the Gatorade Duel since Elliott Sadler back in 2006, had a shorter trip to the top 10 –

starting in the middle of the pack and leading twice for three laps.

Mark Martin, pole winner for the 52nd annual Daytona 500, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will be starting alongside Martin on the front row Sunday, led off their respective Gatorade Duel 150-mile qualifying races to determine the starting order for “The Great American Race”.

Martin led once for a race-high 28 laps, and Earnhardt Jr. led once for five laps.

Three-time Daytona 500 champion Jeff Gordon will have to go to a back-up car and start at the rear of the field on Sunday after being involved in the final caution of the first Gatorade Duel with only six laps to go.

“We sent our Budweiser Shootout car that we wrecked on the last lap (Saturday night) home,” said Steve Letarte, crew chief of the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet. “They’ve already repaired that, so that car is as good as new. We’re better off bringing that car out. (It’s) been back to the shop, repaired and ready to come back down.”

Of the 19 drivers who were not guaranteed a spot in Sunday’s season opener, Michael McDowell and Max Papis raced their way into the field during the first Gatorade Duel and earned their first career starts in the Daytona 500.

Mike Bliss and Scott Speed earned the transfer spots into the Daytona 500 in the second Gatorade Duel while two-time Daytona 500 champion Bill Elliott, Joe Nemechek, Bobby Labonte and Michael Waltrip earned a starting spot with their qualifying times.

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