NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Dover
Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.
1. Jimmie Johnson: Johnson was black-flagged for jumping the final restart at Dover, a mistake that most likely cost him his third win this season. After serving a drive-through penalty, Johnson finished 17th, one lap down.
“Much like NASCAR did by allowing the NRA to sponsor a race,” Johnson said, “I jumped the gun. Needless to say, I won’t be exchanging pleasantries with NASCAR any time soon. We’re certainly not ‘BFF’s.’ After getting black flagged, it appears I got ‘BF-F’d.’
“I don’t agree with the call. Obviously, it’s NASCAR’s last-ditch effort to add some color to the sport.”
2. Matt Kenseth: Kenseth’s day ended abruptly in Dover, as his engine blew on lap 159 with the lead. He finished 40th, his worst finish of the year, and fell one spot in the point standings to fourth, 74 behind Jimmie Johnson.
“That’s not the first engine to blow,” Kenseth said. “If it’s not our engine, it’s our ‘suspension’ holding us back. What do our engine and ‘suspension’ have in common? They both will ‘expire’ soon.”
“But there’s one good thing about blowing an engine. The faulty parts get burned beyond recognition. Ha! Take that, NASCAR inspectors.”
3. Carl Edwards: Edwards finished 14th at Dover, as Roush Fenway Racing cars all finished in the top 15. Edwards remained second in the point standings, 30 out of first.
“Roush cars took the 13th, 14th, and 15th spots,” Edwards said. “All week long, Ricky Stenhouse has been singing Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together.’ I guess Greg Biffle and I thought he was singing to us.
“But it remains to be seen what lasts longer for Stenhouse—his relationship, or his manhood.”
4. Kyle Busch: Busch led a race-high 150 laps and finished fourth in the Fed Ex 400 at Dover International Raceway, posting his sixth top 5 of the year. He is ninth in the Sprint Cup point standings, and trails Jimmie Johnson by 99.
“NASCAR races will soon be covered on TNT,” Busch said. “Interestingly enough, that’s home to the series Falling Skies. Fox recently became the home to a new series—Falling Cables.”
5. Clint Bowyer: Bowyer came home fourth at Dover, scoring the top finish for Michael Waltrip Racing. He moved up one spot to third in the point standings, and is 50 out of first.
“We’re still searching for our first win of the year,” Bowyer said. “It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘when.’ That also applies to the matter of whether a Toyota engine will explode. In that respect, Toyota’s got a lot of ‘whens’ this year.”
6. Kevin Harvick: After winning in Charlotte last week, Harvick finished eighth at Dover for his fifth top-10 result of the year. He is now fourth in the Sprint Cup point standings, 74 out of first.
“The finish at Dover begs the question,” Harvick said. “Who’s faster? Jimmy John’s or Jimmie Johnson. All I know is that Jimmy John’s, unlike Jimmie Johnson, can’t get their too fast.”
7. Kasey Kahne: Kahne led two laps early and was headed for a sure top-10 finish before a late incident left him with rear-end damage. He finished 23rd, four laps down, and fell two spots to seventh in the point standings, 81 out of first.
“Have you heard?” Kahne said. “There’s a new swimsuit calendar coming out featuring 12 of NASCAR’s sexiest inspectors in bikinis. It’s called ‘Sanctioning Bodies.’”
8. Brad Keselowski: Keselowski posted his first top-10 finish since Kansas with a fifth at Dover. The defending Sprint Cup champion is now eighth in the point standings, 98 behind Jimmie Johnson.
“I’m well behind Johnson,” Keselowski said, “and my car failed post-race inspection at Dover. I’m the defending Cup champion, but I’m not driving like it. I don’t know who’s ‘come down’ harder this year—-NASCAR or me.
“NASCAR said the front of our car was too low, and I was penalized for it. That’s odd, because as A.J. Allmendinger found out, Penske drivers are often penalized for being too high.”
9. Tony Stewart: Stewart benefitted on Jimmie Johnson’s black flag and caught Juan Montoya with three laps to go to win the Fed Ex 400 at Dover. The win ended a four-month winless drought, and moved Stewart up to 16th in the point standings.
“I like my wins like I like my food,” Stewart said. “Served on a silver platter. And apparently, I like my wins like I like my women—single. And, I like my wins like I like my engines—gift-wrapped from Hendrick Motorsports.”
10. Dale Earnhardt, Jr.: Earnhardt posted a quiet 10th-place finish at Dover, collecting his eighth top 10 of the year. He remained sixth in the point standings, where he trails Jimmie Johnson by 75.
“I still feel like we’re building on something here,” Earnhardt said. “Unfortunately, it’s another long winless streak.”
Tony Stewart begins turning to season around with Dover victory
“This is a weekend that to me helps define what our program is about and what our organization’s about.”
Going into the weekend, there wasn’t much hope for Tony Stewart and Stewart-Haas Racing to have much success this weekend. After all, Stewart was having a bad year to date. He had only three top 10s in 12 races, with no top fives to date. Add on to the fact that the past three years, Stewart had struggled at Dover, finishing in the 20s.
Friday didn’t help that much as Stewart noted that Friday was a bad day for the team as they did not have the speed.
“When we finished happy hour, I’ll be 100 percent perfectly honest, and I might get backhanded by both of them sitting here, but I was preparing for a very long day today,” Stewart admitted. “I wasn’t prepared to be sitting here. I knew that they stayed late and were working, but I honestly didn’t think we could get there from where we ended up happy hour yesterday.”
However, crew chief Steve Addington continued to make adjustments. The team continued working hard, even including switching their package completely over. During the race, they were able to work their way up through the field, into the top 10 in the late going.
“I was just happy — I was going to be happy if we got in the Top-10 to be honest, and we got up to eighth there,” Stewart commented. “And then Steve had the — I’ll be honest, Steve had the balls to make a call that gave us the opportunity to run for the win. That’s confidence and that’s something that you can’t teach. It’s just something you have to have, and Steve has it.”
After a late restart and a controversial penalty for Jimmie Johnson, Stewart was able to pass Juan Pablo Montoya in the final laps to win the FedEx 400 presented by Autism Speaks.
“I’m proud to be sitting here saying that I was very wrong and happy that I was wrong,” Stewart continued. “So this is — these are the days that — you know, this means more to me going from where we were Friday to where we are today than having a weekend where we show up and we are quickest in practice, sit on the pole and everything goes right all weekend.
“It’s much harder to do it the way that we just had to do it over the last 48 hours.”
Stewart says while his guys have been upset with how they’ve run, they have never given up, continuing that search for speed.
“There’s been a lot of dejected guys all year, and disappointed guys all year, but that’s why we want them working at Stewart-Haas Racing, too, because the way we have been running, we want them to be disappointed and dejected, but nobody is walking around with their heads down,” Stewart commented. “They are all trying to find a solution and that’s what makes days like today so special is when you have guys that just do not quit and they refuse to give up.”
The way they worked through the weekend is how they’ve been working through the year so far – working at it, going through the process of elimination. He also admits that they’re not quite yet where they want to be, either.
“You eliminate a variable at a time until you finally narrow it down to a group of possibilities of what the problem is, and that’s something that this group has done and been doing and we are still in the process of doing,” Stewart said.
In looking at his organization, he says he is proud of the guys he has working for him as they have the ability to execute what needs to be done.
“We’ve got people that are very dedicated to making sure that no matter how bad it gets that they keep their heads focused in the same direction,” he added. “What Zippy (Competition director Greg Zippidelli) has done in the last month, especially, is being able to get these guys to rally around each other. You know, we are all looking for a direction of what it’s going to take to get this thing fully back on track consistently.”
Stewart adds that he is happy with the progress and how the three teams are working together.
“It’s okay to be working different directions, but to have all three teams understand why we are going the directions we are going to try to figure it out,” he said. “That’s something we have really been focusing on in the last month.”
“I think last week was a step in the right direction, and a bigger step than I possibly could have imagined. This week is a step in the right direction. Matt and Ryan had an awesome day on Friday, qualified well and that gives us hope. Today gives us hope.”
Stewart has been known for going on a terror during summers past, and this could be the start of the terror of summer 2013.
Stewart – Haas Crews Using Unique System to Train
Pit crews go through all sorts of training and recently Speedway Media was invited to see how the Stewart- Haas NASCAR over the wall teams train for their pit stops. They use what’s called a VertiMax system (www.vertimax.com) which they describe as “an innovative training system that allows pit crew members to simultaneously strengthen arm swing velocity and leg drive for maximum explosive speed, which is crucial when every millisecond counts.” Their product information describes how other professional or elite athletic groups use their system. The system itself has been around for more than twenty years and their current iteration of the product has been around for three years. The VertiMax rep, Michelle Grant informed me that a new wall model would be out soon.
On their web site they boast, “VertiMax is the most advanced sports training equipment designed to increase athletic performance and abilities across all sports and ages. If you’re looking to increase speed, vertical jump ability and overall athleticism, VertiMax is the one sports training equipment designed to do it all and do it right. It is the only sports training equipment in the world that can simultaneously apply a load to both the legs and arms for Maximum Vertical Jump Development and it’s also the world’s top speed training equipment due to its ability to simultaneously load both the drive phase (foot in contact with ground driving) and swing phase (foot is airborne traveling to the next step) for maximum speed increases in any sport. No other sports fitness equipment can provide these training advantages to improve sports performance!”
This system is very unique and like nothing else I’ve ever seen. The VertiMax system works with different colored cords that can be individually adjusted for more resistance. This allows the Stewart Haas team to strap themselves to it and move like they are making all the moves that they would normally use on pit road. According to Stewart-Haas strength and conditioning coach Adam Davis, the VertiMax has sped up their stops on pit road because of this unique training tool. There are so many different ways to use the system, like the waist harness to run or jump in. There is a wrist harness that the tire changer uses to increase the strength and give him overall faster times. In talking to Davis it has already made a couple steps difference in stops. As competitive as a NASCAR pit stop is, a couple of steps could be the difference of coming out first or fifth.
VertiMax is used by most other professional sports teams in the NFL, NBA and MLB but Stewart Haas is the only NASCAR team currently using the system. You could see by the looks on the faces and the struggling to catch their breath that it a obvious workout. These crews are truly some of the best trained athletes in all of sports and it looks like the VertiMax is going to give Stewart Haas racing a advantage over other teams.
With the training that the crews currently go under this training process just adds one more element to the training that crew members will undergo. If the Stewart-Haas teams start to have a marked improvement in their performance on pit road other teams will start to use the training system that they’re currently using. It was a pretty neat thing from what I could tell.
Surprising and Not Surprising: FedEx 400 Benefiting Autism Speaks
With the temperatures soaring and the ‘monster’ on the prowl, here is what was surprising and not surprising from the 44th annual FedEx 400 benefiting Autism Speaks at Dover International Speedway.
Surprising: With even the drivers predicting that the ‘usual suspects’ would run well at Dover, there was a most surprising and surprised driver in Victory Lane instead.
“If somebody would have told me it was going to be this way, I would have told them they were crazy,” race winner Tony Stewart declared in Victory Lane. “This was not a car that could win the race.”
Stewart had not won a race at the Monster Mile since 2000 and has struggled for the most part at the track. This was not only Smoke’s first win of the season but, also surprisingly, his first top-10 finish in 2013.
“Our guys at the shop have been digging, “ the driver of the No. 14 Code 3 Associates/Mobil 1 Chevrolet said of his team. “That is what carries you to days like today at the end of the day.”
Not Surprising: Restart gamesmanship, which has been discussed all season long this year, played a major factor as well at the Monster Mile. This time the games played out between then race leader Juan Pablo Montoya and Jimmie Johnson, the latter of whom was undoubtedly the strongest car on the track.
Late in the race, NASCAR deemed that Johnson jumped the restart and black flagged him, forcing him to serve a pass through penalty. Johnson ended the race in the 17th position while Montoya finished second after the late pass on the high side by race winner Stewart.
“Jimmie (Johnson) was laying off about nearly a car length from me, and I knew he was trying to jump the restart,” the driver of the No. 42 Energizer Chevrolet said. “When we got to the line, I think he wanted to time it and he timed it too well.”
“He wanted to get the jump on me and he just jumped it too much,” Montoya continued. “I would have tried to have done the same.”
“It’s one of those deals that when you time it too good, it actually hurts you.”
Johnson of course had a different take on the restart gamesmanship, blaming Montoya instead.
“I was at half throttle,” Johnson said. “At some point you have to go.”
“I’m waiting for Montoya and he never comes,” Johnson continued. “Chad (Knaus, crew chief) told me to take off and not worry about it.”
“Not a good way to lose the race,” Johnson said. “We had the strongest car.”
Surprising: Jeff Gordon, this week driving the No. 24 AARP Credit Cards from Chase Chevrolet, was surprisingly the best finisher amongst the Hendrick Motorsports group.
Gordon finished third, while teammates Dale Earnhardt, Jr. finished tenth, Jimmie Johnson finished 17th and Kasey Kahne took the checkered flag in 23rd after spinning out on lap 318.
“Yeah it was a fantastic finish for us,” Gordon said. “We battled hard all day long.”
“Today was a great race for us, just because we were sitting there 12th, 13th, 14th, and we stayed out and all of a sudden, here we are third.”
“So that’s a great lesson for us to learn when we go to other tracks as well.”
This was Gordon’s 23rd top-10 finish in 41 races at Dover International Speedway. The third place finish was also critical to Gordon, who jumped from fifteenth to eleventh in the point standings.
Not Surprising: Another parts failure played a role in Kyle Busch’s failure to score the finish that he wanted. In spite of that, however, he did end the race in the top—five, finishing fourth.
“We must have broken a right front bump stop or something,” Busch said. “Just past halfway, that’s when it took a dump on us.”
“I hate it,” Busch continued. “It’s unfortunate we weren’t able to capitalize on getting a win.”
Surprising: Kyle Busch was not the only Toyota driver to experience mechanical failures as both Matt Kenseth and Martin Truex Jr. surprisingly suffered blown engines.
“Something let go in the motor,” Truex Jr. said. “Just dropped a cylinder and started smoking all at once.”
“We were one or two adjustments away there from having something for them,” the driver of the No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota said. “Damn, I wish we could have made it to the end.”
“Something broke in our engine too,” Kenseth said. “Pretty disappointing.”
“Something went wrong with a part,” the driver of the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota said. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
Not Surprising: Michael Waltrip Racing, with the exception of Martin Truex, Jr., showcased their survival skills at the Monster Mile , with Clint Bowyer and Mark Martin finishing sixth and ninth respectively.
“We got a pretty decent finish but we just didn’t run very good all weekend long,” Bowyer said. “Definitely need to go back and do our homework and figure some things out for our 5-Hour Energy Toyota.”
“It was a really great effort by our team,” Martin said. “Our Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota had more potential at the end than we were able to show.”
“We’re making progress.”
Surprising: Denny Hamlin, who described himself as being on a mission to win and who snagged the coveted pole position, had a surprisingly bad day at Dover.
On lap 378, Hamlin blew a tire and hit the wall, bringing out the seventh caution of the day. The driver of the No. 11 FedEx Freight/Autism Speaks Toyota finished 34th and fell to 26th in the point standings.
Not Surprising: With the temperature being so high, it was no surprise that tempers ran a little hot as well. Ryan Newman, manhandling his No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet without power steering, had his own temper flare-up while trying to pass David Gilliland, behind the wheel of the No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford.
And when the two drivers touched, they both went spinning and crashing hard.
“We just got wrecked,” Gilliland said. “It is a shame.”
“Unfortunately someone lost their patience a little bit,” Gilliland continued. “It is too bad but that is just the way it goes I guess.”
Newman declined comment after the incident.
Surprising: Brad Keselowski was the highest finishing Ford, bringing his Blue Deuce to the checkered flag in the fifth position. He also had his crew chief Paul Wolfe back atop the war wagon after serving his penalties and suspension.
“We drove hard all day, we just didn’t have the speed needed to go win the race,” Keselowski said. “ But we had the speed we needed to have a solid day.”
“The guys did a great job executing today,” Keselowski said. “We wanted to win too so we will keep working to find a little more speed and get up there.”
Unfortunately, Keselowski’s good run was marred by NASCAR’s announcement that his car did not pass post-race inspection as its front was too low. Penalties were just announced and include a fine of $25,000 for crew chief Wolfe and the continuation of his probation until year-end.
The team has also been docked six driver points and six car owner points.
Not Surprising: Joey Logano, who won the Nationwide race the day before, exceeded his own expectations, battling back from a flat tire and using the lucky dog position to finally finish the race in the seventh position.
“We fought all day basically trying to get a lucky dog after that flat tire,” Logano said. “We would get one back and then go down two and then get one back.”
“This weekend I thought we were going to finish about 15 laps down,” Logano continued. “We weren’t any good in practice and Todd (Gordon, crew chief) and all the guys did a good job making it better for me.”
“By the end it was a top-five car and we just ran out of time,” Logano said. “ I feel like that we could have finished in the top-five but considering where we were, we will take that all day.”
“You Know They Don’t Want You To Win”
I could not believe it when I heard it. The small snippet on the scanner conversation between Jimmie Johnson, who had just blown a sure win by jumping the start in Sunday’s Fed Ex 400, spotter Earl Barban, and crew chief Chad Knaus. I thought I heard the quote, but having it replayed today on SiriusXM’s NASCAR Radio channel proved I did hear that. My only question is who is “they” and why do they not want Johnson to win?
Knaus uttered the words, as far as I can tell, but I think he meant NASCAR, a criticism that might be cause for a big fine if spoken on ESPN, but apparently scanner communications are not considered as bad as national television. Nevertheless, for a team who has won so much and been so brilliant, it seemed a little extreme for me. Let me just say that Jimmie Johnson will go down in the annals of NASCAR history as one of the greatest of all time, but the arrogance of the whole situation turns me off. It’s probably just me, but he was not the first driver penalized for jumping the start, and no, NASCAR doesn’t have an agenda against any driver. Johnson broke the rules and he was penalized.
I’ve met Chad Knaus, Jimmie Johnson, and Rick Hendrick. They are all nice fellows and have been cordial when I’ve talked to them. I like them a lot. Hendrick has that southern charm, Johnson looks you in the eye when he talks to you and Knaus is a walking encyclopedia who is always on task and never gets off of task, but there is an arrogance that disturbs me. The attitude is that they are the best (which they are) and they let everyone know it. They couldn’t have made a mistake because they don’t make mistakes. On the NASCAR Sprint Cup Media Tour, we were bussed to the Hendrick shops where the event was held in the Hendrick Motorsports gift shop, and there upon one wall was Rick Hendrick’s 10 Keys to Success. They are not much different than the corporation I am a part of, but one of the keys says, “Learn to accept your mistakes, but make them only once.” Apparently, they forgot that part of the 10 keys.
Johnson, even with the mistake, still is 30 points or 30 positions ahead of Carl Edwards. Less than a race ahead of the No. 99 driver, but it is still a handsome lead. He will win the regular season championship (which means nothing) and if it holds, will be the odds-on favorite to win another championship, but for the No. 48 team to think that NASCAR doesn’t want them to win is ludicrous. They don’t operate that way. They are the best, they know it, and they have a problem with being called out on their mistakes, I find it even more interesting that Jeff Gordon felt like he had to wreck Clint Bowyer at Phoenix because he robbed owner Hendrick of his big win at Martinsville. Really?
There is nothing I hate more than arrogance, but it seems that one teams feels it is their Devine Right to win races, and that troubles me. I see a NASCAR world where victories are equally distributed between all teams, regardless who is the owner or how many championships they’ve won. Chad was right, the “they” he talked about was the fans and not the sanctioning body. A day when more than Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports do not lead the majority of the laps, and competition is evened out—that is what the fans want. That makes it up to Roush, Petty, Childress, Ganassi, and Penske to change this arrogance to real competition.
