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Weekly Racing Update 032408
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News and Views from Drew Patey
Director, Motorsports
Wimmer Takes Safety-Kleen to Victory Lane
Scott Wimmer passed Richard Childress Racing teammate Clint Bowyer with 21 laps to go and held on to win and give Safety-Kleen a one-two finish in the Nationwide Series race on Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway. The Childress cars took the top two spots, six days after the team swept the top three positions in the Sprint Cup series race at Bristol. Wimmer edged Bowyer by 0.578 seconds for his sixth victory in 149 Nationwide Series starts and first since 2003. Carl Edwards was third, followed by Safety-Kleen's Brad Keselowski and Kelly Bires. Bowyer took the series points lead from Kevin Harvick, the fellow Childress Sprint Cup driver who skipped the Nashville race. Kyle Busch was the class of the field all day but spun on his own late in the race which set up the Wimmer-Bowyer battle to the flag. Special thanks to the Safety-Kleen crew from the Nashville branch for servicing the teams this week, Herb Allen and Teddy Pyle did a great job.
The Daytona 500 of short track racing is moving its date to January. This will be the sixth running of the championship and should be a great event once again. The venue is the Irwindale Speedway recently renamed the Toyota Speedway. Safety-Kleen is their environmental company and will be handling all the parts cleaning and fluid recycling for the event.
Trivia Time
Who won last year’s Toyota All Star challenge?
Respond to buddy.judy@safety-kleen.com with your answer and you will be entered to win an autograph from one of NASCAR’s top drivers.
Safety-Kleen Racing Go Carts!
Being so wrapped up in NASCAR and NHRA tracks and teams we sometimes forget about the teams that are out there every week spreading the Safety-Kleen message. We would like to focus in on Max Papis and his nephew Pietro Fitipaldide Cruz who represent Safety-Kleen all year long with their team. Max drives for Grand Am and ALMS teams and started a Kart team which he and his nephew drive for. As you can see whether it is in the pits using our degreaser or on the championship blocks they represent us well. For more info on Maxand Pietrogo to www.maxpapis.com.
Drew's Observations:
- After all of the talk about "points swapping" the NASCAR teams out of the Top 35 are rethinking the move. Maybe they are feeling the pressure from the fans and NASCAR to do the right thing...maybe..
- Nine former Champ Car entries will be on the 26-car grid for the first round of the merged IRL Indy Car Series at Homestead this coming weekend, great to see the two series as one.. now lets go racing...
- The ARCA teams traveled to Rockingham, NC to test this past weekend. The Rock, if they can put up "soft walls" the NASCAR boys will be back, and that would be great. The track was sold last year and will host an ARCA race in May.
- In the F1 race in Malaysia Kimi Raikkonen passed his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa before his first pit stop and then dominated the rest of the race. Massa later spun out of second place, giving the position to Robert Kubica, with Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren third. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton was held up in his charge from ninth on the grid by a pit-stop problem and ended up fifth. The McLaren's were put back 5 starting spots for blocking in qualifying -now play nice boys.
- Casey Stoner is the rider to watch in MotoGP as the series continues in Jerez next weekend, but watch out for Hayden and I can't wait to see the MotoGP stars at Indy in September.
- F1 racing is coming back to Indy next year and Safety-Kleen will be there. That will give the Indianapolis Motorspeedway the top four events in the world, The Indy 500, Brickyard 400, US MotoGP and the US Grand Prix.
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March 24, 2008
Nashville
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