Busch wins Nationwide race in Iowa
July 31, 2010
NEWTON, Iowa (AP)—Kyle Busch raced to his sixth victory in his last seven Nationwide starts and ninth of the season Saturday night, leading 209 of 250 laps in a dominating run at Iowa Speedway.
Busch moved a victory away from the series season victory record of 10 he shares with Sam Ard. Busch, a 10-time winner in 2008, is second in series history with 39 victories—nine behind Mark Martin’s record.
Kevin Harvick was second, followed by Jason Leffler and Brad Keselowski in front of a standing-room only crowd of roughly 55,000.
Trevor Bayne, who became the first Nationwide driver in 18 years to capture three consecutive poles earlier Saturday, finished fifth.
Harvick took the lead from Busch during a late pit stop by taking just two tires while Busch grabbed four. But Busch had the strongest car of the night, and he proved it by zipping past Harvick on the outside with 25 laps to go on the 0.875-mile oval.
For the second week in a row, Busch won without running a single practice lap.
Busch, who started second after flying back from practice for the Sprint Cup race Saturday at Pocono, grabbed the lead from Bayne on the opening lap, marking the 17th straight Nationwide race he’s led at some point.
Busch was still in front when Reed Sorenson popped a front tire 42 laps in, causing the No. 32 car to slam into the wall and catch fire under the hood. Sorenson, who was running 12th, was pulled out safely.
Bayne gave Busch all he could handle through the first third of the race and finally jumped back in front 76 laps in.
Bayne was the first driver to start out front in three straight races since Jeff Gordon did it in 1992, and at 19 he’s also the youngest to do so.
Bayne has yet to turn all that qualifying speed into a victory, though. He began to fade as the sun went down and was overtaken by Harvick two-thirds of the way in. Bayne’s best finish came at Gateway two weeks ago when he crossed third.
Brian Keselowski drilled Colin Braun after Braun slid into the wall and came to a stop in the middle of the track 93 laps in. Brendan Gaughan, Paul Menard and Mark Green were also collected in the crash, which brought out a red flag.
Busch retook the lead on the restart and was 3 seconds ahead by the midway point.
With Sunday’s race at Pocono nearly 1,000 miles away from Iowa, only eight drivers are doing double-duty this weekend. That gave hope to many of the Nationwide-only drivers that they could snap a 16-race winless streak dating to Justin Allgaier’s win at Bristol in March.
Alas, that stretch is now at 17 races. Leffler’s third-place finish was tops among Nationwide-only drivers.
Busch wins Nationwide race in Iowa (PA SportsTicker)
July 31, 2010
By LUKE MEREDITH AP Sports Writer
NEWTON, Iowa(AP)—Kyle Busch raced to his sixth victory in his last seven Nationwide starts and ninth of the season Saturday night, leading 209 of 250 laps in a dominating run at Iowa Speedway.
Busch moved a victory away from the series season victory record of 10 he shares with Sam Ard. Busch, a 10-time winner in 2008, is second in series history with 39 victories – nine behind Mark Martin’s record.
Kevin Harvick was second, followed by Jason Leffler and Brad Keselowski in front of a standing-room only crowd of roughly 55,000.
Trevor Bayne, who became the first Nationwide driver in 18 years to capture three consecutive poles earlier Saturday, finished fifth.
Harvick took the lead from Busch during a late pit stop by taking just two tires while Busch grabbed four. But Busch had the strongest car of the night, and he proved it by zipping past Harvick on the outside with 25 laps to go on the 0.875-mile oval.
For the second week in a row, Busch won without running a single practice lap.
Busch, who started second after flying back from practice for the Sprint Cup race Saturday at Pocono, grabbed the lead from Bayne on the opening lap, marking the 17th straight Nationwide race he’s led at some point.
Busch was still in front when Reed Sorenson popped a front tire 42 laps in, causing the No. 32 car to slam into the wall and catch fire under the hood. Sorenson, who was running 12th, was pulled out safely.
Bayne gave Busch all he could handle through the first third of the race and finally jumped back in front 76 laps in.
Bayne was the first driver to start out front in three straight races since Jeff Gordon did it in 1992, and at 19 he’s also the youngest to do so.
Bayne has yet to turn all that qualifying speed into a victory, though. He began to fade as the sun went down and was overtaken by Harvick two-thirds of the way in. Bayne’s best finish came at Gateway two weeks ago when he crossed third.
Brian Keselowski drilled Colin Braun after Braun slid into the wall and came to a stop in the middle of the track 93 laps in. Brendan Gaughan, Paul Menard and Mark Green were also collected in the crash, which brought out a red flag.
Busch retook the lead on the restart and was 3 seconds ahead by the midway point.
With Sunday’s race at Pocono nearly 1,000 miles away from Iowa, only eight drivers are doing double-duty this weekend. That gave hope to many of the Nationwide-only drivers that they could snap a 16-race winless streak dating to Justin Allgaier’s win at Bristol in March.
Alas, that stretch is now at 17 races. Leffler’s third-place finish was tops among Nationwide-only drivers.
Hoops and racing: Two-sport Tony Stewart?
July 31, 2010
LONG POND, Pa. (AP)—Smoke was on a hot streak at the free-throw line.
Tony Stewart, the pole-sitter for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway, got a chance to show his skills on the hardwood during a recent appeararnce at Syracuse University. He had teamed Wednesday with Orange coach Jim Boeheim for a shooting contest.
The two-time Sprint Cup champion called the visit “really cool,” though he did admit to being a little rattled on the basketball court.
“It’s pretty intimidating when you go to somebody else’s venue and you’re in their house and then get in a competition with them,” Stewart said this weekend.
Stewart, who is from Columbus, Ind., banked some basketball credibility for when he returns to his basketball-crazy home state.
“I’m happy to say that we tied four out of five on the free-throw side, so I held my own as an Indiana kid,” Stewart said. “Hopefully now when I go back to Indiana, I won’t get thrown out for not being good at basketball.”
Stewart has also had to deal this year with finding a new sponsor for Old Spice, which will not renew its deal after this season. He hasn’t been too involved on that front yet.
“Keep in mind, every race team has a marketing staff and that marketing staff is who is out trying to get the leads on sponsors and once they get so far down the road with each sponsor, that’s when I get involved,” Stewart said. “Every major race team has a marketing staff that is out there beating those doors down before it gets to my level.”
ROUSH REAX: Jeff Burton hopes NASCAR team owner Jack Roush doesn’t stop flying.
Roush is recovering from facial injuries sustained in a plane crash last week in Wisconsin. The aviation buff was at the controls of the business jet registered to Roush Fenway Racing when the plane crashed while attempting to land.
“Obviously, he has a passion for racing, but I think when he is flying, he’s the driver,” said Burton, a driver for Richard Childress Racing who once raced for Roush. “I certainly hope he continues flying.”
Roush had another close call eight years ago, when he crashed into a lake in Alabama and nearly drowned before being rescued by an ex-Marine who lived nearby.
“It does make you think about your vulnerability and what we do as far as flying,” Burton said. “We fly a lot and it is dangerous. Jack’s a very, very, very good pilot.”
News of the accident also made Kyle Busch recall the fear of flying of his fiance, Samantha Sarcinella. Busch said he was thankful that Roush survived.
“I don’t if this is his second or third time, but he’s made it through,” Busch said. “A couple of people this week were mentioning that he needs to go to Vegas and try his luck there because he has some pretty good luck.”
— —
SUN POWER: Brian Vickers says he’s doing well as he receives treatments for blood clots that have kept him off the track since May. He’s out for the season.
“Everything is great,” Vickers told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday. “I’m doing very well. I hope to get back in the car next year.”
He wasn’t at Pocono Raceway, where the Sprint Cup series stops Sunday for a 500-mile race, though he was impressed with the new solar energy system formally unveiled this weekend.
The 25-acre installation across the street from the Pocono track may be the world’s largest solar-powered sports facility, providing enough energy for the track as well as 1,000 homes.
Vickers said he hopes Pocono’s $16 million solar farm makes fans aware of the environmental initiatives in a sport that burns about 135,000 gallons of fuel per Sprint Cup series.
“Most important is that yes, NASCAR is going to do a lot more things, such as what Pocono is doing on the solar farm, but a lot of times, people forget what they’ve already done,” Vickers said.
TV DEAL: ARCA has extended its TV deal with the Speed channel for 2011.
As with this season, 10 ARCA races will be televised by the cable network next year, either live or on same-day tape. Speed has shown ARCA races since 1997.
It’s the earliest that two sides have been able to finalize an extension annoucement, ARCA president Ron Drager said Saturday. The 2010 schedule has 20 events running on 17 tracks.
“It gives us some good news at a time when there’s not much good economic news going on out there,” Drager said. “We think it’s a significant amount for us to have 10 events televised on Speed. Above and beyond that, we’re always looking for exposure.”
Bayne captures third straight Nationwide pole
July 31, 2010
NEWTON, Iowa (AP)—Trevor Bayne has become the first Nationwide series driver in 18 years to capture three consecutive poles.
The 19-year-old Bayne took the pole for Saturday night’s race at Iowa Speedway. He’s the first driver to start out front in three straight races since Jeff Gordon did it in 1992.
Michael Waltrip, Mark Martin and Sam Ard also won three consecutive poles in the series back in the 1980s.
Bayne is also the youngest Nationwide driver to earn three straight poles, but he hasn’t won in the series entering Saturday’s race.
Bayne’s best finish was third at Gateway two weeks ago.
Pocono promising safety changes
July 31, 2010
LONG POND, Pa. (AP)—Pocono Raceway keeps taking hits.
Often criticized by drivers for long races and for taking up two spots on the Sprint Cup schedule, the 2 1/2 -mile triangle track is now deemed unsafe after an accident in the June race involving Kasey Kahne.
Greg Biffle said in a recent interview that “they’re going to kill someone out there.”
Track president Brandon Igdalsky is listening and he’s promising changes. The track is adding more safer barriers in time for next year’s race and would like to install a catch fence on the non-grandstand areas.
Igdalsky has taken a bigger role as his grandfather, track owner Joseph Mattioli, scales back his duties. Igdalsky brought corporate sponsorship to the races, a trucks race and has an eye on bringing back an IndyCar Series race.
MILER</sponsor> </driver> <driver country=”UNITED STATES” firstname=”Jason” id=”2151764″ lastname=”White” rookie=”No”> <pole>16</pole> <qualify measurement=”mph” speed=”157.682″/> <car chassis=”Dodge” engine=”Dodge (PA SportsTicker)
July 31, 2010
Brent wins ARCA race at Pocono (PA SportsTicker)
July 31, 2010
LONG POND, PA.(AP) —Robb Brent has won the ARCA race at Pocono Raceway for his first career victory.
Brent became the ninth first-time winner this year in the ARCA series. Dakoda Armstrong was second and Craig Goess was third on Saturday. Tom Hessert and Justin Marks rounded out the top five.
There have been 10 different winners in 11 ARCA races this year.
Brent won for the first time in 48 career ARCA races.
The race was shortened this year to 50 laps because of the debut earlier Saturday of the NASCAR Truck Series race.
Sadler holds off Kahne, Crafton in trucks series (PA SportsTicker)
July 31, 2010
By GENARO C. ARMAS AP Sports Writer
LONG POND, Pa. (AP)—Elliott Sadler held off Kasey Kahne in a green-white-checkered finish to win the inaugural NASCAR Truck Series race Saturday at Pocono.
Sadler was the beneficiary after a flurry of late mishaps sent the trucks race into NASCAR’s version of overtime. He cut off Matt Crafton’s pass attempt inside, then pulled away from Kahne on the final lap to take victory.
It was Sadler’s first trucks win, giving him victories in all three NASCAR racing series.
Sadler started from the pole and led for much of the first half of the afternoon before being challenged by points leader Todd Bodine and Sprint Cup stars Kahne and Denny Hamlin.
Each took turns near the front before Sadler closed with his late dash to the checkered flag. Kahne finished second, Crafton was third and Bodine wound up 12th.
Sadler was in his first trucks race since a ninth-place finish last month at Michigan. He’ll remember his afternoon at Pocono for more than just the raceway’s first trucks race.
After a relatively smooth start, things got bumpy in the second half of the 125-mile race with drivers often going three-wide – or sometimes four-wide – around turns.
Kahne had taken the lead on a restart on lap 44 before Donny Lia and Chase Mattioli got tangled up less than a lap later to bring the caution out. Sadler took the lead on the next restart before Ron Hornaday spun off to bring out another caution.
Sadler started outside on the final restart, turned aside Crafton inside, then pulled away for 0.90-second lead in the final lap over Kahne.
Latvala wins maiden race in home rally
July 31, 2010
JYVASKYLA, Finland (AP)—Jari-Matti Latvala won the Rally Finland in front of adeliriously happy home crowd on Saturday.
Sebastian Loeb of France finished third and still is on course to win aseventh consecutive World Rally Championship title. His lead over Citroenteammate Sebastien Ogier, also of France, is 48 points with five events left.
Ogier finished second on Saturday.
Latvala led from the seventh stage in his Ford and held off the fourCitroens. He started the last day leading Petter Solberg of Norway by 9.1seconds and finished 10.1 ahead of Ogier, negotiating the 310 kilometers ofspecial stages on gravel roads in 2 hours, 31 minutes, 29.6 seconds. At 25,Latvala is the youngest driver to win the classic in central Finland, whichcelebrated its 60th event.
“This is something I have been dreaming of since I was a small boy. Thefans are fantastic and I’ve won in front of my home spectators,” Latvala said.
Latvala advanced to third past 2009 overall runner up Mikko Hirvonen ofFinland in the standings on 105 points, 61 behind Loeb.
Latvala and Loeb each won five of 19 stages. Ogier won four stages.
It’s not fines, but secrecy, that is most troubling (NASCAR.com)
July 31, 2010
In many ways, this truly is a more open and accessible NASCAR. In the spring of 2009 executives from the sanctioning body held a series of town hall-style meetings at the sport’s research and development center. This past winter, chairman Brian France made the rounds from shop to shop, sitting down with drivers and owners. Two years ago NASCAR formed a fan council so spectators could submit ideas, something that impacted the moves to the rear wing and standardized start times. When owners wanted to sit down among themselves this week and try to hash out a few issues, NASCAR approved the plan.
That’s a long way from how it used to be, when officials in Daytona Beach seemed to take offense when a driver or owner had a suggestion or a complaint. Jeff Burton, a stalwart on NASCAR’s premier series for 17 seasons, has seen the transformation firsthand.
“It went from, ‘Yes, we will talk to you, but really don’t want to hear it,’ to ‘Anytime you want to call, call,’ to at times, them calling me. And even today, the willingness of NASCAR to get a group of people together and have a conversation about something is bigger than it has ever been. The things they are doing today with the town hall meetings and all that, that didn’t happen. That stuff just never happened,” Burton said Friday at Pocono Raceway, site of Sunday’s Sprint Cup event.
“I think the new generation of NASCAR is much more open to listening to the ideas. I had a conversation with [NASCAR VP for competition] Robin Pemberton last week, and I said things to him that were very frank and very to the point. I walked off and I thought I wouldn’t have been able to do that 15 years ago, but I felt perfectly comfortable doing it because I felt perfectly comfortable with him, and his willingness to listen to me, and his willingness to share his opinion with me and disagree with me or agree with me. I think it has changed a lot. They are very open right now, very receptive to ideas and opinions. They aren’t going to agree with everything, nor should they, but they are very receptive.”
To a certain point. NASCAR didn’t come across as open or receptive at all this week when news emerged that the sanctioning body had secretly fined two drivers for comments that series officials deemed were damaging to the sport. Friday at Pocono, the guilty parties fessed up. One was Ryan Newman, who isn’t exactly known as a firebrand but has made skewering remarks about the risks of restrictor-plate racing, particularly at Talladega Superspeedway, where last fall a big crash left him upside down on his roof. The other was Denny Hamlin, who earlier this year intimated that NASCAR was manipulating the ends of races with haphazard debris cautions, and has been less than enthusiastic about potential changes to the Chase.
Now, a sports league fining competitors for comments it deems inappropriate is far from groundbreaking. Just two weeks ago, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert was fined $100,000 by the NBA for comments he made about the departure of LeBron James. Outspoken Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is fined more frequently than a habitual traffic offender. Former Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick was once fined $15,000 by the NFL for criticizing officials, and former Houston Astros pitcher LaTroy Hawkins was fined an undisclosed amount in 2009 for comments he made about an umpire. In the grand scheme, what NASCAR did to Newman and Hamlin wasn’t malicious—it was routine.
But it’s the secret part that bothers people. In his blog on this site earlier in the week, NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said the fines needed to be viewed similar to a meeting in the Sprint Cup hauler, something no one ever talks about in detail. He added that repeating the offending remarks would serve no purpose, except to potentially embarrass those drivers’ teams and sponsors. And yet, injecting the element of secrecy winds up casting the sanctioning body, and not the drivers involved, in a poor light.
• NASCAR Says: Working together for the good of the sport
Again, it’s completely legitimate for sports leagues to penalize competitors for something they deem injurious. Baseball, basketball and football do it all the time, the only difference being that they make the fines public, even if they don’t always specify the amount. NASCAR warned drivers about this very thing in the preseason, during those aforementioned winter meetings, when competitors were even shown video clips of potentially disparaging comments and the impact they can have. The edict of “boys, have at it” stopped when a driver got out of the car. Indeed, a few ill-timed comments have likely fed the greatest misconception dogging NASCAR today, this unyielding notion that the racing is bad, when the product on the track consistently speaks otherwise.
“At the end of the day, it’s not a bad idea for NASCAR to pull some guys aside and say, hey look, shut up, OK?” four-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson said Friday at Pocono. “And [due to] the fact that you’re being an idiot and saying things that are hurtful to the sport, we’re going to penalize you.”
Plus, for all NASCAR has done to placate its fan base and broaden its metaphorical tent, we can’t lose sight of the fact that this is first and foremost a private business, one owned primarily by a single family that has every right to run it as it sees fit. People who gripe about that need to realize that the racing series that have traditionally been the strongest are those run by a single iron-fisted leader, as NASCAR and Formula 1 have been. Championship Auto Racing Teams tried a more democratic approach, and we see where CART is today. This week’s meeting of owners was noteworthy because different owners typically have clashing agendas, a natural by-product of racing that makes almost anything other than a dictatorship unwieldy.
“This is, in my mind, a benevolent dictatorship,” Burton said. “It needs to be a dictatorship. The participants really don’t deserve a vote, because we have seen in other sports, when the participants have a vote, how screwed up it gets.”
Keeping things secret, though, makes people nervous. NASCAR is a sport where it doesn’t take much for half the fan base to launch itself into full-fledged conspiracy mode, with off-kilter die-hards running off at the keyboard about the special restrictor plate Dale Earnhardt Jr. must have had, or the inspection breaks Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus must have had, or the convenient yellow flag that allowed a certain driver to win the race. Dale Jr. wins at Daytona in the summer of 2001, or Juan Montoya wins a Nationwide race in Mexico City, and people are convinced that Watergate is afoot. NASCAR has worked very hard to shake that kind of nonsense, partly by becoming a more open and more professional institution, partly by giving more people a voice in the decision-making process.
Then come the secret fines, which were first reported Monday by The Associated Press, and serve only to feed the beast. Either way, NASCAR was sticking its hand into a wasp’s nest of controversy, given how much fans prize those rare, outspoken drivers, and given that the sport hadn’t—apparently, at least—done this kind of thing before. There was going to be a shock factor and a backlash no matter how it went down. But secrecy, by its very nature, makes people suspicious. Secrecy makes the more conspiracy-minded among the fan base and the media wonder what other secret things NASCAR might be up to, even if its not up to any at all. Plus, NASCAR should have recognized the one thing everyone with a hard-card credential has always known: in a sport involving so many people and with such an open garage area, nothing stays a secret for very long.
You’re already hearing some drivers bash the media over all this, blaming reporters for asking the questions that generated the offending comments, as if writers are standing in the background with giant cue cards reading, “Please say the new car stinks!” But the media, all too cognizant of the short period of time between a driver exiting his car and entering a helicopter to begin the trip home, only works within the constructs NASCAR sets up. If drivers need more time to collect themselves before answering questions, they need to take those complaints to the sanctioning body.
Just be careful how you do it, though, boys. After all, nobody wants to get fined.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
Related: • Owners hold own town hall meeting at Hendrick
