Posts Tagged ‘Sprint Cup Series’

Denny Hamlin won the rain delayed NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Goody’s Fast Pain Relief at Martinsville Speedway.

Denny Hamlin, whose team made a questionable late-race pit decision, turned in some of the best driving of the season over the final two laps and won Monday’s Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway.

The race ended with a green-white-checkered finish thanks to tight three-wide racing and contact that sent Kyle Busch into the outside wall with a lap to go in regulation.

Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman led the dash to the race’s final green flag. Hamlin, who had given up the lead to pit for four tires with nine laps remaining, stormed from fourth place to challenge for the lead almost immediately.

When Gordon got a bump from Matt Kenseth getting him loose into turn one on the restart, Kenseth slipped inside to push to the lead down the backstretch. But Kenseth’s momentum and a tap from Gordon carried him high in turn three and into the wall, and Hamlin was there to inherit the lead.

He stayed out front over the final lap to win for the first time since last season’s closing race at Homestead, Fla.

Hamlin and Kyle Busch were the only leaders to pit for tires with nine to go, leaving Gordon in the lead. When the green flag fell with four to go, Hamlin was ninth. He moved up to fourth quickly and then to first on the green-white-checkered.

“I can’t believe it,” Hamlin said. “I thought it was the end. That’s for all the people who doubt us. We’re still going to get this done before the year is over with.

“I had to bully my way through there near the end, but everybody was running like that. I somehow made it work.”

Hamlin was supposed to be undergoing surgery Monday.

Hamlin injured his left knee while playing basketball in January, and he had been scheduled to have reconstructive surgery Monday in Charlotte, N.C. When rain postponed Sunday’s race to Monday, the surgery was rescheduled for Wednesday.

Gordon, who finished third behind Hamlin teammate Joey Logano, was searching for his first win since April of last year at Texas Motor Speedway.

Gordon was pushing toward the win when Kyle Busch, racing three wide with Marcos Ambrose and Paul Menard, made contact with Menard and hit the outside wall, sparking caution as the leaders eyed the white flag.

“The real unfortunate part was that the yellow came out then,” Gordon said. “We had the thing wrapped up. On the last restart, I didn’t get a great start, but it was pretty decent. I drove into one trying to not overcook it. He (Kenseth) drove into the back of me so hard, but I made sure he wasn’t going to win the race after that.”

Hamlin survived a parade of caution flags, tire failures and typical short-track bump-and-thump racing.

Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Jeff Burton and Gordon had significant runs at the front, but Hamlin was the day’s top gun.

Hamlin and Burton battled over the final hundred laps as rain threatened to end the race early.

Burton lost his shot at a win with 18 laps to go when the right-front tire on his Chevrolet started losing pressure.
Burton eventually tapped the outside wall, causing the caution with nine laps to go.

Hamlin, then leading, surprised virtually everyone by giving up first place and pitting for four tires. In the end, the gamble worked.

Harvick had brake problems early in the race and gave up the seasonal point lead to Jimmie Johnson. Harvick fell to fourth.

Mike Hembree:
From Speed TV contributed to this report

UNOFFICIAL RESULTS: Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500- MARTINSVILLE

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hamlin surges to victory at Martinsville (nationalpost.com)
• Hamlin storms to front for third Martinsville victory (cbssports.com)
• Denny Hamlin Pulls out a Win in the Last Lap in Martinsville (bleacherreport.com)

Charlotte Motor Speedway will host two days of testing this week, which will be very important to the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup season.

There will be two full days of testing Tuesday and Wednesday at Charlotte Motor Speedway to see how Sprint Cup cars behave with a rear blade spoiler instead of a wing at a fast, 1.5-mile track.

Sunday’s Food City 500 was the last race for the rear wing, which had been a on the new generation Sprint Cup cars since they rolled out in March 2007. But the wings never caught on with the fans and so earlier this year, NASCAR decided to revert back to the old-fashioned rear blade spoiler.

The new spoiler will be used for the first time Sunday at Martinsville Speedway and remain in use for the foreseeable future.

And with 16 of 36 races on the 2010 Cup scheduled on intermediate tracks between 1.3 and 2 miles in length, the Charlotte test will be very important.

“It’s been quite some time since we’ve had a test of this magnitude at any race track,” said NASCAR Vice President For Competition Robin Pemberton. “I think the teams will be working hard.”

The teams are curious about the effect of the spoiler and the Charlotte test should give them some insight about what to expect.

“Until we go out there and race, I don’t know,” said four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon when asked what he thought the impact

of the spoiler would be. “In the wind tunnel it’s not that big of a difference, but it might be huge in the racing aspect of it; I don’t know. We’ve never had a spoiler on this car, so you don’t know if this car is punching a big hole because of the greenhouse and the rear bumper, or just how it moves air over it, or if it’s the wing.”

Gordon’s teammate Jimmie Johnson agreed.

“Until we get out there and really have someone to chase and some lap times and can get in traffic and figure out what’s going on, I think we’re all on equal ground and hoping we have what we need,” said Johnson, the four-time defending series champ. “But nobody has a clear advantage at this point so it’s going to be different. The wing was put on the car to help with downforce for the cars behind. It was less sensitive to the pitch and attitude of the car and made the car more friendly. So with that stuff in mind, I’m assuming the car is going to be a bit more of a handful in certain situations. And we need to put the car in those situations to understand how to get that balance right.”

Kevin Harvick, the current Sprint Cup points leader, said no matter how much testing teams do, they won’t know exactly what they have until they race.

“I think the test is important but you still aren’t going to be racing around people (at the Charlotte test),” said Harvick. “I mean, you are going to be on the track at the same time, but there is just a difference between race conditions and how everything reacts in traffic. I mean, we all think we know how it is going to react, but you never know until they drop the green flag and you are side-by-side and have to pit.

“At Charlotte, are you going to do a 50-lap run? Probably not, I’m not,” Harvick said. “You have to do those things in the race. Are you going to have tire trouble? I don’t know. Do we have too much front down force in traffic? Do we have enough down force? There are just so many questions that have got to be answered.”

Speed Tv contributed to this report.

Related articles by Zemanta

• News & Notes After Talladega Spoiler Testing (fullthrottle.cranialcavity.net)
• Spoiler change to come next week at Martinsville (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Sprint Cup cars to switch to spoiler instead of wing at Martinsville (sports.espn.go.com)

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

Related articles by Zemanta

• Johnson’s late run at Bristol gives him win No. 50 (cbssports.com)
• Jimmie Johnson Joins NASCAR’s Elite With Bristol Win (fullthrottle.cranialcavity.net)
• NASCAR: NSCS — Bristol: the Food City 500 Results (fdtate.blogspot.com)

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

Related articles by Zemanta

• Logano claims first career pole at Bristol (cbssports.com)
• When rubber meets concrete at Bristol, everyone’s on edge (cbssports.com)
• Joey Logano beats Kurt Busch at Bristol for first pole (sports.espn.go.com)

Looks like NASCAR is throwing another twist into the allstar race this year. It’s going to put more pressure on the pit crews and make for an interesting finish.

The NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, set for Saturday, May 22 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, will consist of four segments, concluding with a 10-lap sprint and a $1 million pay-out to the race winner. There’s an added twist this year before the green flag drops for the final segment: once the field takes a lap behind the pace car, all cars must enter pit road for a four-tire stop. The order in which the cars exit off pit road is how they will line up for the final 10 laps, placing an even greater premium on the efficiency of the pit crews.

The 2010 format is as follows:
• Segment 1: 50 laps with a mandatory green-flag pit stop on Lap 25 at which time teams must pit and take on four tires. Following the end of Segment 1, the caution flag will be displayed for an optional pit stop.
• Segment 2: 20 laps with the caution flag displayed at the end of Segment 2 for an optional pit stop.
• Segment 3: 20 laps with a 10-minute break at the end of Segment 3. Teams may make normal adjustments to their cars during this break. The finishing order after the third segment determines the field’s lineup for the pace lap prior to the start of the fourth segment.
• Segment 4: Once the field takes a lap behind the pace car, all cars must enter pit road for a four-tire stop. The order in which the cars exit pit road is how they will line up for the 10-lap shootout with only green-flag laps counting.

“We saw last year just how competitive this format can be, with Tony Stewart battling Matt Kenseth for the win on the final couple of laps,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition. “With the addition of the four-tire pit stop, there is going to be even greater competition between the pit crews on who can get their driver serviced and out the quickest. I think the fans are in for quite a show.”

Mark Martin, a two-time NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race winner, is looking forward to competing in his 21st all-star event this year, which is the most of any driver.
“I love the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race as much as the fans do,” said Martin.

The eligibility standards for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race remain the same: race winners from either the 2009 or 2010 season through May 16 or any past champions of the all-star event or NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (over the previous 10 years) are eligible for the race. In addition, the top-two finishers in the Sprint Showdown, a 40-lap preliminary race scheduled for 7:30 p.m. and the winner of the Sprint Fan Vote, all advance into the all-star race lineup. Joey Logano won the Sprint Fan Vote last year.

The sixth annual NASCAR Sprint Pit Crew Challenge presented by Craftsman returns to kick off the all-star week’s competition, Wednesday, May 19 at 7 p.m. at the Time Warner Cable Arena. The event’s finishing order determines pit selection for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race. The No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet team is the defending Pit Crew Challenge champion.

Drivers currently eligible for the 2010 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race (as of March 17): Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski, Bobby Labonte, Joey Logano, Mark Martin, Jamie McMurray, Ryan Newman, David Reutimann, Tony Stewart, and Brian Vickers.

Artical from SpeedTV.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• NASCAR adds mandatory pit stop to All-Star race (sports.espn.go.com)