NASCAR Cup Series

ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Gwaltney Ford Fusion – “That was a good run for us. Todd Parrott made a gutsy call there. We were horrible at the beginning of this race and I mean horrible. I don’t know how we didn’t go several laps down, but we fought hard all day. We fought for every position. We made all kinds of adjustments on this Ford Fusion all day and Todd Parrott made a great call there to take two tires at the end to get us some track position and it took off. I was really surprised at how fast it went on two tires, so I’m proud of everybody on this Gwaltney Ford Fusion. They worked really hard and we deserved this one.”

Jimmie Johnson’s victory in the TUMS Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway clinched the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Manufacturers’ Championship for Chevrolet. It is the 10th consecutive year, and the 36th time overall that the Bowtie Brand has captured the prestigious title in NASCAR’s top series.

Returning to his home track for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway , Timothy Peters showed his strength at the .526- mile short track early in the weekend. Peters backed up the fast, consistent laps he produced in both practice sessions by claiming the pole position in qualifying and set a blistering pace from the start of the 200 lap main event. By dodging all of the typical short track trouble all afternoon, Peters held his ground in the championship battle with a seventh place finish.

Since the end of Tums 500 qualifying session at Martinsville Speedway, media reports, social media and television have been buzzing about series points leader Brad Keselowski's 32nd place starting spot.

It was the never give up attitude that the James Buescher and his entire No.31 Great Clips team has adopted for the 2012 season, determining that they would never give up in any situation. Martinsville was one of those situations. Buescher remained poised and fought his team’s way back up to an unexpected top-10 finish. En route to the sixth-place finish, Buescher also captured the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) points lead with just three races to go in the 2012 season.

Richard Childress Racing teammates finished third (Joey Coulter), 12th (Kevin Harvick), 27th (Tim George Jr.) and 28th (Ty Dillon).

Miguel Paludo came to Martinsville Speedway prepared for short tempers and fierce short-track racing, only to have a late-race spin thwart his competitive efforts. Paludo remained patient and consistent throughout the 200-lap event, but brought out the final caution flag of the day on lap 188 when a spin, believed to be caused by a flat tire, put the Brazilian at the tail end of the field, costing him a top-10 finish at the series' shortest track.

Consider it batting practice or a nice warm-up for tomorrow’s Cup event at Martinsville. That’s what Denny Hamlin seemed to do on Saturday afternoon as he went out and won the Camping World Truck Series event, muscling his way past Matt Crafton with six laps to go.

Ryan Blaney (No. 29 Draw-Tite RAM) Finished 8th “We could definitely make up some spots on restarts. We weren’t really that good on the long run. Restarts get really tight and lose a lot of drive off long run but restarts I thought we could really move and gain spots and you know creep up there on the outside. That was definitely one of the widest races I’ve ever been in."

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Matt Kenseth gave Ford Racing a weekend sweep of the NASCAR Nationwide and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Kansas Speedway last weekend. This marks the third time in 2012 Ford has captured both events. The first came at Texas when Stenhouse won the Nationwide event and Greg Biffle took the Sprint Cup race. Watkins Glen International proved fertile ground in August when Carl Edwards took the checkered flag in Nationwide and Marcos Ambrose won in Sprint Cup.