Posts Tagged ‘Sprint Cup Series’

Dale Earnhardt Jr puts together a great lap in qualifying at Atlanta Motor Speedway to put his NO.88 AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet on the pole for the Kobalt Tools 500 with a speed of 192.761 miles per hour.

This will be Jr’s first pole in almost two years, his last came in April 2008 A Texas Motor Speedway.

Earnhart’s lap is the fastest lap recorded with the COT Sprint Cup car.

Kyle Busch (192.280), Juan Pablo Montoya (192.106), Mark Martin (191.814) and Jeff Gordon (191.774), rounded off the top five for Sundays Kobalt Tools 500.

  

Earnhardt Jr. said his pole run “definitely a step in the right direction. I hope we’ll see these kinds of improvements on Sunday in our race team. And I think we will. If we keep performing like this, it should start leaking over into our car on Sunday.”

Earnhardt Jr. has finishes of second, 32nd and 16th through the first three races of the season. He is 15th in the point standings.

Busch said the high speeds are fun, , but the track demands attention.

“The only thing I’ve ever really been able to give a close description of to compare it to is this: Pick your favorite (interstate) off ramp that’s a round one and drive it as hard as you can and see if it sticks,” he said. “Now this is like doing that off ramp while it’s raining.

“But it’s a fun racetrack. The sensation doesn’t really hit you because the corners are wide. You’ve got a lot of room off 2 and 4.”

Driver that did not qualify for Sundays race were Casey Mears, Terry Cook and  Aric Almirola .

Related articles by Zemanta

• Junior on the pole for Atlanta race (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Dale Earnhardt’s top qualifying time earns him pole as Kobalt Tools 500 (sports.espn.go.com)
• 5 more fresh articles…

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

Related articles by Zemanta

• Numbers game: Busch brothers trying to 86 the No. 48 in Vegas’ 13th (cbssports.com)
• NASCAR: Shelby American Qualifying (fdtate.blogspot.com)
• Kurt Busch wins pole at Las Vegas (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

I know the old saying is nice guys finish last, but it looks like Jammie McMurry is trying to change that.

Jammie McMurry lands McDonald’s for a sponsor to help fill the sponsorship void, the possibility of racing nearly half the season without sponsorship was no laughing matter to McMurray and his Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team.

With McDonald’s coming on board for about a third of the Sprint Cup season, there are only a handful of races left for Earnhardt Ganassi to fill. The possibility of racing nearly half the season without sponsorship was no laughing matter to McMurray and his Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team.

“I was worried,” McMurray said Friday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “We didn’t have a full-time sponsor, a full year sold. But after winning the 500, team manager Tony Glover leaned over and looked at me in victory lane and he said he thought we were pretty safe and we could run the whole season.

  

“I felt pretty good at that point. It takes a lot of money to run a race team. I was definitely concerned with what was going to happen, although I will say they felt comfortable if the McDonald’s sponsorship wasn’t here, they had enough one-race or two-race things to run the entire season.”

Bass Pro Shops was only sponsoring the team for half the season, the team needed sponsorship to fill out the rest of the year. Winning the daytona 500 sure didn’t hurt in attracting McDonald’s.

“These sponsorship deals don’t just come off of a race,” McMurray said. “It takes a long time to not only sell the sponsor, but for the sponsor to go back and sell it to the board.

“It’s not something that winning the Daytona 500 did all of a sudden to bring the next sponsorship to our team. They’ve been working very hard on that to get sponsorship sold, although it certainly doesn’t hurt to win.”

Earnhardt Ganassi was in negotiations with McDonald’s well before the Daytona 500.

“We’ve been working with them for a long time,” EGR President Steve Lauletta said. “Obviously it was great to send them a note from victory
lane in Daytona saying, ‘How great is this?’

“It doesn’t hurt to win a race like that to push things along, but we were pretty well down the road before that.”

“It’s just a huge next step in terms of validation of what we’re doing on the track and off the track to have a brand like McDonald’s come on board to join Target and Bass Pro,” Lauletta said. “It says to everybody in our shop and hopefully people watching the sport that we’re a team on the move.”

Speed TV contributed to this report

Related articles by Zemanta

• Source: McDonald’s to sponsor Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray for 11 races (sports.espn.go.com)

With the Sprint Cup Series being so competitive it will humble even the best divers out there.

With a commanding victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway to end the 2009 season, Denny Hamlin is at the top of the list as the man most likely to compete with Jimmie Johnson for the top position of the Sprint Cup world.

So far, though, 2010 hasn’t exactly worked out the way Hamlin and crew chief Mike Ford had it planned. Through the first two races of the year, Hamlin has led just seven laps, finishing 17th in the Daytona 500 and 29th in the Auto Club 500. That was most assuredly not what Hamlin and Ford had in mind to start the year off for the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry.

Hamlin and his team will have a chance to get back on track this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s third Cup race of the season, the Shelby American.

It could be a challenge, in four previous Cup starts at the 1.5-mile LVMS oval, Hamlin has yet to lead a single lap. His best finish came in 2007, with a third-place run. Last year, he finished 22nd after being involved in two on-track incidents. Needless to say, he
will be looking for a strong run after starting this season behind where he envisioned being at the end of last year.

“Vegas is a place where we have actually run really well in the past and even though last season wasn’t as good, we still feel like we can go there and really challenge for a win,” said Hamlin. “That’s our mentality despite what happened in Daytona and California and it will be for the rest of the season. We know from past experience that it is a very long season and we have some time to work with.”

  

Hamlin said he’s not too worried about his early season struggles, as they’ve sort of become par for the course for the team. “I guess that’s the way it works for us — usually in a bit of a hole coming out of Daytona and then forced to chip away at the points,” said Hamlin. “The result at California didn’t help but we are focused on getting our performance right and we feel like things will fall into place. Hopefully we are getting some our bad luck out of the way early in the season when it can only hurt you so bad. We need that all out of the way by the end of the season.”

Crew chief Ford, who has been with Hamlin for his entire Sprint Cup career is optimistic based on the growth and maturity Hamlin showed in the second half of last season.

“When you first get together, everything seems to go really well,” said Ford. “Then you go through some though times and you’re tested a bit. And we feel like those tough times are behind us and we’re on the same page. Over the last few years, we’ve really grown closer together. I understand him more each year, he understands me. Through last year, it seemed like continuity really is what propelled our car.”

Team President J.D. Gibbs saw it, too.

“The future is exciting for us,” said Gibbs. “So I think really, both those guys work well together. They’re quiet, they’re not going to talk a lot about stuff, they just kind of get it done.”

They’ll definitely try to get it done this week in Las Vegas.

“Vegas is a great location for a race — there is always something to do,” said Hamlin. “The city is welcoming of the sport, we saw that when the banquet moved there last year, and the track is always working hard to bring in fans and improve the racing. They have done a great job with the garage and the infield in making it accessible to the fans. From a racing standpoint, the softer tire has made a big difference. We have more grip and the speeds are up but the racing was as good as it has ever been there. I am excited to get back there and see what they have in store for us this year.”

Speed Tv Contributed to this article.

With the NASCAR Sprint Cup teams heading to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s Shelby American, here are some early season story lines, with 2 of 36 races in the books for 2010.

With great start to the season by Kevin Harvick and the rest of Richard Childress Racing, they are trying to make the 2009 a thing of the past, and is wasting no time doing so. After two races this season, Kevin Harvick is the series points leader, Clint Bowyer is second and Jeff Burton is fifth.

This follows Sunday’s race at Auto Club Speedway where Harvick and Burton finished 2-3, with Bowyer eighth. Now all RCR needs is a victory. Harvick’s winless streak is up to 109 races. Burton has gone 43 races without a win, while Bowyer has gone 64.

  

Kurt and Kyle Busch head to their home town, Kyle Busch is the defending champion of Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the Shelby American. Kurt comes into this week’s race 11th in the series standings while Kyle is 13th.

It’s early in the season. But it’s just doesn’t seem right to see Jeff Gordon outside the top 20 at any point in the season.

After starting the season with two finishes outside the top 15, Gordon is in 21st in points. Just like a race at Auto Club Speedway came at the perfect time for Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, an event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway should lift Gordon.

Scott Speed is 15th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver points standings, while Paul Menard is 18th.

Both of those drivers are positioning their teams to be in the top 35 of car owner standings after the fifth week of the season. After Week 5, automatic starting spots are given to the top 35 teams. For the first five weeks, the final 2009 owner points are used.

Speed is being forced to qualify for races on time to start this year, since his team finished 36th in the 2009 owner standings.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 2010 NASCAR Predictions: RCR’s Rebirth Just The Tip of The Iceberg (bleacherreport.com)
• Fontana’s Move of the Race Belongs to… Adam Mosser (fullthrottle.cranialcavity.net)