It's going to Be Hendrick Motorsports (One of those Drivers) win this Sunday
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
This Talladega race should be 'exciting' now than last year
It's going to Be Hendrick Motorsports (One of those Drivers) win this Sunday
Danica is the First Woman to Win IRL Race!
now that Patrick has won a race, IRL is sure to crank up the hype machine ahead of the Indy 500. In two more tries at Indy since the fourth place finish in 2005 where she led for 19 laps, she has finished in 8th twice. (I remember that) If anything, the greatest regret the circuit probably has right now is that Patrick's win had to come on the circuit's one stop in Japan, where the race could never draw a large North American television audience.
Finally, now that she's won a race, one wonders just how much longer it will be before Patrick says goodbye to IRL, and takes a hard look at NASCAR. (NASCAR did want her to join it as she turn down as not ready to do it yet) As well as she's done sponsor-wise in IRL, there's little doubt in my mind that a hop with a NASCAR team would be far more lucrative, a move that many of her former IRL confederates like Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish, Jr., have already made.
Mo: I knew she will get the win someday and she did it (I'm Proud) !!!!!
Dang! I would love to watch the race (I probably will watch the reply race) and honestly Im not big IRL fan as know few driver names (IRL)
Anyway there are one or two ladies still drives in IRL all I can remember but not as popular like Danica is
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Drivers find heartbreak at PIR..............
- the (last)weekend's Top 10 Tums' honors - for Heartbreak.- Let's start with the most obvious: Fox TV forced NASCAR to postpone the already late starting time of the Saturday night race an extra 15 minutes while wading through the final innings of the Red Sox-Yankees baseball game. That meant that the race didn't start until nearly 9 p.m.
So much for NASCAR racing as family-time entertainment; the race didn't finish until after midnight on the East Coast.
NASCAR finally started the race without waiting for Fox to close out the Sox-Yankees game, so TV fans missed the start of the race as well as the last out of the ballgame.
- Hometown hero J.J. Yeley likewise got double-burned when he got caught up in the crash and finished 39th. His team owners also own the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Yeley had been part of the Diamondbacks' pre-race cross-promotion. Yeley dropped out of the top 35 after his finish.
- For the third straight week Kyle Petty's team failed to make the field. He missed Martinsville; substitute driver Chad McCumbee failed to put the No. 45 car in the field at Texas.
- Carl Edwards, the hottest driver on the tour, with three wins going into the Subway Fit Fresh 500, had one of the best cars at the Arizona track until a pit-road penalty put him in a difficult position. He did salvage a fourth.
- And Ryan Newman just can't buy a break. Newman, the Daytona 500 winner, whose fourth at Texas was marred by a post-race inspection violation, rallied to win the Subway Fit Fresh 500 pole - only to trigger a five-car crash and wind up last.
- Elliott Sadler had similar heartburn: His ailing back seems to have healed, he put Ray Evernham's Dodge on the front row, but his motor broke less than halfway through the race and he crashed.
- And there was more bad luck for Matt Kenseth, with a blown right-front tire. He limped home 38th and fell to 15th in the standings.
-That dandy duel between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin, the man who has taken his place at DEI, fizzled in the final miles when they both had to stop for gas.
is winless next? Hope not!
Earnhardt is winless in his last 70 races. On the plus side, he's moved up to third in the standings.
And, while teammate Jimmie Johnson finally got car owner Rick Hendrick on the board for the first time this season with the win - by stretching his gas mileage better than everyone else - Jeff Gordon appears to be legitimately in a slump. Gordon was a zero at Texas, in one of the worst performances of his career, and he was never in the game at Phoenix. He finished 13th, a lap down.
For the year Gordon's average finish is a painful 18.9, though he's led 183 laps. Maybe Gordon can bounce back at Talladega, where he's won six times. He swept both Talladega races last year.
And if the Hendrick bunch doesn't pick things up in the next few weeks, well, the questions may become even more pointed, because Hendrick drivers have done exceptionally well at Talladega (10 wins), Richmond (nine wins), Darlington (12 wins) and Concord's Lowe's Motor Speedway (15 wins), the next four tour stops.
And then perhaps it's a bit too tough to question the Hendrick camp that hard. After all, this season Hendrick Chevys have led 949 laps, more than any other team owner. Joe Gibbs' Toyotas are second, with 887 laps led. Jack Roush's Fords have led 468 laps, and Richard Childress' Chevys have led 230.
Nevertheless, Hendrick conceded that Johnson's win was a relief: "It feels good, and I think it's a sign of things to come.
"But we know there's still work to do. When you're a little behind, it's real easy to get down on yourself, but no one has had that attitude. Everyone has approached it the right way and pushed forward.
"We've been working hard, testing and doing all the things we need to be doing. One win doesn't change that. The big focus is making the (playoff) chase and competing for the championship. We want to be in position to make a push in those last 10 races."
The slump?
"Well, I don't think we went anywhere," Hendrick said. "But it's difficult to come off a season like we had last year, and live up to all the hype and expectations. It's not like we finished up 2007 and said 'OK, we won 18 races ... so now we've got to win 19.' You can't set goals that way.
"We know we won some races last season we shouldn't have. And we knew coming into this year it would be nearly impossible to continue that pace. We had a horseshoe - and held onto it as long as we could ... I'm really proud of our restrictor-plate program and everything our guys have accomplished on that side, so we're looking forward to Talladega. Richmond and Darlington are great tracks. And we always love running at Lowe's.
"We have more testing to do, and more gains to make, with this new car. But we'll be ready."
So much for NASCAR racing as family-time entertainment; the race didn't finish until after midnight on the East Coast.
NASCAR finally started the race without waiting for Fox to close out the Sox-Yankees game, so TV fans missed the start of the race as well as the last out of the ballgame.
- Hometown hero J.J. Yeley likewise got double-burned when he got caught up in the crash and finished 39th. His team owners also own the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Yeley had been part of the Diamondbacks' pre-race cross-promotion. Yeley dropped out of the top 35 after his finish.
- For the third straight week Kyle Petty's team failed to make the field. He missed Martinsville; substitute driver Chad McCumbee failed to put the No. 45 car in the field at Texas.
- Carl Edwards, the hottest driver on the tour, with three wins going into the Subway Fit Fresh 500, had one of the best cars at the Arizona track until a pit-road penalty put him in a difficult position. He did salvage a fourth.
- And Ryan Newman just can't buy a break. Newman, the Daytona 500 winner, whose fourth at Texas was marred by a post-race inspection violation, rallied to win the Subway Fit Fresh 500 pole - only to trigger a five-car crash and wind up last.
- Elliott Sadler had similar heartburn: His ailing back seems to have healed, he put Ray Evernham's Dodge on the front row, but his motor broke less than halfway through the race and he crashed.
- And there was more bad luck for Matt Kenseth, with a blown right-front tire. He limped home 38th and fell to 15th in the standings.
-That dandy duel between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin, the man who has taken his place at DEI, fizzled in the final miles when they both had to stop for gas.
is winless next? Hope not!
Earnhardt is winless in his last 70 races. On the plus side, he's moved up to third in the standings.
And, while teammate Jimmie Johnson finally got car owner Rick Hendrick on the board for the first time this season with the win - by stretching his gas mileage better than everyone else - Jeff Gordon appears to be legitimately in a slump. Gordon was a zero at Texas, in one of the worst performances of his career, and he was never in the game at Phoenix. He finished 13th, a lap down.
For the year Gordon's average finish is a painful 18.9, though he's led 183 laps. Maybe Gordon can bounce back at Talladega, where he's won six times. He swept both Talladega races last year.
And if the Hendrick bunch doesn't pick things up in the next few weeks, well, the questions may become even more pointed, because Hendrick drivers have done exceptionally well at Talladega (10 wins), Richmond (nine wins), Darlington (12 wins) and Concord's Lowe's Motor Speedway (15 wins), the next four tour stops.
And then perhaps it's a bit too tough to question the Hendrick camp that hard. After all, this season Hendrick Chevys have led 949 laps, more than any other team owner. Joe Gibbs' Toyotas are second, with 887 laps led. Jack Roush's Fords have led 468 laps, and Richard Childress' Chevys have led 230.
Nevertheless, Hendrick conceded that Johnson's win was a relief: "It feels good, and I think it's a sign of things to come.
"But we know there's still work to do. When you're a little behind, it's real easy to get down on yourself, but no one has had that attitude. Everyone has approached it the right way and pushed forward.
"We've been working hard, testing and doing all the things we need to be doing. One win doesn't change that. The big focus is making the (playoff) chase and competing for the championship. We want to be in position to make a push in those last 10 races."
The slump?
"Well, I don't think we went anywhere," Hendrick said. "But it's difficult to come off a season like we had last year, and live up to all the hype and expectations. It's not like we finished up 2007 and said 'OK, we won 18 races ... so now we've got to win 19.' You can't set goals that way.
"We know we won some races last season we shouldn't have. And we knew coming into this year it would be nearly impossible to continue that pace. We had a horseshoe - and held onto it as long as we could ... I'm really proud of our restrictor-plate program and everything our guys have accomplished on that side, so we're looking forward to Talladega. Richmond and Darlington are great tracks. And we always love running at Lowe's.
"We have more testing to do, and more gains to make, with this new car. But we'll be ready."
Friday, April 11, 2008
Newman bounced back Thursday with his 43rd career pole
Winning poles never gets old for Ryan Newman, NASCAR's Rocketman.
Still smarting from the indignity of being penalized 25 points after his fourth-place car was found to be an eighth of an inch too high after last Sunday's race at Texas.
The Daytona 500 winner will start Saturday night's Subway Fresh Fit 500 from the front, a solid chance to get back to Victory Lane.
Newman, who drives for Penske Racing, has won at least one pole in each of his eight seasons in NASCAR and moved into a tie with NASCAR pioneer Buck Baker for 10th on the career qualifying list.
Asked if the thrill of winning poles has lessened over the years, Newman, whose last pole came at Charlotte last October, shook his head and said, `No. It's been a while for me.
"I was really happy. I was as happy after practice as I am now because it's been a while since, even in practice, we were P1 (position one). We've won some poles but we hadn't been P1 in practice. To be P1 in practice and then back it up in qualifying, that shows consistency and I that's a good thing for the race this weekend."
Newman's fast lap on the mile Phoenix oval was 133.457 mph, just 0.045 faster than runner-up Elliott Sadler's 133.412.
"I thought it was a good lap, a bit conservative, but a good lap," Newman said. "Obviously, it wasn't too conservative because it was good enough. I think we've got a good car. It's been a while since we've had a car this good around this racetrack."
Being docked 25 points dropped Newman from eighth to 10th in the standings, but he said that he and the No. 12 Dodge team have put it behind them.
"We learn from our mistakes," he said. "You have to think positive and go forward.
"You never make up points that you lost, but you can make the effort, obviously, to put yourself in position so those points didn't matter," Newman added. "Obviously, we're trying to do that."
Mo: Yeah I saw him won at Michigan International Speedway in 2003
Good Luck Ryan at PIR on Saturday!
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