Cabin air filters fight toxins for NASCAR drivers, fans (NASCAR.com)
June 30, 2009
Unique cabin air-filtration systems protect NASCAR drivers' respiratory systems from particulate matter like dust, soot and rubber, noxious fumes, gas and oil vapors.
But, NASCAR racers are not the only drivers who benefit from cabin air-filtration knowledge.
Studies have shown that the air inside your own vehicle compartment has significantly higher concentrations of exhaust gases than the outside air. These gases can cause a variety of problems, ranging from headaches and nausea to severe allergic reactions.
Designed to capture contaminants like soot and dirt, as well as dangerous gases and odors, cabin air filters are your first line of defense against damaging airborne toxins that enter a vehicle while it's moving.
"Many people don't realize that the majority of cars manufactured since 2000 have a cabin air filter, whose job is two-fold," said Paul Bandoly, manager of technical services at WIX Filters. "Not only do cabin air filters clean the air before it enters the vehicle's HVAC system, protecting vital system components from damage, but they also filter the air breathed by occupants in the vehicle, making car travel more enjoyable."
High-efficiency cabin air filters are available for passenger cars, light trucks, heavy trucks and buses, and off-highway vehicles. Vehicle recommendations may vary, but the general guideline for replacing cabin air filters is every 12,000 to 15,000 miles—or at least once a year.
Does driving around town make you feel like you've just gone 500 miles at Daytona? It might not only be the traffic that's causing your temples to throb. A cabin air-filter change might be just what the doctor ordered. To find your filter, visit www.wixfilters.com.
Start your engines! — Sign up for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing 09 today. And follow the race action with TrackPass on NASCAR.com.
Former CWS star gets RCR pit crew in tip-top shape (NASCAR.com)
June 30, 2009
Forgive Ray Wright for being glued to his television set in the basement of his home last week in Advance, N.C.
He couldn't help himself. As a member of the 2000 national championship baseball team from Louisiana State University, he and a few fellow LSU fans in his neighborhood got together to watch the 2009 LSU Tigers march through the latest College World Series and do the same, defeating Texas 2 games to 1 in the final to claim the national title.
Wright, now the 30-year-old strength and conditioning coach for Richard Childress Racing after spending some time playing in baseball's minor leagues following college, recently talked about his LSU past and the interesting path he took to his current job.
Q: Well, your LSU Tigers did it again, didn't they?
Wright: I tell you what, they kind of walked through Omaha a little bit. … In the last 15 games of the season or so, they were burning down the barn.
Q: Before we get back to LSU baseball, talk a little about your role as strength and conditioning coach at RCR. It's a role that has taken on increased importance in racing organizations in recent years, isn't it?
Wright: I don't think there is any question about that. My job is to increase the athletic ability of pit-crew members. … Our program is a grueling deal for these guys. They work very hard. I get 'em for an hour. They have one hour for their pit practice and one hour with me in the gym—and I don't make anything comfortable for them.
It's very warm in our facility. I keep it dimly lit; there are no mirrors; there's not a real comfortable place to sit down. Stressers are put there intentionally to kind of mimic the racing—especially now in these summer months. These guys are going to be called upon to do maybe eight, 10 stops in sweltering heat with firesuits on—and their last stop has to be just as good as their first stop. The only way I know how to prepare them for that is what we're doing—hitting them very hard and making it uncomfortable. Everything you do in the gym is artificial training for what you actually have to do.
Q: How do the guys respond to that?
Wright: For the two years I've been here, the guys have been really wonderful. They take it. They've grown to really enjoy it—and then they have to go back down to the race shop and build race cars. So there is a lot to be said for their attitude and what they've accomplished so far.
Q: You guys apparently get a whole lot done in one hour … ?
Wright: And sometimes the workouts don't even last an hour. I figure if I get them in there and get them working at a high-intensity pace, I can get everything in that needs to be done. Because I've also got to scale in their recovery time. During the course of such a long season, recovery is 50 percent of their training.
If they're dragging during the week, that's fine with me. Because they're going to go through the practices and get all that in, and if they're a touch tired, that's fine. But we've got to orchestrate it so that they're at their best on Sundays. That's the trick to it.
Q: Obviously, you played baseball at LSU and also some minor-league ball. How did you end up transitioning into this line of work?
Wright: After the minor-league ball, I went home to where I was born in [Charlotte Hall] Maryland and started working with athletes on strength and conditioning, speed and agility. It was going well. I trained in Maryland for about four years.
Then I met my wife, Melissa, who lived in North Carolina. I moved down [to North Carolina] where the only person I knew was my wife. I got a job at Forsyth Country Day [High School]. I was the strength coach and baseball coach, you know, just to get my feet on the ground. I had no idea where that was going to take me. I figured doors might open up, but I didn't know.
And then I started training Austin and Ty Dillon. I guess they really enjoyed their workouts. They got to talking, and then I met [their father] Mike Dillon [who is RCR's vice president of competition]. That led me to RCR.
Q: So at the time did you know their grandfather, Richard Childress? Or much about racing?
Wright: I knew Richard Childress. His name was on our gymnasium. And I was a race fan—but I couldn't name the owners of every team. I'd love to turn a race on the last 12 laps or something like that back then. But I probably couldn't even name all the drivers at RCR at the time. I've definitely developed a love and appreciation for it now, that's for sure.
Q: Back to your first love of baseball, talk about helping LSU win the national championship in 2000 when you made a game-saving catch in the title game of the College World Series …
Wright: That ball I caught was going to be a two-run homer, and we ended up winning the game by one run. That's still a really big deal in Louisiana.
You know, it's funny because when I went to LSU, I came from a junior college where I played second base. I was a Junior College All-American second baseman—but after I got to LSU, I didn't play one inning of second base. I was kind of shellshocked. Coming from a junior college, where you have maybe 20-25 guys on your team, I walked into the locker room at LSU and there were 63 guys in that locker room.
I remember the equipment manager brought me an outfielder's glove. And I said, 'No, man, you've got me confused with someone else. I'm a second baseman.' And he said, 'Not any more.'
Q: What happened next?
Wright: I went to the coach and said, 'What's the deal? I'm a second baseman. That's what you recruited me for.' And he said, 'Well, you can back up our preseason All-American freshman second baseman—or you can try for a starting spot in the outfield.' And there were probably 12 other outfielders. I was like, 'I'll try to start.' And it worked out pretty well.
Q: Walk us through the play you made …
Wright: It was Edmund Muth who was batting for Stanford. With that home run, he was going to have a record number of home runs for the College World Series. You know how sometimes you have these really vivid mental images of some events in your life? For some reason, man, I still remember seeing that ball off the bat and taking my first drop-step back. It was cool because there was nothing but LSU fans behind me. … So I did my usual drop-step and went back and put my arm out to find the wall, and just made a jump. I didn't really know how high I jumped or what the crowd behind me was doing. But I made the catch and it turned out to be a really big play.
We ended up scoring a run to win it in the bottom of the ninth. Ryan Theriot scored the winning run for us; he's the shortstop for the Chicago Cubs now. Mike Fontenot is playing second base for the Cubs now, and he was on that team, too. We had a lot of big leaguers off that club.
Q: Was Fontenot the guy who put you out of a job at second base?
Wright: Yeah, actually he was the one who came in and rolled with it. But we were roommates in college and became real good buddies.
Q: Well, that's a pretty good second baseman to end up getting moved to right field for, right?
Wright: No doubt. I had no problems with it, no problems at all. It all worked out pretty well for me, too.
Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.
Start your engines! — Sign up for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing 09 today. And follow the race action with TrackPass on NASCAR.com.
Milwaukee Mile track faces uncertain future
June 30, 2009
MILWAUKEE (AP)—The historic Milwaukee Mile racetrack faces an uncertain future with its promoters behind on payments due to NASCAR and the Indy Racing League.
While track promoters have paid prize money to teams, they have not fully paid sanctioning fees owed to NASCAR and the IRL, according to reports in the Charlotte Observer and Indianapolis Star. Both leagues confirmed those reports to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that promoters owed NASCAR nearly $1.9 million.
A track spokesman said officials had no comment.
Start your engines! — Sign up for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing 09 today. And follow the race action with TrackPass on NASCAR.com.
Allison, Waltrip among nominees for Hall of Fame
June 30, 2009
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP)—Former drivers Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip are two of the 25 nominees for the first NASCAR Hall of Fame induction class.
NASCAR released the two names Tuesday ahead of the announcement of all nominees Thursday night.
The first class will consist of five members. They’ll be inducted in conjunction with the opening of the Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte next May.
Allison and Waltrip were longtime rivals and are tied for third with 84 victories in NASCAR’s top series. Waltrip won three Cup championships and Allison one.
A 21-member nominating committee selected the nominees from NASCAR drivers, owners and promoters.
Start your engines! — Sign up for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing 09 today. And follow the race action with TrackPass on NASCAR.com.
Happy Hour: The great debate (Yahoo! Sports)
June 30, 2009
div.mailsubhead { font-size: 1.4em; font-weight:bold; margin-top:0.6em; margin-bottom:.5em;}hr { align:center; width: 20%; margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; }
This week’s mailbag is dedicated to the idea that no matter what you say, people will disagree with you … even if they actually agree.
Rain wins aren’t legit, are they?
Hi Jay, I just voted in the Yahoo! poll on whether Joey Logano deserved to win on Sunday. I was disheartened to see that the results showed that 51 percent of the voters disagreed with me. And then I read your article where you stated pretty much the same thing.
Join Happy Hour Got a question or comment for Yahoo! Sports NASCAR editor Jay Hart? Want to be a part of Happy Hour? Email Jay
Shame on you Jay!
Joey Logano and his crew did what was necessary to keep him on the track with the rain approaching. It’s not like this was a big secret to the other drivers. Every team knew that the rain was coming and did their best to be in Joey’s position at the end.
Come on people! Give the young man and his crew what is due them. … A congratulations for being in the front of the other cars when the race ended.
Sam NicholsPewaukee, Wisc.
On the Joey Logano article – I think you are way off base. Logano as well as Reutimann’s wins are bogus. Rain shortened races need to be a thing of the past. Any time it is feasible (i.e. not interfering with travel to the next race site) the race should be completed the following day. Otherwise we will continue to see second rate drivers winning races based on capricious factors like the elements.
Donald GrahamZephyrhills, Fla.
See what I mean?
To clarify things, I believe Joey Logano’s win at New Hampshire is legitimate. Did he catch a break to get it? Absolutely, but as Sam points out Logano and his crew made a gutsy call to put them in a position to win and it paid off.
As for completing the race next day, you mean to tell me that you’d stick around another 16 hours or so to see 27 laps of racing, because that’s all that was left Sunday? There are plenty of things to complain about NASCAR; calling a race official after the halfway point isn’t one of them.
After congratulating Joey Logano, Tony Stewart said this about the 19-year-old’s victory: “Man, you take ‘em any way you can get ‘em. That’s as much as a strategy as shocks and springs and everything else.”(Getty)
Everybody knew that the rain was coming just like everybody knew that Joey would get his first win sooner or later. If the rain came 10 laps earlier, the fans would be calling Ryan Newman lucky for winning the race on low a low tank of gas, but if the rain came 10 laps later, the Jeff Gordon haters would be out in full force calling Jeff Gordon’s latest win lucky or accuse NASCAR of giving Jeff the win. This proves to show that nobody is satisfied.
When we finish the spring Dover race, FOX haters are partying while the TNT haters are preparing for six weeks of hell. When TNT finishes, those haters are holding the party while ESPN/ABC haters are out in full force to the point that they will likely start blaming the network for Jimmie Johnson’s chase success.
Jessy SchollMandan, N.D.
Out of this season’s 17 races, how many “cheap” wins, i.e., rain shortened or green/white/checkers have there been? I know of at least four. This new “politically correct” NASCAR is one of the reasons longtime fans are leaving the fold. Regardless of how remarkable Logano’s progress has been, he should have finished well out of the top 10 today. A legitimate Chase contender should have earned the win, and the 10 extra points.
Tim FerrallRiverside, Calif.
Political correctness has nothing to do with it, Tim. First off, NASCAR came up with the green/white/checkered finishes to appease fans who wanted to see a finish under green, not yellow. And if rain-shortened races were an issue, then fans would have left a long time ago. According to Buz McKim, who is the go-to guy when it comes to all things historical when it comes to NASCAR, “the first rain-shortened Cup race was held on April 15, 1951 at Hillsboro, N.C. The scheduled 150 miler was cut short on Lap 95. Fonty Flock won. However, the first Cup race ever shortened for any reason was due to darkness, ironically at Hillsboro on October 29, 1950. Lee Petty took the win.”
Good morning Jay!!! I’m tired of these races ending due to rain. Let’s use yesterday as an example. I woke up and was watching Speed Channel yesterday morning and they were talking about the chance of rain being very high around the time the end of the race is starting. Why doesn’t NASCAR bump the start time of the race up 30 minutes or 1 hour? Do they not pay attention to the weather until after the race starts?
Brian CookWilder, Ky.
I hear ya, Brian, but there are several problems with this. First off, say you’re a fan who planned on watching the race at 2 p.m. ET, only when you turn on your TV you find they’re already 100 laps into the race. You’re probably not going to be too happy. And while there was rain in Sunday’s forecast, the red flag that stopped action for more than 15 minutes wasn’t. Had that not come out, the race most likely would have run to its completion before the rain came.
Are we not proving here that you absolutely cannot please all the people all the time.
Junior’s achievement, or lack thereof
It’s happening. Keselowski sixth, Junior 13th at New Hampshire. Sooner or later businessman Rick Hendrick is going to have to overrule friend Rick Hendrick and put Keselowski into a Hendrick car for a full-time ride in 2010.
Rick Hendrick has been patient, but it seems that no matter what equipment, no matter who the crew chief, Junior simply can’t put himself into position for a win. And 13th doesn’t exactly add up to spot in the Chase, with time winding down.
Rick Hendrick didn’t get to where he is by embracing futility. Hendrick Motorsports is arguably the hottest property in Cup racing this side of Stewart-Haas, which runs Hendrick equipment. Only one of the Hendrick cars is underperforming, and it just happens to be driven by a popular driver. But in these uncertain economic times, when push comes to shove, it just may be Dale Earnhardt Junior who gets shoved out the door.
It won’t be an easy decision for Hendrick, but it’ll be pragmatic.
Will he make the tough decision when the time comes? Or will Junior finally realize what’s at stake and turn his performance around? The clock is ticking, and it ain’t in Junior’s favor.
Mark D. KnightNew Salisbury, Ind.
If businessman Hendrick has his way, Junior won’t be going anywhere … ever, or at least not as long as he’s among the top-10 most marketable athletes in America.
That line on Jr. that he is alive is uncalled for. If you don’t like Jr. keep it to your self. But guess we can [sic] take you off just like TV. And don’t go to races anymore. NASCAR went to the garbage with writers like you.
Bonnie McCoySpokane, Wash.
So, let me get this straight. I say that Junior is still alive for a berth in the Chase and you, as an obvious Junior fan, have a problem with that? Remind me if we ever meet up Bonnie never to compliment you on your hair.
This and that
Of all the experts on NASCAR today I compliment Yahoo’s three editors (Jay, Ricky and Jenna). You three are the best out there. There is no ego from the three of you and most of the time you are right on the money! I would make one suggestion, why not have the three of you on at the same time when questions are being asked. Together you three should consider creating a short 15 minute TV race show.
David KennedyDeRuyter, N.Y.
Compliments like that are totally uncalled for! If you like us so much, then keep it to yourself!
Rather than giving too many points to winning, I think a better solution would be to give winners of two races automatic berths into the championship. You would have the top points (12 or whatever) plus all winners of two or more races. That might help somewhat. Putting too much emphasis on winning is a mistake. Consistency is still more important. Do you think more of a person who has a lot of money in the bank due to hard work over his or her career or someone who got lucky once in a lottery? Some of the wins this year have been more due to being in the right place at the right time than actual performance.
RichScottsdale, Ariz.
I’d love to argue with you here, Rich, but you make too much freaking sense.
Last call …
Hey Jay, You know which pro athletes I really feel sorry for? Tom Brady, Sidney Crosby, Kobe Bryant, Alexander Ovechkin, Tiger Woods. Those dummies actually think you have to excel at the game you play to be considered great. They are so stupid that they think victories are needed to earn accolades. Meanwhile in NASCAR …
Kevin DosenbergerRegina, Saskatchewan
Jay Hart is the NASCAR editor for Yahoo! Sports. Send Jay a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
NASCAR submits findings from 2nd lab
June 30, 2009
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP)—NASCAR filed court documents Monday night that show an independent laboratory found an illegal substance in the urine sample that led to Jeremy Mayfield’s suspension for a failed drug test.
The documents, part of NASCAR’s response to Mayfield’s lawsuit to have his indefinite suspension lifted, show that Medtox Laboratories in Minnesota tested both his “A” and backup “B” samples last week and “confirmed the presence” of a substance that is blacked out in the filing.
Both sides are due in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, and Mayfield is hoping a judge reinstates him in time to travel to this weekend’s race at Daytona International Speedway.
NASCAR, which is countersuing, argued in its filing Monday that the “safety risk is simply too significant to let Mayfield back on the track.”
“No one but Mayfield knows whether his (drug name redacted) use was an isolated event,” NASCAR said in its brief.
Mayfield has been suspended since May 9 for failing a random drug test eight days earlier for what NASCAR has deemed “a dangerous, illegal, banned substance.” Mayfield indicated in an affidavit filed last week that he tested positive for methamphetamines, which he denied using.
Mayfield has previously blamed his positive test result on the combination of Adderall for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Claritin-D for allergies, but that explanation was debunked by NASCAR’s program administrator.
Joey Logano (20) makes it past… AP – Jun 28, 10:16 pm EDT
In Monday’s filing, NASCAR claimed Mayfield provided a prescription for Adderall that he received from the “Vitality Anti-Aging Center & Medical Spa” in Hickory, and not his personal physician.
Mayfield’s lawyer’s are challenging the validity of NASCAR’s drug testing process in their bid to have Mayfield reinstated. Mayfield has missed seven races since his suspension, which also covers his role as owner of Mayfield Motorsports.
He said in his affidavit last week that his career has been ruined by the suspension, and he’s been forced to borrow money from family and sell personal assets to pay his living expenses. His wife, Shana, is currently listed as the owner of the No. 41 Toyota, but she has not sent it to the track to compete the last five weeks.
NASCAR argued in its Monday filings that Mayfield Motorsports can send the team to the track with a substitute driver, as it did the first two weeks of his suspension.
The sanctioning body also cautioned against allowing Mayfield to fight his positive drug test in court instead of abiding by the toughened policy, which calls for him to participate in a reinstatement program.
“It is not in the public interest to send the message that (drug name redacted) and other drug users can simply ignore a sports league’s decisions by racing to the courthouse to overturn the league’s decision—all by merely alleging procedural imperfections, without any evidence that some imperfection actually led to a false positive,” NASCAR wrote.
Start your engines! — Sign up for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing 09 today. And follow the race action with TrackPass on NASCAR.com.
The Cool Down Lap: Restarts now a source of excitement (PA SportsTicker)
June 29, 2009
(Sporting News) – From an operational standpoint, NASCAR has transitioned seamlessly to double-file restarts.
From a competition standpoint, the new format is the best thing that has happened to Sprint Cup racing since the introduction of the Chase in 2004.
NASCAR likes to call the new restart system “shootout style,” a manufactured term that differentiates double-file restarts among lead-lap cars from the traditional double-file restarts with leaders in the outside lane and lapped cars on the inside.
Based on what happened in Sunday’s Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, however, there may be more truth than hype to the shootout nomenclature. The intensity of consecutive restarts beside Kurt Busch was enough to rile even the usually unflappable Jeff Gordon.
From an analytical standpoint, restarting beside a competitor who is driving a relatively equal car is a much tougher assignment than simply clearing a lapped car on a restart. Gordon and Busch restarted side-by-side seven times during the race, and each time, fans got their money’s worth.
Gordon typically chose the outside lane, and Busch battled fiercely for the lead on the inside. After Busch forced Gordon wide into the first corner on a restart on Lap 159, Gordon asked his spotter to convey a message to Busch’s team-to the effect that, if it happened again, Busch wasn’t going to get through the turn.
“My car-I felt like I was on ice out there,” said Gordon, who finished second when rain made a winner of rookie Joey Logano. “I took the outside lane. I could get a good start, but it’s funny that Kurt was saying he wasn’t very good on the restarts, because I felt like he’s a lot better than I was.
“I couldn’t even run in the bottom lane and he could get down there but he couldn’t quite clear me. And the one time I don’t know if he just slipped or what, but he pushed me pretty wide, and it almost got a little ugly.”
Busch, who finished third, admitted he pushed too hard, but with rain on the way, the stakes went up dramatically.
“It’s a tough balance, and this track really challenged the double-file restarts,” Busch said. “And it was after (Lap) 150 (the halfway point), the race would have been complete, I actually had raindrops on my windshield, and so I pushed the ‘go’ button, overstepped the line, rubbed Jeff a little bit and knew the boundary line that I crossed.”
The value of the new restart format isn’t confined to side-by-side racing. It also forces drivers and crew chiefs to make strategic choices. With track position of paramount importance, teams must account for restarts when setting up their cars.
“The track at Loudon has always been slick on restarts,” Busch said. “And with double-file restarts, you have to keep in the back of your mind-even in Saturday’s practice-you have to have a car good on a long run, but now you’re going to have all these restarts, you might want to focus a little bit on short runs, as well,” Busch said.
Drivers also are weighing the value of starting on the inside or outside, which varies from track to track. Consecutive restarts on the inside lane cost Dale Earnhardt Jr. dearly at Loudon.
“I like the double-file restarts, but, man, if you are on the inside, you are going to lose a couple of spots every time,” said Earnhardt, who finished 13th after running consistently in the top 10 for most of the race. “We were on the inside the last three, and we lost the opportunity to run in the top five, got shuffled back to just inside the top 10.”
The pressure to protect track position multiplies exponentially under the new system, sometimes with disastrous results. On a restart on Lap 175, Earnhardt restarted third, spun his tires and lost momentum. Martin Truex Jr. checked up behind him. Kyle Busch, behind Truex, did not, and contact between the cars of Busch and Truex ignited a massive wreck in Turn 1.
Jeff Burton was an innocent victim of the melee, finishing 31st and dropping to 16th in the Cup standings. Nevertheless, from a spectator’s standpoint, Burton acknowledges the value of the new format.
“I don’t think the fans want to see wrecks, but they want to see more aggressive racing, so that is the product of that,” Burton said. “You can’t change something without there being some kind of negative consequences, and this (the wreck) is an example.
“We drive the cars, and ultimately the responsibility lays on us. But this does put another wrinkle in there for us.”
Start your engines! — Sign up for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing 09 today. And follow the race action with TrackPass on NASCAR.com.
Fryer’s Five: New Hampshire (Yahoo! Sports)
June 29, 2009
Just a few hours before Joey Logano’s road course debut, team president J.D. Gibbs was heaping praise on his rookie driver for the on-the-job training he’s done this season.
A rough start to the season had many questioning the wisdom of Joe Gibbs Racing’s decision to promote Logano into Tony Stewart’s open Sprint Cup Series seat after just six months in the Nationwide Series. The car, the competition and the tracks seemed overwhelming to the young phenom, who had five finishes of 30th or worse in the first eight races of the year.
Had JGR officials known that testing would be banned this season, Gibbs admitted they might have reconsidered the decision to move Logano into the No. 20 Toyota. Reduced seat time guaranteed a rocky ride through the first part of the schedule, and all Gibbs wanted to see out of Logano was steady improvement.
He was delivering on that goal long before Sunday’s breakthrough victory in the rain-shortened Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The turnaround started in the ninth race of the season, at Talladega of all places, where Logano weathered a frantic finish for the first top-10 of his career.
Logano matched that ninth-place finish two weeks later at Darlington, where he led 19 laps and earned high praise from his predecessor, and again in the Coca-Cola 600 to grab three top-10 finishes in four races. It marked an upswing for Logano that had JGR officials anxiously awaiting the second half of the schedule, when he’d be returning to tracks for the second time this season – presumably with enough experience to give him a fighting chance.
Of course, Gibbs couldn’t have forecast Sunday’s win, which will draw criticism for how it was earned.
An earlier spin meant Logano didn’t have to pit at the same time as the front-runners, so crew chief Greg Zipadelli kept him out on the track to assume the lead as rain closed in on the track. Since Logano won’t make the Chase for the championship, but is still inside the critical top 35 mark, it was a gamble Zipadelli could afford to make because they had nothing to lose: If the rain came fast enough, the race would be stopped while Logano was leading. And if it rained hard enough, NASCAR would call it without resuming the action.
Zipadelli played it exactly right, and it paid off with a win at the track both driver and crew chief (Connecticut natives, both) consider home.
“You take ‘em any way you can get ‘em,” Stewart said of the win by his old team. “That’s as much strategy as shocks and springs and everything else. They still had to work to get themselves in that position, so they did a good job.”
There will still be people who will forever say Logano backed into the win, and they’re right. But the record book won’t reflect it. All the stats will show is a young kid who was making steady progress as he closed in on the victory.
Five things from the NASCAR weekend:
1. Jeremy Mayfield readied for his day in court: The stalemate between NASCAR and the first driver suspended under the toughened drug policy ramped up with both sides filing a mountain of paperwork in federal court.
Among the documents was Mayfield’s affidavit that he’s never used methamphetamines, doesn’t know how he failed his May 1 drug test and said he does not “understand how or why this is happening to me or my family.” He also revealed he’s laid off 10 employees from Mayfield Motorsports, can’t find any companies willing to work with him and has been reduced to borrowing money from family and selling assets to meet his living expenses.
Next up is Wednesday’s showdown in court, where Mayfield is hoping a judge will lift his indefinite suspension so he can rush down to Daytona in time for this weekend’s Coke Zero 400. His chances are maybe 50-50, but even if he is reinstated, what are his reasonable expectations?
He had a shell of a race team before he was forced to let people go, and tight finances had kept the No. 41 away from the track the last five weeks. Even when he was fully operational, Mayfield had only qualified for five of 11 races and had a season-best finish of 32nd.
Since his May 9 suspension, I’ve wondered many times if Mayfield would have been better off just accepting the NASCAR suspension and completing the “path to reinstatement.” I say that in all due respect to his right to defend himself from what he insists is a flawed test result.
It’s likely his reinstatement would have taken six months or longer, and, unless he wins Wednesday in court, his legal fight might take the same amount of time. But fighting NASCAR is also a lot more expensive, and Mayfield is admittedly struggling right now with finances. And no matter the outcome at this point, it’s unlikely sponsors are going to be lined up outside his race shop if he’s ever eligible to race again.
His prospects might have been a lot better had he just quietly faded back, continued sending the No. 41 to the track with a substitute driver and earned his return to NASCAR. Instead, he may go broke trying to get back. And if and when he does, he may not find the environment to be as pleasant as he remembered.
2. The Scott Speed show continues to be a disaster for Red Bull Racing: Speed and fellow Red Bull driver Brian Vickers were not teammates in Saturday’s Nationwide Series race, and neither had any allegiance to the other as they were running fifth and sixth in the final laps.
But by wrecking Vickers on the final lap, Speed again slowed Red Bull’s overall development. It’s tough enough that the former Formula One driver has struggled in his rookie season, failed to make three races – including the road course at Sonoma, where he should have shined – and is ranked 36th in owner points.
Now throw in a feud with Vickers, and Red Bull has an absolute nightmare on its hands.
Speed may be the golden boy of the ownership in Austria, but Vickers is the current key to Red Bull’s success. He’s helped the team make steady progress in its two-plus seasons, weathering a horrendous first year and a complete overhaul in team management along the way.
He’s inched closer and closer to giving Red Bull its first NASCAR points win, and if he had a second team to lean on, Vickers would maybe even be a Chase contender. Instead, Speed has slowed the progress of the No. 83 team and now doesn’t seem willing to play well with the star of the race team.
When Speed wrecked Sunday at New Hampshire to finish 36th, he flippantly brought up the previous day’s incident with Vickers.
“I think the car behind us got into us a little bit and it spun us out. Other than that I really can’t tell you,” he said. “Maybe Brian paid someone off for yesterday, I don’t know.”
Vickers is in the late stages of locking down a contract extension with Red Bull, where he appears happy and believes he has the best chance to compete for a championship. If he wants success soon, he should probably have a long talk with management about how handicapped he is by Speed’s current attitude.
3. The economy is wreaking havoc on NASCAR’s smaller two series: Manufacturer cutbacks, sponsorship woes and start-and-parks are well documented in the premier Sprint Cup Series. Less publicized are the issues in the Nationwide and Truck Series, which are getting pummeled by the weakened economy.
General Motors ended its support of both series earlier this month – funding was only reduced in the Cup series – and teams are dropping races from their schedules at an alarming rate.
Now JTG/Daugherty Racing said it won’t field a full-time Nationwide team for Michael McDowell beyond next week’s race in Daytona if it can’t find sponsorship.
“We had money to run half the races and we had to make a choice whether to spread those races out or front-load them and hope to get enough money to run the second half,” said owner Tad Geschickter, who indicated the team will occasionally compete the rest of the year.
The loss of a full-time Nationwide team came on the heels of the revelation that NASCAR had to cover the purse at the Milwaukee Mile because the track failed to pay up following its Nationwide and Truck Series races two weeks ago.
“Despite having a terrific day of NASCAR racing [at Milwaukee] there remain outstanding issues which concern NASCAR,” said spokesman Ramsey Poston. “As a matter of policy, I won’t get into the specifics of our business dealings. However, I can say we are working closely with the track management to resolve outstanding issues.”
Both series are still the pipeline to Cup racing, a place for crewmen to hone their experience, drivers to learn the ropes and new owners to ease into NASCAR.
It’s where Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are learning about NASCAR ownership, where Brad Keselowski currently sits as he waits for a Cup ride and where Dave Rogers has become a winning crew chief. Both series also provide an outlet for old-timers Ron Hornaday Jr. and Mike Skinner and Co. to race when their Cup careers have come to an end.
The Cup Series gets all the glory, but the other two deserve a nod of appreciation for their support. NASCAR will find a way to keep them both floating, but if their health continues to deteriorate, it will come at the expense of the big league.
4. Kyle Busch broke his losing streak, and picked up some new enemies in a 24-hour span: Busch had an up-and-down weekend in New Hampshire. He ended his Nationwide futility with a win in Saturday’s race. After two consecutive runner-up finishes, it was the breakthrough Busch hoped would carry over into the Cup Series, where’s he’s stuck in a seven-race slump.
Instead, he triggered an eight-car accident that once again had rivals spewing venom in his direction. Many of the drivers collected in the accident believed Busch was being impatient when, because Dale Earnhardt Jr. spun his tires on a restart and Martin Truex Jr. had to slow down to avoid hitting him, Busch tried to duck to the outside of Truex and ended up sending him into a spin.
“I guess everybody just learns to expect Kyle doing something stupid,” said Brian Vickers, one of the casualties. “Stupid is forever.”
But Busch deserves some credit for accepting responsibility for his role in the accident, and doing it post-race. His pattern of late had been to skip any interviews following a bad performance. He didn’t Sunday.
“I have to apologize to all those guys on the restart,” he said. “I got into Martin and I hate it for him and Jeff Burton and those guys. It was just hard racing on a restart. We were just battling for every spot out there today.”
Everyone is quick to knock Busch for his mistakes and immaturity. So when he does something right – standing up and taking blame – he’s earned a nod of approval.
5. Happy Birthday, guys: Excuse Burton and Truex if they aren’t in the mood to celebrate their Monday birthdays. Both got an early start when they were casualties of the eight-car accident triggered by Busch.
It was the punctuation on trying times for both drivers.
Burton is stuck in the companywide struggles at Richard Childress Racing, and has slipped from sixth to 15th in the standings over the last five weeks.
Truex is struggling for a second straight season after failing to adapt in the offseason merger between Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Chip Ganassi Racing. He’s got three top-10 finishes all season and is 24th in the standings.
Burton, however, is committed to RCR and being part of the process that will snap the slump that has knocked all four cars outside Chase consideration.
“I am going to tell you, I feel good about what we are doing with our team. I feel good about what we are doing with our cars,” Burton said. “I think we can still do this thing, I really do. We have our best stuff coming, and I think we can do it. If we run well enough, the points will take care of themselves. There’s still plenty of time. Nine races is an eternity in this sport.”
Truex, on the other hand, officially appears on his way out the door. He’s long been rumored to be in line to replace Michael Waltrip in the No. 55 Toyota, and Michael Waltrip Racing on Monday called a July 7 news conference that’s presumed to announce his hiring.
I’ve maintained since very early this season that Truex was headed to MWR, and Waltrip would be best served in a part-time driver role that allows him to expand on his broadcasting and corporate spokesman skills.
It’s the right move for Waltrip, who again on Sunday saw how improved his organization is when David Reutimann finished fourth.
Landing Truex will likely lock down Napa for several years, give Reutimann valuable feedback from a teammate and MWR another legitimate player in the Cup Series. Finally announcing it may also help Truex snap out of the on-track funk he’s seemed to be suffering through all season.
Jenna Fryer covers NASCAR for The Associated Press and is a regular contributor to Yahoo! Sports. Send Jenna a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
Logano has makeup to elevate to star power (NASCAR.com)
June 29, 2009
Folks, meet your next object of fascination.
You know it's coming. You might have sensed it even before Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
It may still be a year or so away but, what the heck, the kid has plenty of time. And loads of talent. And obviously that winning smile.
The thing about a winning smile is that you have to win once in a while to back it up. Otherwise, it goes into hiding and only occasionally is flashed, or in worst-case scenarios seems to disappear altogether.
The masses like to see it.
Joey Logano wore his winning smile well in Victory Lane on Sunday in New Hampshire. Anyone who can look that genuinely happy while trying to hoist a lobster on steroids is bound to rake in his fair share of new fans, while satisfying the old crowd as well.
Logano is poised to wow them all. He has the distinct look of the next Most Popular Driver in NASCAR.
We're not talking a one-year run here, either. When it comes to the fans voting for their Most Popular Driver, especially in recent decades, it's more like these guys are signing on for multiple terms in office than they are being awarded a single-year honor.
In the past 18 years, for example, there has been the grand total of three winners of the award: Bill Elliott, Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
There are a few guys who might be able to sneak in a year or two where they win it in the near future. But who else besides Logano is set up for the next long run?
Rightly or wrongly, three-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson is too vanilla in the eyes of many fans, plus he draws the ire of those who pull for others by beating them all too often. Jeff Gordon, quite frankly, deserves to win one before he retires and very likely might—but he's not likely to drive for more than another three or four seasons at most. Kasey Kahne and Carl Edwards could be candidates, but some fans seem to regard them warily for whatever reasons.
And none of them has as much youthful momentum on their side, nor the absolutely clean slate that goes along with an adolescence well spent, that Logano does.
Most Popular Driver Awards—Cup Series historyDriverNo.Year(s) DriverNo.Year(s)Bill Elliott161984-88, '91-2000, '02 Junior Johnson11959Richard Petty91962, '64, '68, '70, '74-78 David Pearson11979Bobby Allison71971-73, '80-83 Fireball Roberts11957Dale Earnhardt Jr.62003-08 Curtis Turner11956 Fred Lorenzen21963, '65 Joe Weatherly11961Darrell Waltrip21989-90 Rex White11960Darel Dieringer11966 Glen Wood11958Dale Earnhardt12001 Cale Yarborough11967Bobby Isaac11969
History lesson
Elliott claimed the Most Popular mantle a record total of 16 times, including 10 in a row from 1991 through 2000. The only other driver to win it at all during the 1990s was Darrell Waltrip, who stopped talking (OK, well, he never really stopped talking … but stopped offending folks) long enough to win it back-to-back in 1989 and 1990, the only two times he captured the award.
Earnhardt Jr., as most well know, entered this season having won it the past six years in a row. Since 2003, when his run in the popularity contest began, he has won the award almost as many times as he has won races.
The elder Earnhardt was the only one to break the Elliott-Junior cycle, capturing the award in 2001, the year he died during a last-lap accident in the season-opening Daytona 500. Despite the fact that now—with the benefit of revisionist history and 200-20 hindsight—many in NASCAR want to paint Earnhardt the active driver as a beloved figure, adored by all, the fact is that while he was still racing he was far more like Kyle Busch than Bill Elliott. That is, he had just as many fans who despised him as loved him.
Despite Busch's perceived status as the bad boy everyone has an opinion on, regardless of whether you love him or hate him, that sort of lightning-rod appeal is not usually what positions a person to win NASCAR's Most Popular Driver award. Not that Busch really cares, of course.
Logano, Busch's teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, may or may not care if he ever wins the award. But he'd better start preparing some acceptance speeches for it, because it's coming.
All hail Joey
At 19 years, 1 month and 4 days old, Logano became NASCAR's youngest winner of a Cup Series race Sunday. Busch, now 24, previously owned that distinction—having won for the first time when he was 20 years, 4 months and 2 days old in September 2005 at what was then known as California Speedway.
Yet Busch has never seemed as gracious about his position in NASCAR, or life, as Logano—or for that matter, as Elliott or Earnhardt Jr.
This isn't meant to bash Busch. He is who he is, and NASCAR as a whole is better off for it. The sport needs more guys like him, who make no bones about their passion for winning races—and their profound distaste for anything less.
It's just that, well, Logano is a different animal. Nicknamed "Sliced Bread" by fellow competitors years ago because he was anointed the best thing since, he comes across in interviews as being appreciative and humble. He's just a kid, and doesn't try to act like anything more, or anything less. But he is a mature kid, one who seemingly has handled replacing Tony Stewart in the seat of the No. 20 car as well as Earnhardt Jr. has handled all the extracurricular stuff that came with inheriting his father's fan base following 2001.
Logano also happens to be enormously talented, with a deep-pocketed, committed sponsor behind him in The Home Depot and the backing of a great racing operation in JGR. Give it time, given the changing landscape of the automobile manufacturer business, and even many of the hard-liners who proclaim to despise Toyota's entry into their otherwise all-American sport eventually will forgive him for driving one.
After Sunday's race, team owner Joe Gibbs, the former winning coach of Super Bowls in the NFL, was asked about his association with the young driver.
"We figure we can keep this going, ride this thing for about 20 years," he said.
He is right. They can.
And you heard it here first. Unless they decide to put a term limit on it or some other unforeseen circumstance crops up, Joey Logano will be named NASCAR's Most Popular Driver for at least half of those.
The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.
Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.
Start your engines! — Sign up for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing 09 today. And follow the race action with TrackPass on NASCAR.com.
In The Pits: Mayfield’s last chance for resolution
June 29, 2009
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP)—Jeremy Mayfield will go head-to-head with NASCAR this week in what very well may be his last shot at racing again this season.
If a federal judge agrees Wednesday to lift his indefinite suspension for a failed random drug test, Mayfield has indicated he’ll go straight to Daytona International Speedway to attempt to resurrect his career.
But if the decision goes for NASCAR, then Mayfield is in for a long legal battle that will potentially destroy him both personally and professionally.
As the first driver suspended under a toughened new drug policy, Mayfield was thrust into a career-killing drama that’s mushroomed since a random sample collected May 1 came back positive for what NASCAR deemed “a dangerous, illegal, banned substance.”
He immediately denied drug use, and has blamed his positive result on a mix of Adderall for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Claritin-D for allergies. His explanation, debunked by the program administrator, confused NASCAR’s competitors and forced chairman Brian France to address the drug policy in a rare town hall meeting.
Then Mayfield sued to have his suspension lifted, and things really got interesting.
The past 30 days have been a flurry of legal activity, culminating in last week’s filing of hundreds of pages of documents as both sides prepared for their showdown in U.S. District Court.
Among the paperwork was a six-page affidavit in which Mayfield laid out his side of the story. He said he’s never used methamphetamines and doesn’t know how his drug test came back positive.
He also said the suspension has crippled his career, forcing him to lay off 10 employees, borrow money from family and sell personal assets to meet his living expenses. Mayfield said sponsors won’t work with him, and he’s not been able to send his team to the track the last five weeks.
So Mayfield needs a miracle to get back on track.
The question remains, though, just what does he have to return to?
Mayfield started the season as one of NASCAR’s feel-good stories. Out of steady work since a 2006 firing from Evernham Motorsports, he put everything he had into Mayfield Motorsports. It was a low-budget, understaffed organization thrown together weeks before the Daytona 500 without a prayer of being successful.
Until he raced his way into the biggest event of the year.
Qualifying for the 500 put Mayfield briefly back in the spotlight, as the underdog who needed all the support he could get to go toe-to-toe with the deep-pocketed race teams. But the light began to fade in just a few weeks, in part because of the product Mayfield put on track.
Before his suspension, Mayfield had qualified for just five of 11 races and didn’t have a finish higher than 32nd. His team was going nowhere, fast, and the bills were apparently piling up. Triad Racing Technologies recently filed suit for $86,304.55 for parts, pieces and chassis work that Mayfield owes.
Then came the negative attention from the suspension, the public denials and the tense legal fight that have turned Mayfield into a sponsor nightmare. He’s now toxic, and no company will touch him or his team.
So even if he is reinstated, he’s not heading back to the most stable situation. And, NASCAR will almost certainly continue to fight the already cash-strapped Mayfield, who has hired the most prolific lawyer in Charlotte.
It makes one wonder if the more sensible route would have been quietly serving his NASCAR suspension and then attempting a career-saving comeback. Of course, participating in NASCAR’s “path to reinstatement” would have been akin to admitting guilt, something Mayfield has adamantly opposed since his suspension.
But the process might have been faster and most certainly cheaper.
More important, it couldn’t possibly have damaged his career any worse than what’s been done the last seven weeks.
Start your engines! — Sign up for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing 09 today. And follow the race action with TrackPass on NASCAR.com.
