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Weekly Racing Update 051908
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News and Views from Drew Patey and Buddy Judy
2008 NASCAR All Star Race Goes to Kahne
Lowe's Motorspeedway was the place, four 25 lap segments was the format and 1 million dollars was the prize. The drivers who race the NASCAR All Star race are all given one instruction from their owners - Bring home the big check or bring me back just the steering wheel. The All Star Race is a non points contest of the top drivers in the sport and everyone goes for broke. As you can guess, Kyle Busch brought a great race car and took off from the start to easily win the first segment. At the start of segment two Busch pulled away to a 10 car lead but his engine soon gave up the hunt with a broken rocker arm leaving the battle to Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Edwards held off Jr and took the win in segment two. With a 10 minute break the teams adjusted on their cars and the race for the cash was on. Kasey Kahne who was voted into the All Star race by the fan vote charged to the front of the pack in the third segment. On the final pit stop before the fourth segment Kahne gambled with a gas only stop. The gamble helped Kahne advance his position and restart in second when the final 25 lap segment began. Biffle, who had led the final 11 laps of the third segment, took two tires and was mired back in traffic on the restart. Earnhardt seemed to have a handling problem in the final segment and fell out of contention. Kahne went on to win the million dollar prize and go from being out of the race earlier in the day to taking the big win. No one cares who came in second in the All Star race. The teams now get to work on their cars all week to get ready for the longest race of the season next Sunday. 600 miles at Charlotte is a real test of man and machine. The crew from the Charlotte branch, led by the Motorsports CSR, Charlie Barber and MSS Dave Monroe,were at the track this weekend entertaining a number of customers on Saturday night, good job guys.
Matt Crafton Gets First Win at Charlotte
Truck racing is the best and closest racing in NASCAR and on Friday night the fans saw one of the best ending to a Craftsman Truck race in history. The race at the Lowe's Motorspeedway was literally dominated by Kyle Busch early on and looked like he was on his way to win yet another race. Ron Hornaday however ended Busch's chances as he tried to pass Busch on the inside going into turn one. Hornaday'struck pushed up into Busch's Safety-Kleen sponsored truck causing both to spin down into the infield. That left Matt Crafton, driving for Thor Sports to battle with Chad McCumbee for the victory. On the restart after the final caution, Crafton who is sponsored by Safety-Kleen put a perfect block on McCumbee in turn 3 and went on to take his first win in 178 career starts. Brendan Gaughan finished third in another Safety-Kleen sponsored truck followed by Erik Darnell and Rick Crawford. Busch finished 13th after the wreck with points leader Ron Hornaday, who later suffered the same fate when he was hit from behind by Todd Bodine, Hornaday ended up finishing 23rd. Hornadays point lead was cut to five points over Crawford who are both Safety-Kleen drivers. The Truck teams are heading to Mansfield for next weeks contest.
NHRA in Thunder Valley
Thunder Valley is located on the backside of the famous Bristol Motorspeedway in the hills of northeast Tennessee and it always produces great side by side racing. On Sunday the rain played havoc with the schedule but in the finals it was Tony "the Sarge" Schumacher beating Don Prudoume's dragster driven by Larry Dixon in a 4.555 to 4.958 run in Top Fuel. In Funny Car the trophy went to Melanie Troxel who was up against Mike Neff, with both looking for a first national event win. Problems however on the starting line with Neff's car ended with Neff’s Mustang blowing up at 400 feet to give the win to Troxel. In Pro Stock Connolly defeated Greg Stanfield on a final-round holeshot in Pro Stock. The next race is in Topeka, Kansas. Mike Downey and his staff from the Piney Flatts branch dealt with the weather this weekend and serviced the NHRA teams -thanks for the good work.
Safety-Kleen 1-2-3 at Miller's in Utah
Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas led their teammates Sascha Maassen and Patrick Long to give the Penske Porsche a one-two in the American Le Mans Series race at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. For Safety-Kleen the day was also highlighted by Gil de Ferran who marked his return to motor racing taking third place in the de Ferran Motorsport Acura, even though he had to start last because of his spin in qualifying forced him to change tires before the race. The Audi team pushed Penske hard for victory,but both tangled with GT2 cars within minutes of each other in the closing stages of the race. Thanks to Mike Blanchard and the team from the Safety-Kleen branch in Salt Lake for all of the work at the Miller Motorsports Park this past weekend.
Drew's Observations:
- Can you imagine Dale Earnhardt Jr and Tony Stewart getting together to form a NASCAR team - I am hearing they are talking about the two superstars teaming together as owners. Another super team is on the way.
- Kyle Busch came out this weekend and dominated again until the engine went south with a broken rocker arm but the team will rally and they will be strong in the 600 next weekend.
- If you read that Greg Biffleis re-signing with Roush be skeptical. I say he is in the Home Depot Toyota at Joe Gibbs Racing next year.
- Dale Jarrett ran his last NASCAR Cup race on Saturday night. The 1999 Winston Cup Series points champion won 32 times including three Daytona 500 victories, now that's a great career. Now ESPN - he'll do a good job in the booth.
- NASCAR will come down on the teams this week and make them straighten the rear wheel on the Sprint Cars. Since Fontana the teams have been mounting the rear wheel -off center to get the cars to corner faster. No more says NASCAR.
- A bit of drama at the Indy 500 Bump Day on Sunday, Buddy Lazier made it into the last row but Mario Dominques crashed trying to push too hard to get into the race. Remember the last place starter makes $250,000 - just to take the green flag, not a bad pay day.
- AMA at Infineon this weekend went to the Texan Ben Spies now the championship battle is cut with Mladin leading just 242 to 233. Spies will close even closer in the races to come.
- Valentino Rossi took a dominating victory in the French MotoGP leading a Yamaha 1-2-3 win. Jorge Lorenzo finishing second and Colin Edwards in third. This is the Italian's 90th Grand Prix victory moving him to second on the all-time winners list, tied with Spaniard Angel Nieto.
- ALMS sports cars raced at Miller Motorsports Park outside of Salt Lake City this weekend and the end of the race proved that this is really great sports car racing. Check out the ALMS race at Lime Rock next weekend. I got the de Ferran'steam.
- Grand Am sports cars at Laguna Seca-Ryan Dalziel took the lead from Scott Pruett on a three-wide pass on Lap 76 and held Marc Goossensby 1.504 seconds to give SAMAX its first Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series win.
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May 19, 2008
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