Improvement projects nearing completion at MIS (NASCAR.com)
May 31, 2011
Michigans infield scoreboard is getting a facelift. (MIS)
Construction crews around the Michigan International Speedway facility are working tirelessly in an effort to complete nearly $3 million worth of capital improvement projects before the June 17-19 Cup Series race weekend.
Despite the unusual Michigan weather this spring, tremendous progress has been made in many areas of the speedway, most notably the redesign of the infield scoreboard and new tram road/stop on the south side of the facility.
The expansion of the pedestrian tunnel under the start/finish line, the tearing down of three grandstands in Turns 3 and 4 and renovation of the Champions Club presented by CP Federal Credit Union have already been completed in time for the race season.
The scoreboard, the first of its kind in motorsports when it was installed in 2008, is receiving a makeover. One of the most noticeable changes is the increase in the overall height of the scoreboard from 108-feet tall to nearly 155-feet tall, a difference of 47 feet.
The LED display that shows the running order of the race, various sponsor advertisements and track messaging, is also increasing from 57 feet tall to 85 feet tall. Because of the size of MIS and the size numbers used so all spectators could see, the former scoreboard only listed running order positions in groups of three. The new board will show the top-14 competitors at one time and include a lap counter.
“These enhancements are necessary to give fans an even better viewing experience of our scoreboard,” Curtis said. “We were the first race track in NASCAR to get an LED scoreboard and other tracks the last couple of years have followed suit. We have now looked at other tracks and discovered things from their scoreboards that could make ours even better and are implementing some of those changes.”
Crews are currently paving a new tram route from the speedway’s Lot 10 to the frontstretch area of the New Holland Fan Plaza. A tram drop-off point to service the Fan Plaza is next to the Chalet Village hospitality area near the tunnel entrance to the track. The new route now gives the speedway the ability to tram fans from one end of the facility to the other, including to the frontstretch.
Trams are an integral part of transporting vast amounts of fans to and from locations around the speedway. In all, MIS has 40 trams, which can transport up to 2,000 fans in any given moment on Sprint Cup Series race days.
“This is an important capital improvement project,” MIS director of guest services Tim Booth said. “Being able to also access the frontstretch and New Holland Fan Plaza via tram will give fans an easier time getting to those destinations. It’s something we look forward to providing to our guests in 2011.”
The pedestrian tunnel project, which began in 2010 when the track rebuilt its Pit Road Suites and Media Center building, was completed recently. The project called for the widening of the section of tunnel located directly under the center grandstands and near the start-finish line of the track. A small patch of track was repaved next to the start/finish line, which completed the project.
Back in the winter of 2011, MIS recycled three of its general admission grandstands and relocated the steel and aluminum to Watkins Glen International so the nation’s top road course could be able to add permanent grandstand seating for its race weekends. The removal of seats lowered MIS’ seating capacity to 106,000 for Cup Series events.
Although sharing resources among tracks in the International Speedway Corporation family is nothing new, this project was unique in that it recycled a staggering 300 tons of steel and 105 tons of aluminum that benefited Watkins Glen for its events. Each grandstand was comprised of 100 tons of steel and 35 tons of aluminum.
Overall, MIS has spent about $60 million the past five years improving the facility, allowing fans, media and corporate partners to get the most out of a race weekend at MIS.
Bahrain hopes to hold F1 race this year (PA SportsTicker)
May 31, 2011
By MICHAEL CASEY AP Sports Writer
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)—Bahrain has asked Formula One’s governing body to reschedule its Grand Prix race when it meets Friday, insisting the country is returning to normal despite ongoing political tensions for months.
Zayed Rashid Alzayani, chairman of the Bahrain International Circuit which holds the Bahrain Grand Prix, told The Associated Press the Gulf country is ready to “hold the race today.” Alzayani would like the race to be run in October or November to coincide with the Abu Dhabi GP on Nov. 13. A decision will be made Friday at the World Motor Sport Council meeting in Barcelona.
The race had been called off by Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa because of anti-government protest that have left 30 dead.
“We feel we are in position to have that event back,” Alzayani said. “Things have calmed down tremendously in Bahrain. Life is back to normal. We are happy to have the race anytime really.”
Alzayani said holding the race would bolster spirits of Bahrainis. He estimated the race alone could infuse $500 million into the country and “could be a nice catalyst to re-ignite the economy.”
“We went through a rough patch and we need nice moments in our history now for the nation,” Alzayani said. “Formula One has always been a time where Bahrain showcases itself to the world not only as a sports arena but as society, a community that Bahrain as a nation has to offer. Formula One can bring back joy to the country.”
F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has led the campaign to reschedule the race but doing so has angered some local and international rights groups. The New York-based Human Rights Watch sent a letter last week to the governing body FIA and the Formula One Teams Association, asking them to take into account the abuses of anti-government protesters when making their decision.
“Sadly, serious violations like arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention, and alleged torture by Bahraini authorities predate the imposition of martial law in mid-March,” said Tom Porteous, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch. “There is little reason to think that ending martial law on June 1 will make much difference in Bahrain’s menacing human rights climate.”
Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said Tuesday his group opposes rescheduling the race because of what he said was the government’s ongoing crackdown, which has included arbitrary detentions and torture of Shiite protesters. All segments of society have been targeted, he said, including at least 29 employees of the race circuit, who were detained for taking part in the protest that began in February.
“It’s not a good message to the human rights defenders and reformists in Bahrain,” Rajab said.
Alzayani acknowledged that 24 of his 108 employees were detained. But he insisted the circuit is above politics.
“We still have employees working who are Shiite, Sunnis and Christians,” he said. “We never looked at race or sect thing. We look at productivity and loyalty to the job. They weren’t detained because they were Shiite but because they had cases against them. Some have been released. Some are still under dentition.”
McLaren’s Hamilton apologizes to F1 rivals (PA SportsTicker)
May 31, 2011
LONDON (AP) —McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton has apologized to Formula One rivals Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado for calling them “ridiculous” in the aftermath of the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton was given penalties after colliding with Massa and Maldonado as he attempted to pass them during Sunday’s race.
The 2008 world champion posted an apology on his Twitter account, saying he didn’t mean to criticize Massa and Maldonado and labeling them “fantastic drivers who I regard highly.”
Hamilton, who is second in the drivers’ championship behind Monaco winner Sebastian Vettel, also criticized stewards after the race, which he finished in sixth place.
Hamilton added Tuesday “2 my fans lost & my fans won, I wish u nothing but love & happiness.”
Angelelli, Taylor win again at Lime Rock
May 30, 2011
LIME ROCK, Conn. (AP)—Max Angelelli and Ricky Taylor won the Memorial DayWeekend Classic for the second straight year Monday, cruising to the victory inGrand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series stop at Lime Rock Park.
Taylor got his team off to a strong start by putting the No. 10 SunTrustRacing Chevrolet/Dallara on the pole in the Daytona Prototype class. Angelellicrossed the finish line 26.026 seconds ahead of the runner-up Ford/Rileyprototype co-driven by John Pew and Ozz Negri.
Angelelli and Taylor led 153 of 183 laps in the 2-hour, 45-minute event.
Robin Liddell and Jan Magnussen, driving a Chevrolet Camaro, won theproduction-based GT class.
Hey, conspiracy theorists, NASCAR ran a good show
May 30, 2011
CONCORD, N.C. (AP)—The pressure on NASCAR to deliver an outstanding Coca-Cola 600 started to build before the garage even opened at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Sebastian Vettel kicked off auto racing’s showcase day with a topsy-turvy Formula One victory on Monaco’s winding street circuit. Then rookie JR Hildebrand made a heartbreaking mistake to lose the Indianapolis 500 in the final turn of the 100th running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
The closing act of triple-header was NASCAR, which was coming off a ho-hum All-Star race a week earlier. With 600 long miles looming, series officials knew they had two tough acts to follow.
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“The pressure is on,” NASCAR President Mike Helton acknowledged an hour before the race. “Hope tonight is good.”
Oh, it most certainly was.
NASCAR delivered a thriller Sunday night that packed more intrigue than anyone could have imagined. Because NASCAR races are typically marked with long lulls of nap-inducing racing, the longest race of the season seemed destined to be a snoozer.
Instead, the suspense started early and carried all the way to the checkered flag, which went to Kevin Harvick when Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran out of gas on the last lap. The only way it could have gone better for NASCAR would have been if Earnhardt actually won and snapped his 105-race losing streak.
Had NASCAR’s most popular driver made it to Victory Lane, critics most certainly would have cried that the fix had been in. Strangely, even after an Earnhardt defeat, the conspiracy theorists still hovered.
So let’s debunk some of the misconceptions:
— NASCAR wanted Earnhardt to win: Well, yeah, everybody in the industry wants Earnhardt to win, including Harvick, who said he felt “so stinking bad for him” after denying Earnhardt a win for the second time this season.
As Earnhardt goes, so does the health of the industry, and NASCAR understands how critical it is for him to end his nearly three-year losing streak. But that doesn’t mean Helton & Co. would rely on deceptive practices to get him a victory.
If they were willing to do so, would they really have waited 105 races to pull it off?
— NASCAR tried to give Earnhardt the win with a no-call: Jimmie Johnson’s engine failure set up a final two-lap sprint to the finish, with Kasey Kahne and Earnhardt lined up side-by-side for the restart. Earnhardt got the jump, and the line behind Kahne stacked up like an accordion.
Debris from Brad Keselowski’s car clearly littered the track, and Jeff Burton spun through traffic in what most certainly would have been a caution on any other lap. But NASCAR didn’t throw the yellow flag this time, and angry fans insisted it was because officials wanted Earnhardt to drive away undisturbed.
Too bad recent NASCAR history shows that standard operating procedure has been to not interrupt the racing on the final laps unless there is a safety hazard. Once Burton’s car made it out of harm’s way, it was in NASCAR’s best interest to let the race play out.
— They still could have given him the win: One way to almost guarantee an Earnhardt victory at that point would be to throw the caution after Earnhardt had taken the white flag. Since the inception of the green-white-checkered rule, NASCAR has allowed three attempts to finish the race with the caveat being the race is over once the leader takes the white flag.
So once Earnhardt began the last lap, officials could have easily frozen the field and let him coast the final 1 1/2 miles to the checkered flag.
But all of this gives NASCAR far too much credit in knowing all the particulars of real-time situations. Nobody, Earnhardt and crew chief Steve Letarte included, knew for certain when Earnhardt would run out of gas.
The right play, and the consistent play, was for NASCAR to let it unfold naturally.
— But, but, NASCAR calls cautions for far less: That’s true, and the combination of a quick trigger and a reputation for phantom debris cautions during boring stretches works against NASCAR here. It doesn’t help, either, that Harvick himself questioned a debris call earlier in the race when he grumbled over his radio he didn’t see anything on the track and that NASCAR makes those calls to benefit the chosen ones.
What helps, though, is that Harvick had a much softer tone after the race when he defended NASCAR and the difficulty officials have in maintaining policy and procedure. Embroiled in a feud with Kyle Busch that has both Busch and Harvick on probation through June 15, Harvick had long discussions with NASCAR that helped him understand their position.
“The one thing I have learned over the last two or three weeks is there has to be a judge,” Harvick said. “There has to be somebody making those decisions, and there has to be somebody who’s going to say, ‘Yep, there’s debris on the track. I see it and there it is.’ There has to be somebody making the calls, and I’m glad I don’t have to make them.”
There’s a dozen ways to scrutinize Sunday’s race. For once, just accept it for what it was, a pretty good show that held its own on a very special day for motorsports.
Head2Head: How should NASCAR handle late-race cautions? (NASCAR.com)
May 30, 2011
In the first attempt of a green-white-checkered finish in last Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, Kasey Kahne ran out fuel on the restart, causing havoc behind him as Brad Keselowski and Jeff Burton got together sending the No. 31 around and leaving the No. 2 with serious damage (Final Laps).
Yet there was no caution.
The race continued with Dale Earnhardt Jr. out front until he ran out of gas in Turn 4 and Kevin Harvick capitalized with his third victory of the season.
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It was a great finish, but not without controversy. Why wasn’t the caution thrown for that crash, yet it comes out instantly for what appears as a lesser issue? NASCAR said following the race the cars involved got rolling so there was no need for the caution, but some are still scratching their heads.
What should NASCAR do when it comes to late-race cautions? Jill Erwin and Bill Kimm have their thoughts. Read theirs and weigh in with your own in the comments below. And don’t forget to vote for whose argument you agree with more in the poll at the right.
Green-White-Checkered: Should NASCAR have thrown the yellow at the end of the Coca-Cola 600?
How should NASCAR handle late-race cautions?
STAY CONSISTENT ONLY IF NECESSARY
With questions arising over time about how NASCAR officials handle on-track situations, the governing body needs to be absolutely ardent in following the rules it has made public.
Included in that is the green-white-checkered finishes that have become all the rage.
If cautions are going to set up late-race dashes for the victory, then NASCAR officials need to take on the responsibility of looking out for the drivers they’re packing up for late restarts.
Case in point: Sunday night in Charlotte, Kasey Kahne ran out of fuel on the restart, piling up cars on the outside of the track as Dale Earnhardt Jr. checked out. No caution flew, despite the fact cars were still smashing into each other as Junior got to Turn 2. On the white-flag lap, fine. The wreck was behind the leader. However, there was still another lap to go and the safety of those still running—as well as those who are out of commission with cars coming at full speed—needs to be of the utmost importance.
NASCAR rules set up a maximum of three green-white-checkered finishes. Throwing the caution there changes nothing in the finish, but shows NASCAR officials care about their independent contractor drivers.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, the yellow would have flown. The fact it didn’t at the most key juncture of one of the sport’s biggest races is a problem and sets up a need for NASCAR officials to be more stringent in applying their rules.
• Jill Erwin, NASCAR.COMThe opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
When it comes to sports, how many times have you complained the officials are too involved? The best games are the ones decided on the field, not by the officials or umpires. Well it works that way in NASCAR as well.
Cautions should be a last resort in the final five laps of a race. The only reason a caution should fall in the final five laps is for safety reasons—a car stuck on the track, debris littering the track, oil on the track. Keep the yellow in the flagstand unless it’s completely necessary.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a rule that should be applied throughout the race. Cautions are a part of the sport and are necessary. But strategies have been revealed at the final five laps and NASCAR should do everything in its power to let them play out. Let the drivers decide the winner.
In football, on a bomb to the end zone as time expires, you don’t think there could be a pass interference call? Or in basketball, when someone cuts to the hoop as time runs out, trust me when I say he is getting hacked. Yet, the flags and whistles are nowhere to be seen.
That’s not to say if something is obvious, a call won’t be made, because it will. Same applies to NASCAR—only put the yellow out if it is absolutely necessary in those final five laps. Let the drivers decide the winner … not the NASCAR officials.
• Bill Kimm, NASCAR.COMThe opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
Harvick’s team has all the makings of a champion (NASCAR.com)
May 30, 2011
It was an odd sight, but one that made Richard Childress smile.
In the ultimate display of teamwork, as Kevin Harvick attempted to save gas for the final laps of Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Childress looked out onto the 1.5-mile track and saw three of his Richard Childress Racing cars lined up bumper-to-bumper during the caution period that preceded the final restart. Harvick teammates Paul Menard and Jeff Burton were pushing Harvick from behind in an effort to help Harvick save fuel in his No. 29 Chevrolet.
No one will ever know for certain how much it helped, but it very well could have provided the difference that enabled Harvick to stretch his fuel mileage to the finish line of NASCAR’s longest race when others couldn’t. Harvick inherited the lead when Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran out of gas on the backstretch of the final lap, and then cruised to his Sprint Cup series-high third victory of the season that is only 12 races old.
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“This whole race was probably as competitive of a 600 that I’ve witnessed,” said Childress, who has fielded cars in the race that is one of NASCAR’s crown jewel events for more than three decades. “All night long the field kept changing at the front. But to see our cars working together, that’s what an owner loves to see and wants to see.
“It was all legal. You can do what we were doing there. You just can’t push somebody across [the finish line to take] the checkered flag to win it on the last lap. … But it was pretty neat to see everybody work together, and I’m sure they’re happy to see Kevin win.”
Championship material
Harvick and the No. 29 team know all about the value of teamwork. Harvick finished a career-high third in points last season, when he entered the final race of the season at Homestead with a chance to overtake leader Denny Hamlin and eventual champion Jimmie Johnson.
But whereas last year the No. 29 team had the feel of a group that had just crashed a party to which they weren’t invited and perhaps didn’t quite belong, this year they are proving that it was no fluke. Through the first third of this season, they’ve now won one-fourth of the races and displayed real championship-contending mettle.
So if they are in the hunt at the end of this season, it will be no surprise. And it appears if they are in the hunt again at the end of this season, they will have a better grasp on what it takes to get the job done and bring Johnson’s five-year reign as champion to an end.
Early in Sunday’s race, Harvick was in a foul mood. He particularly took offense to crew chief Gil Martin’s efforts to make a two-tire pit stop instead of the usual four, which was done in an effort to gain track position. The car wasn’t handling right, and Harvick lamented over the team radio in no uncertain terms that the problem had persisted for the entire past two-week period he had been racing at CMS, and he wasn’t pleased about it.
“It’s the same thing we’ve been fighting. We haven’t fixed this in the two weeks,” Harvick told Martin.
“Well,” deadpanned Martin in return, “we’ve got four more hours and we’re going to fix you right up.”
It took some time, and no more two-tire stops. But eventually Martin delivered. And in the meantime, no one took umbrage with Harvick’s tough radio talk. They merely worked through the problem and put Harvick in position to take advantage of Earnhardt’s misfortune at the end.
“Honestly, it’s great to be a part of this team because everybody knows who I am,” Harvick said. “They don’t get down on me, and nobody gets really down on each other.
“And if we wouldn’t have won the race, everybody would have went home and we would have said we’d do this different or that different and we’d have all smiled about it by the time we got done at 8 o’clock Monday morning after our competition meeting.”
Special chemistry
It’s hard to believe that it’s been barely a year since Harvick agreed to a contract extension that kept him at RCR—after rumors had flown for months that he was unhappy and might leave. The driver credits Martin—who became his crew chief in April of 2009—with not only holding the team together during trying times, but actually building unity along the way. Last season was Martin’s first full season as Harvick’s crew chief.
“I think all these guys have learned the same thing, that we can sit up in the lounge [of the 29 hauler] and we can throw punches and take them pretty easily with each other and nobody gets offended,” Martin said. “And that’s what it’s all about, because this sport is so much about feelings and everybody wearing their feelings on their shoulders.
“Then one of you guys [in the media] interviews us and say, ‘This one said that and you got mad on the radio and Kevin thought the car was terrible, and what are you going to do? Well, this was one of those nights, and we just worked our way through it.”
They worked their way through it like a championship team. On a night when Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, apologized to his driver over the radio for “this Keystone Cops [expletive] we had going on here” in the pits after one particularly costly mistake, the 29 team kept battling and ended up on top in a race that traditionally spells trouble for Harvick. He finished second in his first Coca-Cola 600 a decade ago—and then went nine years without another top-10 finish in the event until winning it Sunday night.
He credited team chemistry for it, and for his ability to win three times already this season despite having led the grand total of only nine laps in those three particular races.
“It’s just the chemistry and the way that everybody is on this race team. Money can’t buy that,” Harvick said. “When you have a race team like that, well, I’ve never had that where you feel everything jel and you feel everything come together and you race for a championship and do everything that you do. It’s not about having the fastest car all the time. Sometimes it’s just about believing in everybody around you and putting yourself in position to win.
“And these guys have put us in position to win a lot, and we’ve been able to do that over the past couple years. If we aren’t winning, we still can take something out of a race. The championship teams are when you can take a 15th-place car and you can finish fifth with it. And that’s what we did [Sunday].”
Actually, no, it wasn’t. They took what they had and won with it. And now they’re looking more and more like they may just be able to take what they have and win the biggest trophy of all.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
F1 driver Sergio Perez released from hospital (PA SportsTicker)
May 30, 2011
HINWIL, SWITZERLAND (AP) —The Sauber Formula One team says Mexican driver Sergio Perez has been released from the hospital in Monaco.
Perez crashed during qualifying Saturday for the Monaco Grand Prix and suffered a concussion and a sprained thigh.
In a statement issued by Sauber on Monday, the 21-year-old says he still has a “little bit of pain in my leg and in my neck, but this comes from muscles and is nothing to worry about.”
Perez says he is “pretty sure” he will be driving at the next Grand Prix on June 12 in Montreal.
Defending champion Sebastian Vettel won Sunday’s race for Red Bull.
For Earnhardt, real progress behind the skid (NASCAR.com)
May 30, 2011
Dale Earnhardt Jr. takes the white flag at Charlotte in his oh-so-close attempt at ending his winless drought. (Autostock)
It was all right there before him, a race track as wide as a rural Interstate highway, and one of NASCAR’s grandest trophies just waiting to be claimed. Vehicles stacked up on the final restart, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. vaulted into the lead as if slung from a catapult. As the No. 88 car passed under the white flag, the crowd at Charlotte Motor Speedway united in a roar that muffled even 850-horsepower engines, all in anticipation of a 104-race winless streak ending in dramatic fashion on one of the sport’s biggest stages.
Everyone was celebrating—except the driver inside the red, white and blue car. Earnhardt knew better.
“I never thought I was going to make it,” he said, after he ran out of gas to finish seventh in the Coca-Cola 600. “I’m sitting there going, I’m standing in the throttle, and whatever happens, happens. I never really knew or felt like, ‘Oh, I’ve got this in the bag.’ We’re supposed to be out of gas. [Crew chief] Steve [Letarte] said we should be out of gas while we were riding around in the caution there before the green-white-checkered. So I was like, we definitely ain’t going to make these two green flag laps if that’s the case.”
And he didn’t, running dry on the backstretch, but carrying enough momentum through Charlotte’s high-banked corners that it wasn’t until he slowed off Turn 4 that reality set in for those in the grandstands. Other contenders zipped by, eventual race winner Kevin Harvick among them, relegating Earnhardt and his legion of supporters to another agonizing close call, and adding another agonizing week to those since his last Sprint Cup victory, now nearly three years ago. He won that one, at Michigan, on fuel mileage. Sunday, he had victory snatched away for the same reason.
For all those with 88s stuck to their car bumpers or tattooed on their arms, it had to be a crushing night, especially given how well Earnhardt had run for the duration of NASCAR’s longest event. And yet, standing in the garage and surrounded by cameras and microphones, Earnhardt hardly seemed devastated. No, chances to win races clearly don’t come around that often for a driver with a winless streak that’s stretched into triple digits. But all the hand-wringing over that breakthrough victory, and the unending focus on when it might come, obscures the real progress being made.
No, Earnhardt didn’t win the Coca-Cola 600. But on the same track where his car had been garbage the week before, he was in the mix from Thursday’s opening practice session until the checkered flag fell on Sunday night. This on a track where he admittedly hasn’t been very good in recent years, in a marathon event of the ilk Earnhardt very well may have grown tired and frustrated and cranky in not too long ago. This was real growth, of the kind that Earnhardt needs to make the Chase and return to championship relevance, and it was there whether he wound up in Victory Lane or not.
“To be honest, I know there’s disappointment about coming so close , but our fans should be real happy about how we’re performing, how we’re showing up at the race track, how we’ve adapted,” said Earnhardt, who remained fourth in points. “We’ve definitely improved things, and we want to keep getting better and better and better. … We’re definitely going in the right direction. I felt like a true frontrunner tonight. I’ve felt like that sometimes this season. But the 600 is a true test. Charlotte is a true test of a team, and we performed well all night long.”
Particularly when you look at where they were just a week ago, when Earnhardt was voted into the Sprint All-Star Race by the fans, and yet finished a distant 14th. “I think we were embarrassed, I know I was, with how we ran last week,” Letarte said. “The fans voted us into the All-Star Race and we couldn’t make any ground. That’s just not really acceptable. We worked hard this week, and we brought a car that could compete, and we’re proud of it.”
They came back to Charlotte with a newer car, and a setup approach they had used at intermediate tracks earlier in the year. The moves paid off, as Earnhardt overcame a poor qualifying spot and within 60 laps had cracked the top 10. But repeated cautions toward the end knocked teams off their fuel strategy, and Earnhardt was one of 10 drivers who decided to stay out of the pits and make a dash for it. One of those was Harvick, the winner. Another was Kasey Kahne, who restarted in the lead with Earnhardt on his inside, but ran out of gas as the field approached the first turn. Kahne’s car wiggled as it was struck by the onrushing vehicle of Brad Keselowski, and two cars spun in the choked-up aftermath, but in NASCAR’s eyes the field righted itself quickly enough and kept rolling, so the caution flag stayed furled.
“There were spins and stuff,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice president for competition, “but they all got rolling, so it was OK.”
For Earnhardt and Letarte, staying out was the only option. “I just do whatever my dang crew chief says, but I believe that was the right call,” Earnhardt said. “Because if we’d have pitted, I don’t know where we would have finished. We’d have finished wherever David Ragan finished. That was probably in front of us. But think about it, man. Winning the 600, that would be awesome. I had to try. Had to try.”
Ragan finished second, but unlike Earnhardt, didn’t have a real shot of winning the race. “The guys had it figured perfect,” Letarte said. “They said, you’re going to run out somewhere on the backstretch, and it ran out going into [Turn] 3. It’s still a very calculated risk. I think it was worth taking. The winner took it, so why not.”
Even so, it was heartbreaking to watch, even for the competition. “I feel so stinkin’ bad for them,” Harvick said. “I know how bad he wants it. But it will happen. They keep running like that, it will happen.”
At some point, of course, that albatross of a winless skid is going to have to be unloosed from around Earnhardt’s neck. The way he’s run for much of this year—he also had a real chance at Martinsville—you have to think it’s coming at some point. But this is a sport that is built on consistency, and a program that had to be rebuilt from the cars all the way to the driver’s confidence. A sole focus on getting one win obscures a movement toward a time when it won’t seem like a surprise anymore when Earnhardt is up front. He may not ever get back to his glory days with Dale Earnhardt Inc., when he dominated restrictor-plate tracks and won six times in a single season. But this is also a team and a driver worlds removed from the ones that finished 25th and 21st the past two seasons, win or lose in one single event in Charlotte.
“I know we’re doing a good job, I know we’re unloading good cars,” Earnhardt said. “The car we unloaded in the [All-Star Race], I didn’t get into the meeting about what the plan was, and it wasn’t a good car. Tonight we had a good car, and we showed it. I’m real happy with our effort. These guys got to lift their heads up, man, because we’re doing a good thing. We’re building a good team and a good chemistry. They keep their heads up, we’ll keep on improving, and that’s what’s important. We let this bother us too much, and we won’t improve as much as we can. We want to win races. We’re getting close enough to where a couple of them are about to fall in our lap. We get that extra step, we’ll be in business.”
Like the cars, the driver is a work in progress. “Next time I come here, I’ll feel more confident when I show up,” he said. “I wasn’t confident this week even though the lap times were great in practice and the car was … really good. I’ve got to get more confidence. Even though this weekend we showed up and were really fast in practice, I thought, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen this before. The race starts and let’s see what happens.’ It was great.”
He felt that way even though he didn’t win, even though his National Guard-backed car lost on the final lap just as its counterpart in the Indianapolis 500 had done earlier in the day. Yes, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s winless skid continued on Sunday. But so did his unquestioned growth toward something bigger, even if sometimes it’s difficult to see.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
Harvick wins as Earnhardt runs out of fuel
May 30, 2011
CONCORD, North Carolina (AP)—Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran out of fuel on the final lap, costing him a drought-breaking victory in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Charlotte, as Kevin Hardwick swept past to take the race win.
Earnhardt looked like taking his first checkered flag in almost three years but the tank in his Chevrolet ran dry along the back straight on the last lap. He tried to coast his way through the final turn but Harvick zipped past.
Coincidentally, it happened on the same day as Indy 500 race leader J.R. Hildebrand crashed coming out of the final turn to lose the nation’s biggest open-wheeler race. Both Earnhardt and Hildebrand are sponsored by the National Guard, and the dramatic reversals spoiled what would have been a celebratory Memorial Day for the military.
Related Martin on the rise 
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It is the second time this year that Earnhardt—who last won at Michigan in 2008—had lost to Harvick, who has led just nine laps in his Sprint Cup Series-best three victories.
“Everybody sitting up here would say we want the 88 to win and they’re so close to winning and both times they had a chance to win,” Harvick said. “We are going to do what we have to do to win the races, and today it all just worked out strategy wise that we won the race.
“But I feel so stinking bad for him, and I know how bad he wants it. It’ll happen.”
Earnhardt comfortably led in the closing laps of NASCAR’s longest race of the year but knew stretching his fuel to the finish was going to be touch-and-go.
Still, his crew chief Steve Letarte ordered him to go for broke and chase down Greg Biffle and Kasey Kahne over the final 20 laps. But Letarte reversed course when Kahne closed in on Biffle, and Matt Kenseth, who was running fourth, stopped to refuel.
Reckoning that Biffle and Kahne would themselves run out of fuel racing each other for the win, he urged Earnhardt to sit tight and try to exploit their misfortune.
It might have worked, too, if Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson’s engine didn’t fail four laps from the finish. Biffle had to stop for fuel under caution, so Kahne and Earnhardt lined up side-by-side for the final restart.
Earnhardt got a great jump as Kahne got hit from behind by Brad Keselowski. It caused a large collision and plenty of debris, but the yellow flag never came, meaning Earnhardt had to race rather than coast to the finish and the car didn’t quite make it.
“The spotter was like, ‘Man, they’re coming! They’re coming!’ I was like, ‘I’m cruising. What am I supposed to do, get out and pedal this thing with my feet?”’ Earnhardt said.
Harvick had a similar reaction.
“The spotter was going nuts, “The 88’s out of gas! Keep going!”’ Harvick said. “I’m like ‘Well, I’m not going to let off!’ What do you want me to do? I’m going as hard as I can go. All of a sudden, he just shut off. He had sucked every drop out of it.”
David Ragan finished second in a Ford behind the Chevrolet of Harvick. Joey Logano was third in a Toyota, and Kurt Busch was fourth in a Dodge. A.J. Allmendinger and Marcos Ambrose were fifth in sixth in Fords for Richard Petty Motorsports.
Behind Earnhardt, Regan Smith was eighth in a Chevrolet, while the Toyotas of David Reutimann and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top 10.
