BRIAN VICKERS TO MISS REMAINDER OF 2013 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SEASON
Surprising and Not Surprising: Charlotte Bank of America 500
In the ‘home game’ for NASCAR in the heart of race country, here is what was surprising and not surprising in the 54th annual Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Surprising: Who knew that dragging a jack for a lap would result in a victory lap? That was the case for the driver of the Blue Deuce Brad Keselowski, who finally got his first win under his belt for the season. Keselowski also scored his first ever win in a Ford, as well as his first victory at Charlotte.
“I thought when we saw the jack under the car I said, ‘Here we go again, not a good night,’ but at the end of the day when it was time to go and we raced the best because it was Brad behind the wheel that made it,” Roger Penske, team owner of the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford, said. “It wasn’t a fuel economy run, it was him digging deep and bringing us to victory lane, so it was a great night for us.”
Not Surprising: If a crack in the armor exists for five-time champ Jimmie Johnson it would be restarts and the driver of the No. 48 Lowes Dover White Chevrolet had yet another challenge in that regard at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
As a result of a late race caution, Johnson yet again struggled on the final restart, resulting in a fourth place finish.
“Down in (turns) one and two, just in the dirty air I pushed the No. 5 off into (turn) one,” Johnson said. “He didn’t get the best restart and something to do with that combo got me off the bottom and a couple of cars got into the side of me.”
“If we could have come out of the pits second and start on the front row, it would have been a much different result for us,” Johnson continued. “But it didn’t happen.”
“Just lost track position which was unfortunate.”
As a result of this finish, Johnson sits just four points behind point’s leader Matt Kenseth.
Surprising: Speaking of the point’s leader, the third time surprisingly was a charm for championship contender Matt Kenseth.
“There is a feel that I always look for and when I don’t have it, I can’t go very fast,” the driver of the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota said. “Until the third adjustment, we just couldn’t get it.”
“Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) found something that really woke it up and made the car happy and made me happy and we were able to start making some ground.”
Kenseth finished third, maintained his points lead, and posted his 15th top-10 finish in 29 races at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Not Surprising: Past gremlins rearing their ugly heads again cost both Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. their best finishes.
Busch, driving the No. 18 M&Ms Toyota, suffered loose lug nuts due to a pit road miscommunication and also a fuel pick up issue to finish fifth.
“We had the same thing in the third Chase race back in 2008,” Busch said of his engine issue. “So it doesn’t surprise me something’s back.”
“Pretty frustrating,’’ Busch continued. “We should be happy about (fifth), but when it’s time for championship time, that’s not what you need.”
“We need wins, and we can’t win.’’
Dale Junior, making his 500th career start, had some sort of vibration in the car that resulted in a 15th place finish in spite of his leading laps during the race.
“The car just got really tight,” Dale Jr., driver of the No. 88 Time Warner Cable Chevrolet, said. “Something in the set-up moved, but the car was real quick at the start of the race.”
“It just would not turn at all the last half of the race pretty much,” Junior continued. “We are just kind of trying to figure out what is going on.”
“We will get it back and figure it out when we get to the shop on Monday.”
Busch sits fifth in points at 37 points behind leader Kenseth and Junior fell one position to ninth and is now 66 points behind the point’s leader.
Surprising: Both Hendrick teammates made surprisingly good decisions in just taking two tires instead of four for the final restart. Kasey Kahne, HMS driver of the No. 5 Quaker State Chevrolet, finished in the runner up position with his two tires and teammate Jeff Gordon, behind the wheel of the No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet, finished seventh.
“Yeah, we had a great race,” Kahne said. “I was on two (tires) and I was trying to move around, but I was just a little bit on the tight side with the front end, then I would get loose if I got the front working.”
“I was doing all I could and felt pretty good, but Brad (Keselowski, winner) made some nice moves and just really had some speed there late in the race and was able to get by me.”
“It was a solid night,” Gordon said. “It was a great call there to try to make two (tires) work.”
“Our car was just way too tight to be able to do it and we lost a few more positions than I was hoping,” Gordon continued. “But it was still solid.”
While Gordon remains in the fourth place in the Chase, 36 points behind the leader, Kahne on the other hand, is in the 13th position, 81 points back and essentially out of contention.
Not Surprising: Mark Martin had the most interesting comeback after blowing an engine after just 80 completed laps and spewing fluid all over the track.
The driver, substituting for Tony Stewart in the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevrolet ended up finishing a disappointing 42nd as a result.
But when a fan tweeted Martin “@markmartin Should’ve mention this earlier but you should retire,” things got very interesting. In fact, the usually affable driver surprising replied with just four words, tweeting “You should screw yourself,” thus scoring the best comeback of the Charlotte race.
Surprising: Speaking of the Stewart-Haas bunch, Ryan Newman salvaged a surprisingly good finish after struggling most of the night. Thanks to a four tire call on the last pit stop, Newman was able to get an eighth place finish for the No. 39 Quicken Loans Chevrolet.
“We came out of here with a decent finish, but we struggled a little bit tonight,” Newman said. “I just didn’t have the overall speed.”
“Matt (Borland, crew chief) made the call to take four tires at the end, but we weren’t able to gain spots like I thought we would knowing that a lot of the guys ahead of us took two,” Newman continued. “All in all, it’s good to complain about a top-10 finish, but we expected a little more than that tonight.”
Not Surprising: Until his engine blew, young up and coming driver Kyle Larson, making his Cup debut in the No. 51 Target Chevrolet, had a great run going. In fact, he was running in the top ten for a bit, far surpassing many of his more seasoned competitors, including future teammate Jamie McMurray.
“Obviously, the guy is ready,” Chip Ganassi, team owner said of his 2014 driver. “Some of the smarter people in the sport have said that maybe a Cup car is more like his style than a Nationwide car.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened,” Ganassi continued. “Time will tell, but the guy is ready.”
Surprising: For one Chase contender, the contest at Charlotte Motor Speedway was all about a battle until the death, well almost.
“We survived,” Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet, said after finishing sixth. “Yeah we got a decent finish, but our car was terrible all night.”
“The restart went our way there at the end and we were able to get a decent finish out of it.”
Harvick maintained his third place in the Chase standings, just 29 points, similar to his car number, behind point’s leader Kenseth.
Not Surprising: There is at least one driver who is looking forward to the next race at Talladega after finishing 14th in his No. 78Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet.
“We had an upbeat feeling about tonight after two strong practices on Friday but nothing really materialized for us to make a charge,” Busch said. “It’s disappointing to finish where we did (14th) after having a number of solid runs on the mile-and-a-half’s, including last week’s runner-up finish in Kansas.”
“Next week we’ll give it another go in the Wonder bread car at Talladega.”
Where did we go?
I took a moment and reflected on myself and racing fans the day of Dario Franchiti’s horrific accident. It came to me how similar this incident was to NASCAR’s horrific accident in the Nationwide Series in Daytona when we all held our breath and prayed for the fans that were hurt. Thankfully Kyle Larson was not injured. When I went on twitter, I was amazed at the tweets with prayers and how NASCAR fans found that common ground and became one united family, tweeting #NascarStrong and more. No one cared who your favorite driver was, we were all going to unite and support each other, we were a family.
Then I looked at how we did the same thing the day Dario was in the accident even though it wasn’t a NASCAR event we became one again. Our prayers were of healing, our thoughts of the family and fans that were injured and how it was like Daytona all over again and then it hit me where did all that go? Why did it take such a horrific crash to bring us back together? How did we go from Daytona to caring so much about each other to just literally being full of hate because of some fans favorite drivers?
I have seen fans bullied because they like Kyle Busch or Jimmie Johnson and I don’t understand why the hate? What gives us the audacity to hate those drivers that put their lives on the line for the glory,some for the money perhaps, some for the love of the racing, and mostly for us the fans. Some of these drivers paid the ultimate price like Dale Earnhardt Sr., Neil Bonnett, and Dan Wheldon. Some drivers paid indirectly like Dick Trickle, Davey Allison and Alan Kulwicki, yet here we are wishing drivers to crash? What type of fan wishes any driver harm? Why? I have my driver and I have those I do not care for, but to wish them to crash? I have seen some saying Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart got what they deserved?
My point is after Daytona I was proud to be a racing fan. I was proud that we were united and the hate was gone. I was proud of the sport and who I was as a fan then I realized I wasn’t proud anymore not even of myself, I too got caught up in the tornado of what fans can be and you know what? I didn’t like what I saw until Franchiti’s crash. That reminded me of the fan I want to be. I want to be proud again. What kind of fan do you want to be? I know I hope not to get lost in that tornado again.
These are just my feelings, like them or not, agree with them or not, read it or not, it doesn’t change the truth. Look in the mirror when you are saying hateful things about drivers that did nothing to you personally, ask yourself is this the kind of fan you want to be?
Brad Keselowski cashes-in at the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte
Last year’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion, Brad Keselowski, grabs his first victory of the 2013 season tonight in the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Keselowski’s win marks the first time since Kasey Kahne won at Phoenix International Raceway in 2011 that a non-Chase contender has been to victory lane during the postseason.
In victory lane, Keselowski said, “It was just a never-give-up night. We had a lot of struggles tonight. We didn’t qualify well, but we kept working our way forward. I knew we had a good car. I’m not sure we were as good as the 48 or the 5. I never got to really race them until the end and they had two tires, so I think we were probably pretty even. When Paul made the call to take four tires and I saw we were that close to the front, I knew we could get them.”
During the final laps of the race Brad Keselowski and Kasey Kahne raced hard and battled for the victory.
When asked about racing Kasey, Brad said, “I love hard racing and there are a handful of guys you can’t race hard with in this deal because they freak out, but Kasey is not one of them. He’s an excellent driver and he ran me hard, but he ran me clean and that’s great racing. I’m proud to race with him. He did a hell of a job and deserves a lot of credit for it, but, at the end of the day, the Miller Lite Ford Fushion was just fast and we persevered.”
Driver of the No. 5 Quaker State Chevrolet, Kasey Kahne, ended the night with a second place finish. This makes Kahne’s 12th top-10 finish in twenty races at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and his 12th top-10 finish in 2013. After leading 138 laps during the race and finishing in second place, Kahne ends the night thirteenth in the points for the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship, eighty-one points behind leader Matt Kenseth.
After starting the Bank of America 500 in 20th position, Chase leader Matt Kenseth, had a respectable night working through the field, ending the night with a third place finish. Kenseth now has a four point lead in the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship over driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Dover White Chevrolet, Jimmie Johnson.
In the media center after the race, Kenseth commented on his thoughts about the night and being the Chase points leader halfway through the Chase. He said, “Yeah, I mean, you want to be the points leader after the second half is the most important. But yeah, certainly glad we’re still leading. Tonight was a big positive for us. It was a little bit of a struggle this weekend more than we anticipated. I didn’t get a good lap qualifying, and that was really the start of us being behind tonight.”
Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion, Jimmie Johnson, further closed the gap between him and Matt Kenseth tonight in the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship. Johnson led 130 laps and after a rocky restart during the last caution of the race, he posted a fourth place finish.
When asked about the final restart and what happened to make him drop back, Johnson said, “Down in (turns) one and two just in the dirty air I pushed the No. 5 off into (turn) one. He didn’t get the best restart and something to do with that combo got me off the bottom and a couple of cars got into the side of me. If we could have come out second which was really close with the No. 24 and start on the front row I think it would have been a much different result for us, but it didn’t happen. We led some laps tonight, had a good car. I’m not sure what happened in the points, but I know it’s awfully tight up there right now.”
After winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series race last night, driver of the No. 18 M & M’s Toyota, Kyle Busch, came up short tonight in the Bank of America 500. Hoping to win his first Cup race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Busch posted a fifth place finish.
When asked what it is that is keeping him from winning races, Busch said, “I think it’s everything. There at the end, I’m sure if Jimmie (Johnson) would have taken two (tires) he would have stormed off and kicked everybody’s butt. They took four, they gambled on the soft side and it bit them a little bit tonight. They lost a point to the 20 (Matt Kenseth), but they were good enough to win. So, they have something to hang their hat on—we don’t.”
Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, and Carl Edwards rounded out the top ten with sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth places, respectively.
With five races to go in the Chase to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship, the next race will be the Camping World RV Sales 500 next week at Talladega Superspeedway.
NASCAR Driver Travis Kvapil Example of Statistical Probability of Domestic Violence
While the NASCAR community, drivers and fans alike, reacted with surprise, shock and dismay to learn of the spousal abuse charges filed against Travis Kvapil, the driver is sadly just one example of the statistical probability of domestic violence rearing its head, this time in the sport of NASCAR.
In fact, statistics show that one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime and that an estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.
So, with domestic violence being so prevalent in all walks of life, the statistical probability that this would occur in the sport of NASCAR should be no surprise. And sadly, Travis Kvapil’s wife Jennifer has now become one of those statistics.
The news broke earlier this week when it was announced that Kvapil had been arrested by the Mooresville, North Carolina police and charged with assault and false imprisonment. Police responded to a 911 call to the Kvapil home, where they determined that an episode of domestic violence was serious enough to be considered a misdemeanor case of assault.
Thankfully, in the Kvapil situation, the domestic violence statistics involving serious harm, where every day in the United States more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends, did not come to pass.
According to the arrest report, obtained by both USA TODAY Sports and the Sporting News, Jennifer Kvapil suffered no serious injuries in spite of being allegedly struck in the head and pulled into her bedroom by her hair.
After the incident, Kvapil was booked, held overnight in the Iredell County Jail and freed on a $2,000 bond after his court appearance. Kvapil is scheduled to return to court on November 19th, 2013.
One of the domestic violence statistics that Kvapil has defied, at least to date, is the economic impact, as the cost nationally of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion per year. In Kvapil’s case he was cleared to compete in the Charlotte race by both the sanctioning body and by his team BK Racing.
Both BK Racing and NASCAR, however, made clear that they did not condone what happened and would be carefully monitoring the progress of events, including his upcoming court case.
“NASCAR does not condone the actions with which Travis Kvapil has been charged and we are disappointed to learn of this incident,” a NASCAR statement read. “We have been in close communication with the race team and are in the process of gathering as much information as possible.”
“NASCAR takes this matter very seriously and will continue to monitor the situation as it moves forward.”
“BK Racing understands the severity of the situation and we don’t condone the actions that Travis has been accused of,” Ron Devine, BK Racing team co-owner, said. “We feel it’s important to let the system take its course.”
“For that reason, we have elected to support Travis and his family and keep Travis in the car for this weekend’s race,” the BK Racing statement continued. “Further comment will be available as additional information becomes available.”
But even with the allowance of his sport and team to continue racing at least for this weekend, Kvapil acknowledged that further economic impact for him, his family, and the team may be yet to come.
“I’m sure there’s certainly sponsors, the manufacturer, everybody is going to have to take a close look at this,” Kvapil said. “Obviously I represent a number of supporters of BK Racing, and I’m the face of that.”
“Certainly there could be an impact there.”
In addition to the statistically proven economic impact of domestic violence, Kvapil will also need to attend to a very important statistic related to his children, as up to 10 million children annually witness some sort of domestic violence, which can also lead to the perpetuation of violence as they grow into adulthood.
Kvapil is currently not permitted to return to his home and his only contact with his wife and three children will be by phone or email.
“I don’t want to downplay it, certainly,” Kvapil said. “It’s a serious situation, and we’re going to go through all the right courses and handle it correctly.”
“This is a personal, family matter and I deeply regret what happened.”
While Kvapil has asked for privacy so that he and his family can hopefully work out their issues as well as allowing the situation to move through the legal process, the issue has now become a very public one for him, his team and the sport.
Much has been written about whether or not Kvapil should be allowed to race, however, the most important aspect of the situation has not yet been addressed.
This situation, as difficult as it is, can also be an opportunity for all involved in the sport of NASCAR to highlight the issue of domestic violence and the help that is available for anyone in this situation.
In fact, since October is Domestic Violence Awareness month and ironically, the BK Racing team was going to sport decals proclaiming this prior to the incident, all involved in the sport should take a moment to share the most important statistic, that domestic violence can happen to anyone, regardless of race, age, sexual orientation, religion or gender.
As has been demonstrated in the Kvapil case, domestic violence can and does affect people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, even those who are followed and adored by many because they have the privilege of driving race cars for a living.
The case of Travis Kvapil should remind everyone associated with the sport of NASCAR, drivers, teams, officials and fans alike, that although it can and has happened to someone intimately involved in the sport, help is available to anyone in this type of a situation.
For further information about domestic violence or to get more involved in calling attention to the issue, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or the domestic violence organization in your home community.
