Category: RC NASCAR Cup

[media-credit name=”Simon Scoggins” align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]Tony Stewart won the rain shortened Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway on Saturday for his second win of the season, 46th of his Sprint Cup career and seven wins of the past 15 races.

Stewart led twice for 42 laps, including the final 22. He took the lead on lap 85 and held on until the race was red flagged on lap 129.

“I’m definitely not losing anything with age.  I’ve had some really great race cars.” Stewart said about recently turning 40.  “I’m really proud of Steve Addington (crew chief) and all of our guys. This Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevy is bad fast.”

Kyle Busch finished second, Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished third, Kevin Harvick fourth and Carl Edwards finished fifth.

“We had a great race car there from the beginning of the race. Got the lead from Denny (Hamlin) after the first lap, led a lot of laps. I just wish we led 30 more and we’d be in a different position right now. Had a great car. The Interstate Batteries Camry was fast.” Busch said. “Wish we would have been able to race the whole thing on one hand, but on the other hand I’m kind of glad we’re not because we kind of have a little bit of damage that slowed us down there about 20 laps ago.”

Greg Biffle finished sixth and holds a seven point lead over Harvick in the series standings.

“I thought we were getting closer at the end because we started closing in on the 29, and then he got his car going. If they would have gotten the track cleaned off and going again, I think we would have had a chance because we’re good on a cold, green track. When it gets hot and slick, we’re not as good as they are.” Biffle said.

Jeff Gordon had another disappointing day. Gordon had to serve a stop-and-go penalty for dragging his fuel can and gasman out of his pits on lap 108. He lost one lap and then the race was red flagged with no change to make up the mistake. Gordon finished 26th and now sits 25th in the series standings.

Jimmie Johnson was the beneficiary of the rain. While running around under caution, smoke started coming from the front of the car. He was able to keep pace with the race was red-flagged and the field was brought to pit road. Johnson finished 10th.

“We are not exactly sure. Either a piece of debris hit an oil line and knocked the fitting off or split the line and snagged a line. We clipped an artery bottom line it’s losing blood fast, it’s either that or possibly an oil cooler. I really don’t know what had happened, I was just idling along and my friends pulled up alongside of me and were pointing.” Johnson said.

With his third place finish, Earnhardt Jr. sits in third place, 17 points out of the lead in the series standings.

“We didn’t have an opportunity to do anything other than what we had planned from the start. I like how our season is going so far. If we keep going like this, maybe we can get some opportunities and seal the deal.” Earnhardt Jr. said.  “Our car was fast we had a great car in practice right at the end of practice I told the guys ‘this thing is really good’. The Diet Mountain Dew/National Guard Chevrolet was great from the drop of the green and we moved forward all day long. We had great pit strategy stopping a little earlier than most people gaining some track position that way too.”

[media-credit name=”Credit: John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR” align=”alignright” width=”224″][/media-credit]Brad Keselowski led 231 laps in route to his first victory of the season in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

“What can I say? I love Bristol and Bristol loves me.” said Keselowski. “The goal at Penske Racing is to win a Sprint Cup championship, and one win certainly doesn’t achieve that, but it’s a great step.”

Keselowski choose the outside line on the final restart and held off Matt Kenseth, who had beat him on the previous restart.

“I knew as long as I could beat him on the first lap, I knew I had a good enough car and I’m a good enough driver to win.” Keselowski said.

Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR) teammates Martin Truex Jr. finished third, Clint Bowyer fourth and Brian Vickers finished fifth. Vickers led 125 laps in his first race of the season and will run five more races for MWR.

“This was pretty good and it felt really good when we were out there leading. It would have been awesome to hold onto that, but it’s the first time back so I can’t complain about that. What an organization.” Vickers said.

“So proud of the team.  All the guys on the NAPA team and everybody at MWR.  Clint and Brian  were up front all day long and this just says a lot about everything that everybody at MWR has done over the off season — working hard, giving us good race cars.” Truex Jr. said.

Kasey Kahne had another dismal finish after contact with Regan Smith. He finished 37th and sits 32nd in the series standings.

“We were going forward, just taking our time. Regan Smith was pretty slow. I was under him for a couple of laps. When my spotter cleared me in the center, I just took off, and he was there on exit. It is disappointing to have that good of a car and be out this early. Everybody at Hendrick Motorsports is doing such an awesome job. I’ve had awesome race cars, and I have nothing to show for it.” Kahne said.

On lap 359, teammates Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. were racing hard. While Earnhardt Jr. was making the pass, they got together. The contact cut the left rear, sending Gordon into the outside wall.

“I think we bumped more than we should have is the way it looks like. We definitely didn’t hit in the right location, because I think the tailpipe or something just cut the left-rear (tire) immediately. We didn’t hit that hard. We were a little bit too tight and he was pretty good on the restart there and we were racing hard. I know that it wasn’t intentional, but it certainly ruined our day. I hate it for Drive To End Hunger.” Gordon said.

Gordon finished 35th and now sits 23rd in the series standings.

“I got into his door a little bit. We were racing and having a good time, to be honest with you. I put the pipes up against the left rear tire of his car, and knocked the side wall out of it. I hate…I feel bad about that. I’m going to have to do some damage control this week. I know Jeff understands what was going on out there, but his boys work real hard on their car, and they had a good run going. They had a potential win, or good finish going too; and they deserve it.” Earnhardt Jr. said.

Earnhardt Jr. finished 15th after a late-race pit road speeding penalty.

“I got busted for speeding on pit road. I really hate that happened. I don’t think I was; but I don’t (think) any driver ever thinks he was speeding.” Earnhardt Jr. said.

[media-credit name=”Ed Coombs” align=”alignright” width=”224″][/media-credit]Carl Edwards was fastest in NASCAR Sprint Cup practice, but it was another Roush Fenway driver that claimed his first pole here at Bristol Motor Speedway. Greg Biffle came from 11th in practice to claim the pole for Sunday’s 52nd Annual Food City 500.

“I just couldn’t be more proud of how hard my team is working. I know a lot of people say that but we got in line with about nine minutes to go to make our bonsai run with sticker tires. Puccia called it the money lap but I still wasn’t happy with where the car was and I wanted one more change. My guys got me out with about two and a half minutes left. I got one more run in and that made the difference today of being on the front row. This is a team effort. They are working super hard and I am happy to have 811 and 3M and all the partners and Ford and everybody working hard to get our team up front.” Biffle said.

With the help of a bit of cloud cover over The World’s Fastest Half Mile, the 42 year old Roush Fenway driver was able to lay down a lap time of 15.324 seconds to take the top starting spot for the mayhem that will unfold around the bull ring in Northeast Tennessee. Biffle’s lap was good enough for his 10th pole in 334 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts, and his fourth top-10 start this season. With his pole position here at Bristol, Biffle is now locked into next year’s Shootout at Daytona. The 3M Ford is no stranger to the front row here at Bristol however, as Biffle has started second three other times, most recently in March of 2011.

Biffle enters Sunday’s stanza as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points leader and commented on the positive vibes around the Roush Fenway camp thus far; “The team is really excited about how the season started out. We have gone from Superspeedway to a one mile track to a mile-and-a-half which is Roush Fenway flagship kind of race track. We have run very respectable at all those places and last week I would have thought that a third is nothing to shake a stick at…Practice today started off pretty decent. We were a little tight in the center of the corner, typical Bristol…We were 11th there (in NSCS Practice) and I think we have a great chance to be top-10 in qualifying.”

It doesn’t get any better than the pole here at Bristol, and a top-10 qualifying effort was exactly what Biffle got out of his 3M Ford Fusion.

AJ Allmendinger will start on the outside of the front row on Sunday with his qualifying effort earlier this afternoon here at Bristol Motor Speedway. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Ryan Newman will start third for the fourth time this season.

Jeff Gordon’s Drive to End Hunger Chevy will start fourth and defending Bristol winner Brad Keselowski will start fifth.

“Obviously you’ve got to pick up a little bit to be in the top five or six. I think we can be in that top five. I hope so. I think it was a good lap. Just a few little tweaks here and there to be a little bit better, but all in all, it was a great effort all day for our Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet and a great effort right there in qualifying.” Gordon said.

Fastest in practice today, Carl Edwards will start 8th after he climbed the hill on his qualifying run.

Other notables include Kyle Busch (13th), Kevin Harvick (14th), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (18th), Jimmie Johnson (22nd), and defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Champion, Tony Stewart will start 23rd.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter @ML_B_Lo for all of this weekend’s racing action here at Bristol Motor Speedway.

[media-credit name=”Credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images” align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]Kasey Kahne scored the pole today during qualifying for the Kobalt Tools 400 earlier today.

Kahne was one of fifteen other drivers to break the track record as well. Kahne is looking for a boost to his 2012 season. Kahne suffered accidents in both the season-opening Daytona 500 and the Subway Fresh Fit 500 last weekend in Phoenix. Kahne got caught up in one of many big wrecks at Daytona and wrecked on his own at Phoenix early in the race after getting loose off Turn 4. This is Kahne’s third career pole here at Las Vegas.

Kahne ran his first race here in 2004 where he started from the pole. Kahne led 43 laps and finished second to eventual winner Matt Kenseth. He last won the pole in 2007, but suffered a crash late in the race when the 38 car of then driver David Gilliland sucked him around on the outside, putting the then #9 car in the wall. He has one other Top 5 finish at the track and that happened in 2006 when he finished in fifth. How will Kahne do on Sunday?

Hometown favorite Kyle Busch (sort of) will start on the outside of the front row. The reason why I put “sort of” is that I remember last year when his motor exploded, I heard very loud cheers. I felt kinda bad for Kyle that day. He has one victory here which he got in 2009.

Kevin Harvick qualified his #29 Budweiser Chevrolet in third. I’m seeing a new Harvick this year. He is qualifying a lot better here early in the season and he’s running up front. Harvick has never won here at Vegas, but came close in 2004 before running out of fuel, and finished second to Jimmie Johnson in 2010.

Rounding out the rest of the Top 10 included: Earnhardt Jr., Bowyer, Johnson, Stewart, Logano, Biffle, and Martin Truex Jr.

Is it just me or is Joey Logano on fire? Logano has a new crew chief this year in Jason Radcliff, who spent a long period of time serving as the crew chief for Kyle Busch during his Nationwide Series runs. Logano is running better than ever! I see Logano finally making the Chase this season. It is now his time after three seasons under Greg Zipadelli. Zipadelli now is Competition Director at Stewart-Haas Racing.

Defending winner of this race, Carl Edwards, qualified his #99 in the 21st position as his Daytona 500 winning teammate, Matt Kenseth, qualified his #17 Best Buy Ford in 11th.

Edwards is my pick to win this race, but you never know. My dark horse pick for this weekend is going to be Joey Logano. He has really showed me that he is ready to be a threat for the title.

What do you guys think? Follow me on Twitter. http://www.twitter.com/SirRyanTheOHara or email me rosharppromotions@gmail.com. Enjoy the race!

[media-credit name=”David Yeazell” align=”alignright” width=”208″][/media-credit]Kasey Kahne captured the pole for Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a track record lap of 190.456 MPH (28.353 secs). This was Kahne’s 23rd career cup pole and his first since joining Hendrick Motorsports.

“It was a good lap. We carried a lot of speed to the line in the Farmers Insurance Chevy. I got through (Turns) 1 and 2 really well. When I got to (Turn) 3, I was a little bit tight and just had a little more wheel than what I would have liked coming off of (Turn) 4 and back to the line. So I knew I was a little on the tight side. But I still felt like it was a good run and the Hendrick engine runs so well it pulls you there. That was a good lap. It was faster in practice today. We did a lot of race trim stuff and then we made a couple of runs right at the end.” Kahne said.

Overall, 15 drivers broke Matt Kenseth’s record lap of 188.884 mph set in 2011.

Kyle Busch qualified second. “The M&M’s Camry drove great. Dave(crew chief) and the guys did a nice job so hoping that second place starting spot is good for Sunday and keeps us up front with our track position.” Busch said.

Kevin Harvick third. “Yeah, these guys on this Budweiser Chevy are making me look good on qualifying days.” Harvick said.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. fourth and Clint Bowyer qualified fifth.

“I’m pretty happy with how we ended up. We struggled in qualifying last year and wanted to work on that this year and this is a good result, so hopefully we’re making some gains there.” Earnhardt Jr. said.

[media-credit name=”Simon Scoggins” align=”alignright” width=”238″][/media-credit]Denny Hamlin avenged his 2010 hiccup during the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup and used good pit strategy to win the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at the Phoenix International Raceway.

“If you would’ve asked me at the beginning of the day, I would’ve taken a top-15 finish.” Hamlin said in victory lane. “Just an amazing job by this FedEx Office team. Just kept working on it. Every time we worked on it, it got better. Can’t thank them enough.”

The race came down to fuel mileage as Hamlin had the 29 of Kevin Harvick breathing down his neck down the stretch, but the 29 was short on fuel by just one lap, but still managed to finish in Second.

“You cut the fuel mileage that close, you’re figuring it right. So I’m proud of all my guys. When they come to a place like this where we struggled so much, and then race for a win, is hopefully what sets the tone for the year.” Harvick said.

Greg Biffle, who was one of the favorites for the race today based off his performance during the first practice session struggled for the first half of the race before finally picking up the pace.

“The guys did a great job with the 3M Ford Fusion. I wish I wouldn’t have tried to save so much gas. I probably would have caught the 29, but you just never know how much gas you’ve got.” Biffle said.

Jimmie Johnson rebounded from last week’s disastrous Daytona 500 to finish in fourth position, but because of the penalty handed out by NASCAR at the beginning of the week, Johnson only has 18 points coming out of Phoenix.

“We were concerned because I rarely get good fuel mileage. We were definitely concerned and once we cleared the No. 2 (Brad Keselowski) we just kind of fell into a rhythm at that point and tried to make sure that we got home and made some points. Leaving Daytona in 42nd on the board wasn’t a good way to start the season. But I’m very proud of the effort. We had a very fast Kobalt Tools Chevrolet.” Johnson said.

Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, and Joey Logano rounded out the rest of the top-10.

Kasey Kahne ran into trouble during the very early stages of the race. Kahne got loose and hit the wall coming off turn 4 and didn’t finish better than 34th. It has not been a season to cheer about so far for Kahne and Hendrick Motorsports.

Another driver involved in the silly season was Clint Bowyer. He simply had no luck. The caution flew for him the first time for a cut tire which caused some damage to the right-front fender, but that wasn’t the end of the disaster. Bowyer cut another tire about nine laps later and hit the wall, but no caution was thrown. Bowyer finished in 30th.

Tony Stewart, who started on the outside of the front row, led early on in the race after passing Mark Martin, but fell victim to the new fueling system which was very similar to what Greg Biffle went through at Las Vegas almost a year ago. Stewart turned off his engine during the yellow, but the engine did not come back when he tried re-firing. Stewart ended up losing laps and wound up a disappointing 22nd.

“I just shut the car off like we did at Daytona and turned it back on and it never re-fired. That’s all I can tell you. I don’t know why it didn’t re-fire. I honestly don’t know. It’s not really my department. I just turned the switch back on and it never re-fired. I don’t know why that was; but it definitely cost us a good day.” Stewart said.

I personally witnessed the fate of Marcos Ambrose. Ambrose was inching his way into the top-5, but ran into a problem with his engine. He came down into Turn 1 and it sounded like the engine had farted. I tweeted “Ambrose is in trouble!”. He came around again and his car had begun to smoke and he pulled down off the track. It was sad to see because it looked like he was on his way to a great finish for a lower-funded Richard Petty Motorsports.

“We blew up. We are here trying to run for wins and run for championships and to trip over ourselves like that, it just isn’t going to get it done.” Ambrose said.

The only other incident of the day happened when A.J. Allmendinger got loose and made contact with Paul Menard on the front stretch. Menard was sent to the inside wall while Jamie McMurray, an innocent man with no where to go, suffered damage to the front-end. McMurray tried staying out and lead some laps before developing an engine problem and later went to the garage and was done for the day.

Hamlin, like many drivers, had made a two tire stop to acquire track position and eventually the lead. Harvick led the most laps today, but as stated above, ran out of fuel and finished second. Hamlin now has the point lead as we head into Las Vegas where last year Carl Edwards edged Tony Stewart for his only win of 2010 minus the Sprint All-Star Race. My pick for the race will be Carl Edwards. Last year, the event was plagued with a series of tire failures, including Jeff Gordon and David Gilliland.

What did you guys think of the race today? Let me know! Follow me on Twitter! http://www.twitter.com/SirRyanTheOHara

On the possibility of a championship: Absolutely. I think we can do it if we continue to run well, but you never know what’s going to happen. Next week we’re going to an entirely different race track and that is what makes the first half of the season difficult. We get a lot of tracks that all have different dimensions for about five weeks during the year. -Hamlin

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photography, Inc.” align=”alignright” width=”247″][/media-credit]53 year old Mark Martin took the pole for Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 away from Regan Smith with just one driver remaining to the applause of the fans at Phoenix International Raceway. This is Martin’s third career pole in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series here in Phoenix. His last pole in Phoenix came back in 2009. He ended up winning that event which turned out to be his first career win with Hendrick Motorsports.

“I can’t say enough for MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing), Aaron’s and my team giving me such great Toyotas. I want to make sure that everybody knows that having an owner for a driver is really, really special. I got this pole because of Michael Waltrip and something that he said to me right before I went to qualify and of course a great race car and a great team and everything else. Thank all the fans for cheering, that’s such a privilege to be still racing — thank you all.” Martin said.

Tony Stewart will start alongside Martin on the front row. We mentioned earlier that Stewart has one career win here which he won during his rookie season back in 1999. Martin also has only one victory here.

Rounding out the top-10 were Regan Smith, Jimmie Johnson, Juan Montoya, Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, and Kasey Kahne.

Other notables include: Kyle Busch (12th), Hamlin (13th), Bowyer (16th), Kurt Busch (19th), Edwards (24th), Truex (25th), Kenseth (26th), Keselowski 28th), Jr. (29th), Gordon (30th).

“It was just awful. We have been way too free since we have been here and the track seems a lot more free than last time. We didn’t get much practice in the backup car with me wrecking the other one and having to put the motor in and all that stuff. That got us behind and we just missed it by a lot there in qualifying.” Kenseth said.

Hendrick Motorsports looks to rebound after losing 3 of their 4 race cars during the big crashes at Daytona. It looked like Jr. and Jeff Gordon are more focused on their race setups than Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne. Kahne looked like he had a pole winning time, but his car bottomed out a lot especially in Turns 3 and 4.

The Nationwide Series race begins shortly and the Sprint Cup race will take place tomorrow. Hope to see all of the fans there! Follow me on Twitter for updates! http://www.twitter.com/SirRyanTheOHara