Archives for Motorsports

Marcos Ambrose Extends Record of Road Racing Bad Luck

August 30th 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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The hits just keep on coming for Marcos Ambrose in his bid to take checkered flags when NASCAR has a road course event.

Ambrose, NASCAR's resident Aussie and a road racing phenom, once again saw a better-than-good shot at winning Sunday's Nationwide Series race in Montreal slip away -- just, of course, as he was preparing to drive away from the competition.

A faulty battery and a miserable attempt at trying to change it in the pits dropped Ambrose from the lead to two laps down quicker than a spectator could have made a trip to the concession stand.

The sad part of all of this is that you could have almost seen it coming as well as he raced, making a wild save with his car completely sideways in the grass while charging for the lead, or when he stalked Carl Edwards and passed the No. 99 for the race's top spot.

 

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NASCAR’s Dirty Dozen Video Highlights

August 24th 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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Squeaky clean, technically correct racing has long been the ideal of road racers around the world, who frown on race car contact and driver disputes.

NASCAR has never been able to handle such pretentiousness.

There's just been too many Earnhardts, Wallaces, Waltrips and the like for an American racing series like NASCAR -- born from hardscrabble roots -- to develop a pattern of incident-free, drama-free competition.

Sure, times have changed during the official 61-year history of NASCAR-sanctioned races. Fans could certainly argue that more vanilla has been added to the mix thanks to corporate interest and sponsorship, sometimes deadening the type of controversy that can make lap 62 of a 500-lap race an edge-of-your-seat experience.

 

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Spotter’s Stand: Kahne Passed 100 Cars To Finish Fifth At Bristol

August 23rd 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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Kasey Kahne's fifth-place effort Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway earned his No. 9 team a cool $158,465.

There's no denying he earned every penny.

Kahne was the most prolific passer during the 500-lapper, according to NASCAR's loop data, after making exactly 100 green flag passes for position -- 12 more than second-best Brad Keselowski.

Keselowski, though, finished 19th. For a better comparison to Kahne and his past-happy, top-five run, Clint Bowyer finished fourth after making 27 fewer passes Saturday night.

Why did Kahne -- obviously with a good-handling race car -- have to work so hard to squeak out a top-five run?

It's simple: A pit road speeding penalty can really hurt.

 

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Aric Almirola Gets Fresh Start With JR Motorsports

August 19th 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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A driver who has bounced around all three of NASCAR's top divisions may have finally latched on to a consistent ride for next season.

JR Motorsports -- owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- announced Wednesday that Aric Almirola will be their full-time Nationwide Series driver in 2011, with the opportunity to make a few starts in the No. 88 at the end of this season.

"We raced at ORP together a month ago and had a really good run," Almirola said in a team news release after being announced to the JR Motorsports shop. "There is no reason why we cannot compete like that every race, and there is no reason why we shouldn't be running for a championship. I would expect nothing less."

No sponsor has been announced for the team for next season -- an issue that caused this season's original full-time No. 88 driver to leave the team. Kelly Bires signed with JRM for the season only to be released from the team after the sixth race at Phoenix.

 

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Spotter’s Stand: At Slumping Hendrick Motorsports, Last Top Five Was July 10

August 16th 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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Jimmie Johnson took home top honors for the Hendrick Motorsports camp in Sunday's Carfax 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway.

That's not surprising, Johnson being a four-time defending champion of the series and all. What is surprising, though, is that Johnson took best-of-Hendrick honors at Michigan with a lowly 12th-place finish.

Thanks to the team's sub-par showing, the Cup series hasn't seen a Hendrick-owned Chevrolet finish in the top-five for four consecutive races. That span -- races at Indianapolis, Pocono, Watkins Glen and Michigan -- marks the first time since 2002 that Hendrick hasn't been represented in the top five for four consecutive weeks.

The last Hendrick top five was on July 10 at Chicagoland, when Jeff Gordon finished third.

Gordon, despite starting 36th after his worst qualifying effort in a year and a half, looked to be the one carrying the Hendrick banner at Michigan with a mid-race march that moved him to second. After a poor restart dropped him back, Gordon suffered a cut tire and enough contact from Jeff Burton to change the aerodynamic handling of his No. 24.

 

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NASCAR Swings, Misses With 2011 Schedule Plans

August 11th 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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I'm surprised, but I know I shouldn't be.

NASCAR made some changes this week in what we can now call "The Great Three-Days-and-Counting Schedule Reveal of 2010" with Kentucky Speedway adding its face to the Sprint Cup Series while biannual attendance-bust Auto Club Speedway lost what should have never been its: a second Cup date.

And, oh, Chicagoland Speedway will now earn page five in the sports sections of the Chicago newspaper coverage, buried by the NFL, when it opens the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup with a Sunday afternoon race. Meanwhile, Kansas Speedway will now feature two humdrum events at its cookie-cutter, 1.5-mile track.

So much for the "impactful changes" that NASCAR CEO Brian France alluded to at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway before the Brickyard 400 just a couple of weeks ago.

Where was the boldness? Where was the dramatic move to charge up what just became more of a tired mess of tracks for the 10-race championship chase? And why in the world are recent track lighting projects now going virtually unused for their biggest events?

 

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Spotter’s Stand: Kurt Busch Proving To Be a Title Contender

August 10th 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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A second-place finish in the most recent race does not make a driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series an instant championship contender.

But Kurt Busch, riding a wave of good finishes with just a few recent blemishes (one caused by Jimmie Johnson), has vaulted into a position of dark-horse favorite for the 2010 title.

The 2004 series champ and driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge passed Marcos Ambrose late in the going of Sunday's race at Watkins Glen to earn his fourth-career top-five on a road course, and made up some ground from a disappointing finish just a week before.

"It's a solid finish. The tough part is a 33rd last week, a second today, you divide that by two, that's 17 and a half," Busch said Sunday. "That doesn't get it done when you're in the Chase. It does help ease the pain as far as where we are in points."

Busch was battling Clint Bowyer and Jimmie Johnson for a position in the top 10 a week ago at Pocono Raceway when Johnson nudged the No. 2 a little hard down while bump-drafting as they raced along the backstretch. Busch slapped the outside and then inside wall, earning a DNF to go with a 33rd-place finish.

 

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NASCAR to Start 2011 Chase in Chicago, Other Changes Loom

August 9th 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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Chicagoland Speedway took the fall as the first domino in NASCAR's realignment of the 2011 schedule it was announced on Monday by track and NASCAR officials.

The 1.5-mile track in Joliet, Ill. -- roughly 45 minutes from downtown Chicago -- will open NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup with a day race on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2011.

For Chicago, it means their NASCAR Sprint Cup date moves from its original slot in mid-July and the racing moves to the afternoon following three years of night racing at the track. The Sunday race in September could put the action into direct fan competition with the NFL's Chicago Bears at a track that fell short in trying fill its modest grandstands less than a month ago.

The lights at Chicagoland Speedway were installed in a multi-million dollar project before the 2007 NASCAR race in a bid to increase attendance from the day race they'd had in July -- often a hot and humid proposition.

For NASCAR -- which confirmed Chicago would be the only new track in NASCAR's 10-race playoff format -- it means New Hampshire Motor Speedway will either lose or change its first date inside the Chase. Auto Club Speedway has also been rumored to be losing its Chase date.

If the two-mile ACS does in fact leave the Chase, Chicago's addition will mean the Sprint Cup Series will race half of the championship battle on 1.5-mile tracks.

 

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Spotter’s Stand: Jeff Gordon’s Closing Woes Continue

August 3rd 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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The rain trickled from the sky while Jeff Gordon sat inside his parked black-and-orange, front-running No. 24 in turn one of Pocono Raceway, waiting for safety crews to clean up the unbelievable crash involving Kurt Busch and Elliott Sadler on lap 166 of Sunday's race.

Gordon, suddenly an experienced weatherman, tried to decode over his team's radio the rate of which the rain was falling -- hoping it would be enough to stop the race for good and give Gordon his first Sprint Cup Series win in more than 15 months.

The rain, though, subsided and the race resumed, exposing a weakness that has plagued his race team all season: the inability to close out a race.

The No. 24 ended up sixth after leading some 39 laps while Greg Biffle scooted away to break a losing streak of his own.

 

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Safety of Pocono Raceway Concerns Drivers; Track Plans Changes

July 29th 2010 In Motorsports | 
by Geoffrey Miller

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NASCAR's trip to Pocono Raceway this weekend marks the 66th time the Sprint Cup Series will take the green flag around the unusual three-turn track.

The 2.5-mile triangular speedway features two high-speed straightaways, one moderately-banked corner, a harrowingly-fast left-hander for turn two and a long, flat turn three.

But to hear several drivers tell it, the track leads the pack in one not-so-good category: out-of-date safety elements.

"I don't know why one particular race track has not had all of those safety upgrades that all the other race tracks have," series point leader Kevin Harvick said last week at Indianapolis. "It's the only race track that we go to with a dirt bank and an Armco barrier on the inside and no catch fences along some of the walls."

"It's definitely the worst race track that we go to as far as SAFER barriers and catch fences and all the things that should be there."

Pocono is taking steps to rectify some of the issues in time for the 2011 races at the track by adding SAFER barriers along the inside of the track exiting turn one and down the Long Pond straightaway -- the longest in NASCAR. That announcement was made prior to the June race.

 

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