Keslowski wins 600 Pole, Stenhouse Jr. to Start Ninth
CHARLOTTE – If qualifying for the Coca Cola 600 in Charlotte, NC told us anything tonight, it is that the darker it gets Sunday evening, the faster we can expect speeds. Brad Keslowski rolled off 30th of the 48 cars that attempted to make the field for Sunday and ended up setting his Miller Lite Dodge on the pole with a speed of 192.089 MPH.
“This car was awesome man. Awesome! Fast cars go fast and this is a team is making a lot of progress. We made some awesome gains in the Blue Deuce. Every week, we just keep picking away a little here, a little bit there. We’re starting to get more people to believe in us.” Keslowski said.
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[/media-credit]Keslowski was able to edge out A J Allmendinger for the pole. Allmendinger went out 26th in the qualifying order and will start on the outside of row one. Carl Edwards and Jeff Burton were fastest in this afternoon’s practice session, but both came up short in qualifying this evening. Edwards will start third and Burton fifth. Denny Hamlin will start fourth.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was Ricky Stenhouse, Jr, driving the Wood Brother’s #21 in place of Trevor Baine. Stenhouse was the last of 48 drivers to qualify and ended up qualifying ninth. The remainder of the top ten – Jimmy Johnson, David Reutimann, David Ragan, and Clint Bowyer.
Kyle Busch, who was the pole sitter for last week’s All-Star race, will start 19th . Other notable drivers outside the top ten were Jeff Gordon 11th, Kasey Kahne 17th, Tony Stewart 22nd, Dale Earnhardt, Jr 25th and Kevin Harvick 28th. Defending race winner Kurt Busch will start 26th.
Starting Lineup
Coca-Cola 600, Charlotte Motor Speedway
May 28, 2011 – Race 12 of 36
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Pos. Driver
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1 Brad Keselowski
2 A.J. Allmendinger
3 Carl Edwards
4 Denny Hamlin
5 Jeff Burton
6 Jimmie Johnson
7 David Reutimann
8 David Ragan
9 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
10 Clint Bowyer
11 Jeff Gordon
12 Ryan Newman
13 Mark Martin
14 Martin Truex Jr.
15 Greg Biffle
16 Paul Menard
17 Kasey Kahne
18 Brian Vickers
19 Matt Kenseth
20 Regan Smith
21 Kyle Busch
22 Tony Stewart
23 Joey Logano
24 Marcos Ambrose
25 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
26 Kurt Busch
27 Bobby Labonte
28 Kevin Harvick
29 Juan Montoya
30 David Gilliland
31 Travis Kvapil
32 David Starr
33 Michael McDowell
34 J.J. Yeley
35 Jamie McMurray
36 Joe Nemechek
37 Casey Mears
38 David Stremme
39 Mike Bliss
40 Landon Cassill+
41 Robby Gordon+
42 Dave Blaney+
43 Mike Skinner
600 Miles In The Hub of NASCAR; A preview of this weekend’s Coca Cola 600
“It’s a great test of man and machine.” That is what you will hear at the beginning of old racing footage of the then “World 600″ at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Once a year, NASCAR decides to beef up the mileage by one-hundred and see who can survive the great endurance test. In the past, this race was run in it’s entirety in the daytime. After lights where installed at the speedway, the race became even more of a challenge as the six-hundred miles began at dusk and finished up under the night skies. This made both driver and crew chief forced to stay alert for the entire race as the track could slip away from them in an instant.
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[/media-credit]In past years, you could always count on numerous engine and mechanical failures throughout the course of six-hundred miles. Mainly in the final stretch of the race. Now, with all the advances in technology in the mechanics and engines, there seem to be less and less failures every year. The result of that is more cars left running which leaves the possibility pit strategy still in the picture. That includes fuel mileage. We see it just about every other week, where fuel mileage comes into play in the end of the race. Whether a yellow falls or not, the mention of fuel at the end of the race seems to happen more often than not. It offers a chance for a possible first time winner or a surprise winner to pop up and steal a win away from one of the big boys of the Cup Series.
Charlotte Motor Speedway was commonly refereed to in the mid 2000’s as, “The House That Jimmie Built” as then Johnson seemed to be the only driver that was able to win at the speedway. Also, his team’s sponsor, Lowe’s, also sponsored the track when Jimmie dominated at Charlotte. With the type of performance the five time champ showed last Saturday night in the All Star race, you may want to keep Jimmie in mind as a driver that could pop up and win the race.
With how dominate the Roush-Fenway cars have been this year on mile and a half tracks this season, you can’t ever count them out as proven once again with David Ragan winning the showdown and Carl Edwards winning the All Star. Don’t count of Biffle or Kenseth either. Greg Biffle lead a good majority of the first segment of the All Star race and Kenseth, for a while, had the fastest car on the track. Each one of these drivers would be great picks for the weekend.
If you want some sleeper drivers for the weekend, then look no further than here. Kasey Kahne won this race back in 2006. Kahne and his Red Bull Racing Team have really been picking up the pace as of late with fast cars. Although they don’t always finish the races, you can never count out a driver with speed to win a race. Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, David Reutimann, Martin Truex Jr and Jamie McMurray would all be good picks for this weekend as they have all either won or had good runs at Charlotte in the past.
Look for an exciting marathon this weekend in Charlotte!
Picks for the weekend:
Top Gear 300- Kyle Busch
Coca Cola 600- David Ragan
Elliott Sadler Happy Now But Doesn’t Want to End Career in Nationwide Series
Elliott Sadler made no bones about it when saying he felt given the right situation he’d be in the thick of things in the Sprint Cup Series. While in the midst of what might eventually be known as his rebirth in the Nationwide Series, Sadler isn’t willing to settle for not running with the big boys.
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[/media-credit]Speaking Thursday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway where the NNS is preparing for Saturday’s Top Gear 300, Sadler was candid about both his current and past situation. Even before he did so though, it was clear as it has been since the season started, that he’s perfectly happy racing for Kevin Harvick Inc in the NNS where he’s leading the points. He’s competitive, he’s happy and he’s relevant again for all the right reasons. But he did admit that some things just aren’t the same.
“I do miss the Cup Series,” he said. “I’d be lying if I told you I don’t miss racing on Sunday’s. Do I miss the situation I’ve been in the last couple of years? I don’t want to cuss, but heck no. I have learned that this sport is a lot more fun when you have a team around you and a supporting cast around you that believes in you and wants to do [well] at the racetrack week in and week out. That’s whether your racing go-karts, Trucks, Nationwide, Cup or what have you.”
It’s the reason Sadler says, that should he ever get the opportunity to race on Sunday’s again, he’s going to make sure he does so with a competitive team. With a team that acts as one and not, not ride around just for the sake of saying that he’s a NSCS driver.
“I’ve had the most fun this year I’ve had since I drove the 38 car for Robert Yates,” he said.
That was during a time when Sadler not only ran up front in the Cup Series but won races. Perhaps, the best years of his life. In 2004 he found the winner’s circle twice and finished eighth in points. But the last few seasons Sadler has been nowhere to be seen and struggled at Richard Petty Motorsports where he said he learned to bit his tongue.
Sadler though wasn’t done revealing. He stated that no matter how hard a driver works in the racecar if the team doesn’t believe in you, it’s not going to work.
Now with a team of proven winners and with many preseason predictions of a championship, Sadler doesn’t feel pressure. That’s easy when as he says, he’s got an “army” of guys around him and an owner who will do anything to make sure they’re fast. That, according the Virginia native is cool.
“I’ll give you a perfect example,” said Sadler. “I see all you guys in here with your cool computers and probably have the latest and greatest technology. Say I give you a story right now to break, it’ll be the biggest story ever and I give one of you guys a computer and I give one of you guys a hammer, a chisel and a stone. I want you to write the story before the other guy finishes it. If not I don’t want to hear no excuses, you should be able to do that. That’d kind of be the same thing I went through.”
It’s not what he’s going through now. But Sadler made it clear that he couldn’t say that he would be happy racing in the Nationwide Series the rest of his life.
“If my career ending as a Nationwide driver would I be happy, heck no. My goal is to one day make it back to Sprint Cup because I feel like I can drive circles around half the guys over there if I was in their equipment or in the same situation they were in. My goal is to win a championship this year in the Nationwide Series maybe next and if something good comes along, go back.”
NOTES FROM THE NASCAR NATION: DANICA STAYING? DANICA LEAVING? WE HAVE A NEW MYSTERY TO SOLVE
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[/media-credit]Remember last fall when we had all of that fun trying to unravel the mystery of where driver Kasey Kahne was going land for the 2011 season? Kahne needed a one year deal with a team while waiting to take over his new ride with Hendrick Motorsports in 2012. We had a ball trying to figure out his 2011 mystery.
Now we have a new racing riddle to solve and this one is going to be very special because it involves Danica Patrick. On Tuesday we were treated with published reports that said she was moving to NASCAR full time next year and her management team, the highly reputable IMG, were finalizing all of the details.
However, the following day, Patrick issued a statement saying she had no idea where that information came from and called the reports “speculation.”
Let the game begin.
Tuesday’s report was initially released by “ESPN Dot Com”, also highly reputable, and seemed to focus on five major points regarding Patrick’s next move in her career:
1. Danica Patrick will compete full time in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series in 2012.
2. She will also drive in a selected number of NASCAR Sprint Cup events next year.
3. She will move up to the Sprint Cup Series full time in 2013.
4. She will make a brief return to the Indy Racing League to compete in the 2012 Indy 500.
5. Her long time sponsor, Go Daddy Dot Com, will follow her to NASCAR.
The timing of this announcement seems to fit. Her Indy Racing League contract with Andretti Auto Sport, as well as her NASCAR Nationwide Series contract with J R Motorsports, expires at the end of this year.
However, on Wednesday, Patrick threw a major monkey wrench into machine when she denied any knowledge of her future racing plans being in place. In an interview with “SI Dot Com” she said “I’m watching TV and see it scroll across the bottom of the screen. I don’t know where it came from but it’s all speculation. Anybody can speculate that and write that. I don’t know where it came from but there’s no truth to it; it’s just speculation.”
Expressing her own form of speculation, she said she found it “curious about the timing of such a story coming out a few days before the Indy 500.”
I have two basic problems with this denial. First, I’ve never had a second’s hesitation in believing anything that I’ve seen or read from ESPN. They have a long standing reputation of cultivating sources and double checking the facts. I’m inclined to think that their report last Tuesday was spot on.
Secondly, this would not be the first time a major announcement was denied in order to protect the timing of the official announcement. The catalyst here would be Patrick’s management team taking advantage of every marketing concept available that comes with a glitzy press conference.
If we’re going to get accused of speculating, then that’s all the reason we need to roll up our sleeves and do exactly that: speculate. It seems that our brand new racing mystery has one element that hasn’t been addressed: what NASCAR team will Danica Patrick sign with?
The first, and rather obvious, choice is J R Motorsports, the NASCAR Nationwide Series team owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr, that Patrick used to launch her NASCAR venture. That #7 Go Daddy Chevrolet has been Patrick’s NASCAR learning curve since last year. The culmination of the hard worked peaked last March when Patrick finished fourth in the Nationwide Series race at Las Vegas.
J R Motorsports could easily cover Patrick’s Nationwide Series needs next year, but what about the proposed Sprint Cup events? The answer to that question may lie in yet another high profile contract negotiation. In recent days we learned that team owner Rick Hendrick is very close to signing Dale Earnhardt Jr to a contract extension that will keep NASCAR’s most popular driver in the Hendrick Sprint Cup racing stable for the next several years to come.
There has also been speculation that says one of the final negotiation points to this new contract involves Rick Hendrick’s increased participation in J R Motorsports. Could that possibly mean that a small fleet of Hendrick built Cup cars could be delivered to Earnhardt’s race shop? It makes sense when you think about it. Hendrick cannot sign Patrick to drive one of his Sprint Cup cars. That’s due to the NASCAR mandated owner’s cap that limits team ownership to four cars implemented just prior to the start of the 2010 season. Hendrick’s four car Cup stable is full at the moment and will be for the next several years. But placing some Cup cars in Junior’s shop would be rather easy.
There’s also been some speculation regarding a liaison between Danica Patrick and Tony Stewart although the plans for the Nationwide Series could turn out to be a deal breaker. The owner/driver from Stewart-Haas Racing fully understands what it takes to complete the transition from Indy cars to NASCAR stock cars. He has been very generous in the past by discussing the process with Patrick and offering his advice.
Stewart has always maintained that he’s wide open to expanding his operation from two cars to four under he right set of circumstances. While he hasn’t conducted any formal contract talks with Patrick, he did say he would be interested in having her join Stewart-Haas if she would be willing to make the leap of faith to the Cup level. Stewart made it clear that he was not interested in fielding a Nationwide Series team.
We can stretch the Danica speculation one giant step further by including Joe Gibbs Racing in this mix. Their existing operation would be perfect for Patrick’s transition because they already have one of the best Nationwide Series operations in place. Bringing Patrick to the Cup level would also be an easy accomplishment because Gibbs Racing currently has three teams with room for one more.
In the past team President J D Gibbs has said they would seriously consider expanding to a four car Cup operation under the right set of circumstances. A high profile driver like Danica Patrick, backed with Go Daddy dollars, would definitely be the right set of circumstances.
So there you have it racing fans. We have a new mystery to solve. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m also wondering where I can purchase one of those really cool Sherlock Holmes hats.
NOTES FROM THE NASCAR NATION: THE RETURN OF ‘OLD KYLE’ LITERALLY GOES OVER THE LIMIT
When Kyle Busch decides to misbehave, he often does it in rather spectacular fashion. Last Tuesday’s citation, for driving 128 MPH on a North Carolina public road zoned for 45 MPH is his latest example of bad behavior.
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[/media-credit]Over the past several months we’ve watched an interesting transformation from Kyle Busch. The “Old Kyle”, a brash I’ll do and say what I want character, seemed to be determined to live up to his official “Rowdy” nickname. The antics of “Old Kyle” sometimes hit legendary proportions and, in some cases, were even highly entertaining. I can actually recall many times when I referred to his behavior as “job security.”
Just when we started to get used to the antics of “Old Kyle, that side of the driver began to evaporate. Busch entered into a transformation and slowly but surely “New Kyle” began to emerge. That former high level of intensity and drama, often displayed out of the race car, was replaced by a more calm and mature demeanor. He became someone who chose his words very carefully, especially in front of the media. The very same things that used to make this driver angry within a New York minute now barely became blips on his personal radar. This transformation was likely the biggest sigh of relief his team owner, Joe Gibbs, has enjoyed in quite awhile.
In all of us there’s that basic good versus evil struggle that has to be frequently dealt with. It’s not unlike the silly sequence from a Saturday cartoon where the tiny good angel stands on your left shoulder and says “on no no, this is wrong and we must not do this.” That is counteracted by the tiny little devil, standing on the right shoulder, that says “don’t listen to him, let’s go have some fun. Let’s do this.”
In the case of Kyle Busch, the little devil on his right shoulder won the argument last Tuesday. According to reports from the Iredell County ACE, Aggressive Criminal Enforcement, Busch was driving a 2012 Lexus LFA sports car on a North Carolina public road between the communities of Troutman and Mooresville. That’s where he was clocked doing 128 MPH in a 45 MPH zone. He was issued a citation for speeding along with careless and reckless driving.
That very same day there was an official statement released by Busch who profusely apologized for the incident. The statement said “I was test driving a new sports car and I got carried away.” The official apology also stated Busch’s willingness to take full responsibility for his actions along with an assurance that something like this will never happen again.
While I don’t doubt that Busch is indeed apologetic and embarrassed by his latest episode, one can’t help but think the carefully worded prose in this official statement was carefully created by a spin doctor from Joe Gibbs Racing. It was likely created by the same person who spent a great deal of late night overtime sitting in an office trying to put a coat of polish on previous “Old Kyle” episodes.
Hypothetically speaking, if local resident “John Q Public” committed this act he would also be issued a citation. The resolution would likely include a well deserved hefty fine and the possibility of a license suspension for 60 days per North Carolina DMV law. There could also be some possible stipulations regarding a period of community service and perhaps even probation. Once the matter was adjudicated in court, “Mr John Q Public” would settle his business with the county and its doubtful that his misdeed would barely make the next edition of the local paper.
The situation was diversely different for Kyle Busch because of his well known celebrity status as a star in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The ink was barely dry on his traffic citation before the story was ran by every news and sports media center in the country. While the episode was certainly embarrassing for the driver, it was even more embarrassing for Joe Gibbs Racing. Once again the Gibbs organization found themselves having to explain the actions of this driver to their sponsors while in the midst of putting out his latest public relations fire.
This incident is not going to become an official NASCAR matter. On Wednesday NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharpe issued a statement that said “this is a matter Kyle will have to handle with the authorities in Iredell County. Based on what we know right now, this would not impact his status as a NASCAR driver.”
Paying the monetary fine from his citation is not a problem for Kyle Busch. He’s a wealthy man. It’s likely that a fine will be the only punishment he receives from actions that are widely regarded as being both dangerous and completely irresponsible.
After all, he is a celebrity and it’s well known that in our country there are rules and procedures that apply to celebrities that would never be afforded to someone such as “John Q. Public.” If you find that hard to believe then ask anyone, including yours truly, from southern California about celebrity justice. We will quickly drop the names Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen just to name two. Don’t even get us started on the O J Simpson matter.
If Kyle Busch is going to have any real problems from this incident it will likely come from Joe or J D Gibbs who were reported to be “looking into the situation.” They will likely instruct him to find a way to lock “Old Kyle” into a box never to be heard from again.
