Surprising and Not Surprising: Monster Mile FedEx 400
With Miles the Monster rearing his ugly head in more ways than one, here is what was surprising and not surprising from the 45th annual FedEx 400 benefiting Autism Speaks at Dover International Speedway.
Surprising: The winning crew chief, usually the one of the most up-tight people in the garage area as even he admits, must have been inspired by Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ song that played pre-race at the Monster Mile.
Chad Knaus, crew chief for two-time 2014 winner, nine-time Dover winner, and six-time champ Jimmie Johnson, was surprisingly animated in expressing his happiness in the media center after the race.
“Quite honestly I’m at the best point in my life,” Knaus said. “I’ve been very fortunate to have been in this sport for a long time.”
“I’ve seen it grow and change, and it’s been a weird circuitous route to get to where we are now, but quite honestly, I’ve never been happier in my life – with my personal life, my performance at the racetrack, what we’ve got going on, and Jimmie has helped a lot with that,” Knaus continued. “So has Mr. Hendrick as far as making me understand that I’ve got to take time away from the facility and understand that there’s life outside of motorsports.”
“I’ve tried for a long time to deny that fact, but I’m really, really enjoying it all the way around,” Knaus said. “It’s fun. It’s busy as ever, but we’re in a good spot right now.”
“Everything is great.”
Not Surprising: Clint Bowyer did his best impression of Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’, at least in the minds of Joe Gibbs Racing, hitting Kyle Busch and knocking him out of the race early on and then getting into Matt Kenseth on the last restart, after Kenseth spun his tires a bit.
“It was a day alright,” Bowyer said. “I hated to be in that situation with the 18 (Kyle Busch). It’s one of those deals where I thought I was clear and obviously wasn’t and ruined his day and certainly didn’t help mine.”
“I had a pretty good run at him (Matt Kenseth) and he was still spinning when I hit him and I knocked him into the wall and I was like, ‘Not another (Joe) Gibbs (Racing) car.’ But what a day. Frustrating day.”
Bowyer did swing back, however, scoring a fourth place finish in his No. 15 Cherry5-hrEnergySpecialOpsWarriorFnd Toyota.
Surprising: For only the third time in the past few years, including Martinsville and Daytona, the track itself became part of the headline as a piece of concrete two to three inches deep and six to eight inches wide dislodged, damaging Jamie McMurray’s car as well as the Monster Mile walkway.
The red flag was displayed for 22 minutes and 22 seconds as NASCAR and the track officials made repairs to the hole in the concrete as well as the shattered area of the walkway.
“We have equipment and we have product at every facility,” Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s Vice President of Competition and Racing Operations, said. “It is an epoxy type filler that we use, and it’s basically the same filler that’s used any time we make a repair at the track, whether it be asphalt or concrete.”
“The track doesn’t want things like this to happen any more than we do or the competitors do,” Pemberton continued. “You always have to be ready for the emergencies and everybody wants to have the same perfect race day as they can.”
Not Surprising: Jamie McMurray was not the only one impacted by unexpected objects encountered on the race track. Martin Truex Jr.’s car was hit by a bird in practice on Friday at the Monster Mile, causing damage to the left headlight area.
For once, however, the driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet, was able to overcome the adversity, scoring his best finish to date in 2014 in the sixth position.
“All in all, it was a good day,” Truex said. “You can just feel that we’re heading in the right direction.”
“And all the dumb luck we’ve had didn’t bite us today,” the New Jersey native said. “Dover has been good to me over the years and it was also a great feeling to bring home a strong effort at what I consider my home track.”
Surprising: Brett Moffitt made his debut in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for Jay Robinson Racing and scored a very respectable 22nd place finish in the No. 66 Land Castle Title Toyota. The 21 year old, who tests for Michael Waltrip Racing and Toyota Racing Development, combined that relationship with the Robinson team for the opportunity.
“Hopefully this will open up more opportunities,” Moffitt said. “Obviously I hope this leads to more races…it’s just about having the right people beside you telling you, ‘Look man, you can do this, just keep digging.’”
“That’s what I’ve been doing.”
Not Surprising: Starting at the back of the pack due to an engine change did not deter this young driver one bit. Kyle Larson, behind the wheel of the No. 42 Cottonelle Chevrolet, weaved and bobbed his way through the field to finish as the highest placed rookie yet again.
Larson finished eleventh and is nineteen points ahead of Austin Dillon in the Rookie of the Year standings to date.
Surprising: Team Penske had what looked like a good race weekend at the Monster Mile, with Brad Keselowski starting from the pole position and Joey Logano starting third. Both drivers finished the race in the top-10, with Keselowski in the runner up position and Logano in eighth but were surprisingly disappointed after the race, especially about their performance in the pits.
“Yeah, we just had an up-and-down day,” the driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford said. “I started up front and faded to the back pretty early in the race. We just weren’t where we needed to be in the car.”
“I thought we were going to get a crack at Jimmie (Johnson) and then that last caution came out and we just kind of whiffed on pit road, came out way behind.”
“I drove back up there, and with the help of the restart got up to second but we just never could really get in front of him.”
“We weren’t very good today,” the driver of the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford said. “Some runs we were and some runs we weren’t. We had a tough day on pit road in the beginning.”
“We were chasing the car all day and that is what screwed us up.”
Not Surprising: Team Penske was not the only one having trouble in the pits. Kevin Harvick, who has been vocal in the media about his disappointment in his team’s performance, struggled yet again.
The driver of the No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet had eight stops on pit road, for a total average of 42.074 seconds. Harvick and company finished 17th one lap down, after starting the race in the eighth position.
Surprising: In spite of his difficulties, including getting hit by the No. 47 of AJ Allmendinger, crashing hard into the wall, and being in the garage for an extended period for repairs, Greg Biffle and his Pit Bulls were able to keep their streak of completing every race going, the longest in the sport since 2011.
“I didn’t really know what happened,” the driver of the No. 16 3M Ford said. “I just knew that the No. 47 got into us pretty hard and turned us into the fence. They were racing hard back there and he stuck it into a hole that maybe there wasn’t room for, I guess and he slid off the bottom, got his right-rear caught by the No. 17 and up into us.”
“It was a chain reaction,” Biffle continued. “This place is tight and fast and when you get racing that hard back there on a restart, stuff like that is going to happen.”
Not Surprising: Although four-time champ Jeff Gordon seemingly had a good car early on, he faded late in the race to finish 15th, which not surprisingly handed the points lead off to third place finisher Matt Kenseth.
Kenseth now leads by just two points over Gordon, with Carl Edwards third, Jimmie Johnson fourth and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. rounding out the top five in the point standings after the Monster Mile.
USMC Staff Sgt. Liam Dwyer, IMSA Race Winner, Shares Can Do Attitude with NASCAR Community
Last week’s IMSA race winner at Lime Rock, USMC Staff Sergeant Liam Dwyer visited the world of NASCAR this past race weekend in Dover, Delaware to experience the sights and sounds of stock car racing and to share his inspirational message of overcoming obstacles and achieving dreams.
Dwyer, currently still on active duty stationed out of Walter Reed, joined the Marines in 2000 after hearing about the bombing of US Navy Destroyer USS Cole. He was deployed both to Iraq and Afghanistan where he suffered serious wounds, including the loss of his left leg after an IED explosion.
In spite of his injuries, Dwyer never gave up on his dream to be behind the wheel of a race car. And he achieved that dream and so much more with a win in the IMSA Continental Challenge at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut.
In typical and humble fashion, Dwyer credited his victory to his team, his co-driver, and all those who stood with him throughout his journey of rehabilitation.
“Last week’s win, everyone is giving me all the praise for it, but the praise really goes to Mazda and my team,” Dwyer said. “I wrecked the car at Mazda Raceway three weeks prior so that was a write off. So, the team had a five-day turnaround. They built a complete new car with 360 man hours and six days later, they were driving up to Lime Rock Park in Connecticut.”
“The car was fast right off the trailer and the team was really good,” Dwyer continued. “Qualifying was rained out so the field was set by points. We started second to last out of the 33 car field. Based on pit strategy, some good driving (a little bit on my part bit a lot on my co-driver Tom Long’s part), we came out with ‘W’ there at my home track at my home state.”
Dwyer’s interest in cars started in his childhood and has continued to this day.
“I grew up with an affection with cars,” Dwyer said. “I had been to Lime Rock numerous times as a child to watch the old IMSA Series there. Actually in high school is when I got interested in racing. I really started doing time trials after Iraq that I had a skill for it. I didn’t start getting faster until after Afghanistan.”
“I’m a Skip Barber Racing School grad back to 2007,” Dwyer continued. “But I got my break two years ago with High Performance Heroes, a vintage car team that found me at VIR.”
“They decided they wanted to build a race car for me,” Dwyer continued. “They built a 1962 Austin Healy Sprite and in 2012 I had some odd success with that. Freedom Auto Sports is a team that is all about supporting veterans and active duty personnel. They wanted to help me out and they started following me. After the season I had last year, they took notice and I got a phone call to go test at Sebring.”
“I’ve had some really good people around me that have gotten me to where I am today.”
Dwyer detailed the adjustments that had to be made to his car, even removing his prosthetic leg to demonstrate.
“One of the biggest challenges we face is that we have to do a driver change,” Dwyer said. “I still operate a normal clutch. That’s been our biggest challenge because my foot needs to stay attached to the clutch. But I also need to get out of the car quickly for driver changes.”
“So, they have designed a system for me that allows me to do both. Our driver change system in no way aids or hinders me getting in and out of the car.”
While Dwyer has achieved many of his own racing goals, he was most anxious to experience first-hand the world of stock car racing at the Monster Mile.
“I’ve been a NASCAR fan since really before I can remember,” Dwyer said. “I was an Alan Kulwicki fan back in the late 1980s, and after that a Davey Allison fan, and then an Ernie Irvan fan so I did not strike very well with choosing drivers.”
“But since 1999, I’ve been a Tony Stewart fan. I’ve really grown to like Kurt Busch over the last two years because of all he is doing for the Armed Forces Foundation,” Dwyer continued. “I know Kurt Busch personally. I met him twice at the hospital. We were at Walter Reed last year and the NASCAR guys came in.”
“I was on my way to a race that weekend and met him again,” Dwyer said. “I called him out to a go kart race and he took me up on that. He beat me by about 4/10s of a second.”
In addition to his excitement with seeing the NASCAR drivers, Dwyer also was on another mission, that of sharing his words of inspiration to others.
“Having been a NASCAR fan almost my entire life and being at some of the races, just to be here at the track means a lot,” Dwyer said. “I’ve gotten to meet some of the drivers and they have been so hospitable.”
“My message here is to really say that people look at me and say I’ve been dealt a pretty crappy hand being an amputee and with the other injuries that I have to my body,” Dwyer continued. “No matter what we face in life, no matter what challenges we face, the key is staying positive. There are people out there worse off than you. There are people out there that have had it worse than me.”
“I look at everybody and what challenges they are facing and I think this population has become so attuned to if we face adversity, we just give up,” Dwyer continued. “A lot of people stop striving for their dreams at that point. This has only made me drive further. I’ve been dealt this hand and it is really a blessing. I’m fully aware that the only way that I have the opportunities I have now and to go racing and to be here is because of my injuries.”
“If people could start looking at things in a more positive light, there would be less darkness,” Dwyer said. “That’s the biggest message that I can share with people is that for the rest of our lives we should strive to do things and be more positive. I’m a very good example of no matter the hand you are dealt, I’ve made lemonade out of a shitty batch of lemons.”
So, what is next for this fearless competitor as he completes his tour of duty with the Marines and pursues his racing passion?
“My goal in life right now is that I want to race the 24 hours of Daytona and maybe the 24 hours of Le Mans,” Dwyer said. “I’m also hoping to work something out where I can get to the track and still be a Marine.”
“And if I can inspire others to get out there and do things that they thought were difficult, then that’s what I want to do.”
