Surprising and Not Surprising: Phoenix Advocare 500
[media-credit name=”Simon Scoggins” align=”alignright” width=”244″]
[/media-credit]In the next to the last race on the one miler in the Valley of the Sun, here is what was surprising and not surprising in the 25th annual Advocare 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.
Surprising: Although avoiding the shower of sponsor product, baby Keelan had his first ever visit to Victory Lane, celebrating with his dad Kevin Harvick, driver of the Richard Childress Racing No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet.
“It was great to be back in Victory Lane and to have Keelan there for our first victory celebration as a family,” Harvick said. “He was fine until everyone started screaming.”
“That made him cry.”
Surprisingly, this was Harvick’s first victory of the 2012 season, breaking a 44 race winless streak. Also surprisingly, this was Richard Childress Racing’s first win of the year as well.
Harvick’s victory came on the heels of a surprising announcement prior to the race, one that will see him leave RCR for Stewart Haas Racing in the 2014 season.
“It has been a struggle and an interesting weekend to say the least,” Harvick said. “Regardless of what happens in 2014, we have the end of this year and we’ve got all of next year.”
“We want to win races and we want to be competitive and that is what we are here to do.”
Not Surprising: The theme of survival, which has been his mantra since Talladega and throughout the Chase, continued with the driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge.
Brad Keselowski finished sixth in the Blue Deuce and also grabbed the points lead in the championship race after competitor Jimmie Johnson hit the wall to finish 32nd. Keselowski also had to navigate a wild last lap wreck, in which he was dinged, to take the checkered flag.
“I raced pretty hard last week at Texas but that was borderline ridiculous,” Keselowski said. “We survived and I’m proud of everyone on the Miller Lite team for that.”
“I felt very lucky to make it through the carnage today.”
Surprising: For a driver, crew chief and team that is so often totally in control, it was most surprising for the championship contending Jimmie Johnson and team No. 48 to come out of Phoenix feeling totally out of control.
“We were cruising along and I think going to have a top-10 day if things worked out,” Johnson said. “I had a slight vibration and then as I was coming off of turn four, it went down and straight in the wall I went.”
“Unfortunately, we lost a lot of control or all control in the championship,” Johnson continued, now 20 points back of point leader Keselowski. “It’s way, way out of our control with the problem we had.”
“That’s racing,” Johnson said. “We will go to Homestead and do all we can down there and see how things pan out.”
Not Surprising: As with any fracas, there are a variety of ways to see the incident, depending on your point of view. And the melee on and off the track between Jeff Gordon, driver of the No. 24 Dupont Chevrolet, and Clint Bowyer, pilot of the No. 15 5-Hour Energy Toyota, was no exception to this rule.
“It’s just that things have gotten escalated over the year and I’ve just had it,” Gordon said after wrecking Bowyer and participating in a bench-emptying brawl in the garage area. “Clint’s run into me numerous times.”
“I’ve had it and was fed up with it and got him back.”
“For him to act like that, I barely touched him,” Bowyer said. “Next thing I know, Brett (Griffin, spotter) is telling me that he’s waiting on me.”
“It’s pretty embarrassing for a four-time champion and what I consider one of the best the sport’s ever seen to act like that.”
For those directly and not so directly involved in the disagreement, other perceptions prevailed.
“When I was young, I thought Jeff Gordon was the best driver,” Joey Logano, whose No. 20 Home Depot Chevrolet was collateral damage in the Gordon/Bowyer madness, tweeted after the race. “Now I’ve lost a lot of respect for him.”
“The 24 should be parked!” Denny Hamlin tweeted after the race. “He took out 5 cars in that BS!”
One driver, however, seemingly enjoyed the hoopla and the sparring.
“I like fights,” Kevin Harvick, race winner, said to the media with a devilish grin. “We should have more fights.”
“They’re not always fun to be in, but fights are what made NASCAR what it is.”
Surprising: While Denny Hamlin had much to say about fellow competitor Jeff Gordon via Twitter, he also had a lot to say about the track, even with a second place finish.
“The track is just so slick,” Hamlin said after the race. “Treacherous. The race track is extremely treacherous.”
“You can’t – with these hard tires – you just can’t get a grip on the race track.”
“Everyone’s just sliding around and sliding into each other.”
The driver of the No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota also had some choice, but perhaps not politically correct words, for the track conditions on the final lap, which led to multiple wrecks and many torn up race cars.
“There was oil all over the track,” Hamlin said. “Ray Charles could see that.”
“Holy cow, it was a mess.”
Not Surprising: After dominating for the first third of the race, the intrepid Kyle Busch, behind the wheel of the No. 18 M&Ms Toyota, had to settle for a third place finish. This was Busch’s 10th top-10 finishes in 16 races at Phoenix International Raceway.
“Great day,” Busch said simply. “Guys gave me an awesome car.”
“Obviously, having a car that’s the class of the field – you expect to win and you’re supposed to win,” Busch continued. “I guess I just didn’t know how to win it today.”
“So, it seems to be the way the year goes.”
Surprising: For as bad of a season and weekend that Jeff Burton was having, the driver of the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet pulled off a surprisingly good 13th place finish in the Advocare 500.
Burton had to start from the rear of the field after multiple accidents in both Friday and Saturday’s practices.
“Just a solid effort this weekend from the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet team,” Burton said. “We wrecked two cars on Friday and Saturday.”
“For these guys to come back and give this kind of effort was amazing.”
Not Surprising: Kurt Busch continued to settle in with his new Furniture Row race team, recovering from a lug nut problem to finish eighth in the Valley of the Sun. This was his second straight eighth-place finish, giving his team its best back-to-back finishes in the team’s history.
“That was a wild ending,” the driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row/Farm American Chevrolet said. “I just stayed on the gas to get to the finish line.”
“We definitely had a car that was capable of winning,” Busch continued. “We battled back to notch our second straight top-10.”
Surprising: Another Cup rookie had a surprisingly good day, in fact the best yet in her young career in the top tier of the sport. Danica Patrick, in the No. 10 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet, finished 17th, her best result to date.
“We had a green-white-checkered, so it was a nice exciting finish for the fans,” Patrick said. “The No. 31 went in too deep and clipped my left rear, spun me around and I just tried to limp back to the line.”
“Still our best finish,” Patrick continued. “But you always want more.”
Not Surprising: Ryan Newman, often known as the ‘Iron Man’ of the sport, proved he was as tough as all the veterans’ pictures on his camouflaged car. After qualifying in the 12th position, the driver of the No. 39 Quicken Loans Chevrolet worked his way to the front to finish fifth in the Advocare 500.
“That was a good run for our Quicken Loans Chevrolet,” Newman said. “It was a special Veteran’s Day paint scheme and I’m really proud of everything there.”
Surprising: Chaser Martin Truex, Jr., racing no doubt with a heavy heart for his home state of New Jersey ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, saw his day end before it even got started. The driver of the No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota had an engine failure and finished 43rd.
“Well, the engine started laying down on like the second lap and something broke in the top end, so we were done for the day,” Truex said. “It’s a shame.”
“Just one of those deals – probably a parts failure or something.”
Not Surprising: Greg Biffle showed his mettle behind the wheel, coming back from a miserable start to the race to being the highest finishing Ford, scoring a top-10 finish.
“It was actually a hard fought day,” the driver of the No. 16 Filtrete/3M Ford said. “We came back from not having a very good car to being really good.”
“We kept working on it and working on it,” Biffle continued. “I never thought we’d get that good.”
“That was remarkable.”
Heading to Homestead: Keselowski and Johnson ready to finish feisty Chase
It seems only fitting that when the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship is decided this Sunday night, bringing down the curtain on the a season full of memories, it will be between two drivers who started the season in Florida by grabbing all the mainstream media attention. 
Point leader Brad Keselowski – yes, point leader, is in command of his first championship. The Michigan native would love to add another title to his resume after earning his first Nationwide Series championship in 2010. Keselowski holds a 20 point lead on Jimmie Johnson and has three possible scenarios in order to become the new man on the NASCAR mountain.
The first: finish 15th or better and win the championship. Lead a lap and finish 16th or better and win the championship. Or, lead the most laps and finish 17th or better and win the championship. That’s regardless of what Johnson goes out and does. But Keselowski’s mentality will be to follow in Tony Stewart’s path from last season and head to Homestead and win the race, leaving all doubt and clinching scenarios far behind.
What a better way for Keselowski to end the season that he kicked off by bringing NASCAR some new attention. During a two-hour red flag in the February Daytona 500, Keselowski sent Twitter updates from inside his No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge for Penske Racing. It was the tweet heard ‘round the world with Keselowski and NASCAR becoming fan favorites.
Except, Keselowski did more than just tweet, send out behind the wheel photos and engage fans. He started winning and running well. Well enough to make the Chase for the second straight year. But, it was hard pressed to find many who pictured Keselowski as more than a top five driver. Surely he couldn’t take down the likes of Johnson and Denny Hamlin? The hottest and most experienced Chase drivers in the field.
But as he’s always done, Keselowski just wouldn’t go away. He won some more – two of the first three Chase races. More than enough to put him at the top of the leaderboard, a driver to no longer doubt or second guess, Keselowski became real. He wasn’t just going to finish the year in the top five, he was looking at the top three. A lucky break last weekend in Phoenix, which saw Johnson finish 32nd after hitting the wall from a melted bead, put him in the position he’s now in heading to Homestead.
Just let it sink in. Brad Keselowski could be the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion. Have you tried saying it out yet? It’s a major possibility. The man who is in his third, just third, full-time season in NSCS could be our next champion. The man who was given a chance by Dale Earnhardt Jr., had early run-ins with Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards, found his way into the legendary Blue Deuce, is on the verge of doing something none of those drivers have, yet.
His hard-nosed, refuse to back down, brash and often outspoken 28-year-old, is the perfect rival to Johnson. They come from different backgrounds, teams and their accomplishments couldn’t be more polar opposites. Keselowski, a nine-time Cup winner with one NNS title shouldn’t be about to beat the man who made the Chase his personal playground the last few years.
Johnson, with 60 Cup wins and five championships, being five straight from 2006-2010, can simply be described as the man. And in order to be the man, you have to beat the man. The Hendrick Motorsports driver has a tall task ahead of him on Sunday, but isn’t about to let Keselowski become the man.
Feared by many, hated by some but respected by all – Johnson has accomplished nearly everything there is in the sport. Winning another championship on Sunday would only add to his legacy. Johnson has blown everyone out of the water since he entered the sport in 2002 and the years that he was winning titles, he was untouchable, invincible to the competition and just flat out great.
That greatness hasn’t wavered, but it’s been discovered that he’s human. When his championship reign came to a close last year it left the haters believing it was the end of all his success. The 48 fans and team just used it as motivation and in 2012 they’re right back where they expected and are expected to be. It’s a matter of finishing the deal now.
A sixth championship would be unprecedented. Hell, five was. But something about saying six-time champion just brings goose bumps. Perhaps because not since teammate Jeff Gordon in 2001 has anyone thought it would be possible to win more than four. Forget about getting close enough to see the greats of Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. in the windshield. Make no mistake, Johnson and company have the makings to get six, seven and eight titles as well as many more.
What fans see on a weekly basis is greatness. Right before their eyes, love it or hate it. Whatever happens on Sunday night in Homestead, Johnson can hold his head high. When the season started it looked like he wasn’t going to even make Homestead in this position.
Like Keselowski, the Daytona 500 was a memorable one involving Johnson. The race wasn’t even a lap old when he was wrecked in a big crash. That wasn’t headline making, the fact that he left the first race of the season with negative points because NASCAR had penalized his HMS team for illegal C posts during initial practice for the Daytona 500, was.
Crew chief Chad Knaus and car chief Ron Malec were initially suspended for six weeks. They were docked 25 championship points. On appeal, the suspensions were rescinded, the points returned but Knaus still lost $100,000. The team quickly got to work, moving from 37th in points to fifth after their first win of the season at Darlington, the eleventh race of the year.
They haven’t looked back since and there’s one more race to make their comeback and six pack complete. It’s Keselowski and Johnson, they will settled the 2012 Sprint Cup, everyone else has been left in the dust. Perhaps a matchup that once seemed far-fetched or even considered at all, the two have given it everything they have over the last nine weeks and provided a formidable clash. Now the time has come to leave it all out on the track, one more time.
Fear not, this battle is far from over. While 20 points is not ideal for Johnson or the story lines it’s not insurmountable. Since the checkered flag flew at Phoenix he’s been sending out tweets as well all week that he’s ready to race, he’s not giving up and that anything can happen. It’s never over until it’s over, something that has played out again and again this season.
And lest we not forget, the points may be different now, but the last two years the eventual champion came from behind entering Homestead. One of those was Johnson just two years ago. He’s ready and believing he can do it again. Except Keselowski has never been one to go down easy, he’s just as ready for the fight and the championship upset.
So, let’s get ready to ring the bell, the final round of this knockout fight is about to begin. Only question is, who will be the man that delivers the final punch?
Will safe be sorry? Stenhouse and Keselowski control destinies heading to Homestead
Brad Keselowski and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. find themselves in similar situations heading into their respective season ending series finales at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Both drivers lead their respective series championships heading into Homestead by 20 points and only need 15th place finishes to lock up their series championships.
The question isn’t are Keselowski and Stenhouse in the best position for the finales at Homestead because a 20 point lead under the current NASCAR point system is classified as huge. The question is for both teams heading into this weekend is How safe do you play it?
Both Brad Keselowski and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. are very aggressive on the race track and aren’t afraid to mix it up whenever the opportunity presents itself. But knowing what happened with Jimmie Johnson and Elliott Sadler at Phoenix last weekend one has to wonder does it change the mindset for these two drivers heading into the biggest race of their young careers?
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is the only one of the two that finds himself in a familiar position heading into the weekend. At this time last season Stenhouse took an insurmountable 41 point lead into the final race at Homestead and secured his first NNS title with a solid second place effort in the season finale and won by 45 points over Sadler in the final standings.
Brad Keselowski on the other hand finds himself on the cusp of his first NSCS title. Brad leads Jimmie Johnson by 20 points heading into Sunday’s 400 miler at Homestead. Keselowski and the No.2 Miller Lite team have a history of being very aggressive with in race strategy. One has to wonder with the sport’s richest prize in their grasp will the No.2 team stay with their all in not afraid to take a gamble mentality or will they dial it back something they haven’t done all season long.
While yes this is the most exciting time for these two race teams. It is also one of the most stressful times as well. Nine long hard months of hard work all coming down to one final race for a championship. For the drivers it is all about what they have done the past 30 plus weeks, for the crew chief it is what strategy are you going to employ, and for the pit crews it is all about those perfect 13 second pit stops with no mistakes knowing one could mean the difference between celebration and heartbreak until next season.
This should be a fun weekend at Homestead and I think I speak for every race fan when I say it is going to be fun watching it all shake out.
Keselowski Is For Real
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[/media-credit]A couple of years ago, I had to wonder what Roger Penske was thinking. I mean, giving Brad Keselowski a ride in a great car? What was he thinking? Here was the guy who hit everything but the pace car in the Nationwide Series, won a race at Talladega by punting Carl Edwards into the stands, and cussed like a sailor. The Captain had to be crazy. Crazy like a fox.
So here we are and Keselowski is in the driver’s seat. A 20-point lead translates to a 100 point lead under the old system (you know, the one Bob Latford created and served us well forever), and though it’s not certain, a 15th place finish on Sunday will make him the Sprint Cup champion for 2012. No drama this year, or so it seems. But as Lee Corso might say maybe this is a little too fast.
Last year, Carl Edwards came into Homestead with a slim lead only to have Tony Stewart win the race against all odds to snatch the championship from Edwards against all odds. That’s why I’m not declaring this championship this week. Ask Jimmie Johnson about a tire failure. Ask the late Davey Allison about a commanding point lead (if we could and how much do we wish we could). As Yogi Berra said, it’s not over until it’s over. And it isn’t over for the next our days, but the proverbial fat lady is singing. Who would have thunk it?
These days, Keselowski is still as brash, and from all indications, still cusses like a sailor, but he also is one heckuva driver. He’s proven it this season by winning races and, with his crew chief, has proven that he is willing to gamble for the final goal. He has shown maturity that no one could ever imagine. Also, remember this is a team in the midst of transition from Dodge to Ford. No matter what anyone says, that has to be a distraction, and still here he is on the verge of a championship. It would be bittersweet for SRT, Dodge’s racing arm, and the engine program at Penske, which will go away at season’s end. It’s quite of an accomplishment no matter what happens on Sunday in south Florida, but it’s not enough.
Many think Johnson can somehow pull this one out. Today, my Twitter field was bombarded with over 1,200 tweets from Johnson and Keselowski fans, most of them from Johnson fans (and I still don’t understand why subscribing to Johnson’s and Keselowski’s feeds has me getting anyone’s tweets about the two drivers on my feed). NASCAR should be proud of this despite the fines of Monday. As some wise man said, there is no such thing as bad publicity. My feeling is the fine was more about Brad’s language in the media center than his tweeting under a red flag, but no matter, It is what it is. Under the dictatorship that NASCAR, you are fee to pick and choose rules as you please, and they do it frequently. It’s just the way it is.
I tend to think Keselowski will win the Cup. Why? Simply because he is in the lead and drives for a great team that will not let him fail. Of course I’ve said this before, and like this last year, the impossible happened, so you never know. But, I know this for sure. The kid see a championship within his grasp again and many times after that. Jimmie Johnson had better reach up and get those belts tight (as Larry McReynolds would say). He has competition.
