Posted Friday, Aug 21, 2009, 11:04 am in Employee News
With only three races left to secure a birth in The Chase, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series goes short-track racing Saturday night on the ominous .533-mile high-banked oval of Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tenn. It’s 500 laps of racing in the Sharpie 500.
Often referred to as “Thunder Valley,” the complex includes an oval track and drag strip nestled between the mountains of east Tennessee. Bristol is continually voted the most popular stop on the 36-race NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule.
A small number of drivers have locked up a spot in the Chase, but the list of those trying to secure a spot is much longer. The top-12 drivers in the point standings after the 26th race at Richmond, Va., will compete for the season championship and the Sprint Cup over the final 10 races of the season.
Kurt Bush (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) slipped two positions in the driver’s standings after last weekend’s 36-place finish at Michigan. Unfortunately for Busch, an accident on lap 120 cost the 2004 series champion nearly 100 driver points. He is now 178 points ahead of the 13th-place driver, Brian Vickers.
“Our biggest focus right now, of course, is to make this year’s Chase,” Busch said. “We got involved in the crash there at Michigan and we took a hit in the points. It wasn’t so much that we dropped a couple of spots down the ladder. We’re not overly concerned about that. The most disappointing thing is that our cushion over 13th decreased almost 100 points.”
Despite last weekend’s stumble, Busch heads to Bristol Motor Speedway as Dodge’s most decorated driver on the half-mile oval. Busch claimed his first-career NSCS win back at the spring event 2002 during his sophomore season. In 17 Cup starts at Thunder Valley, Bush has five wins, five top-five and nine top-10 finishes. Busch won three-straight events at Bristol from 2003 to 2004.
“Bristol is always so fast and furious that almost anything can happen there,” Busch said. “With the situation we’re in, we need to do everything possible to keep all the fenders on our Miller Lite Dodge and be running at the finish on Saturday night.”
Kasey Kahne (No. 9 Budweiser Dodge Charger) recovered from last week’s near disaster where he was relegated to start 43rd due to an engine change after the first practice session. He raced his way up from last place to finish 11th. Currently eighth in the Sprint Cup standings, the Petty Motorsports driver is 105 points ahead of the first driver outside the top 12.
“It’s close,” Kahne said. “We’re all really on edge trying to make it, be part of the Chase. It’s close from 15th to sixth, somewhere in there. It’s a tight battle. Any little mistake can definitely cost you a lot of points and hurt your chances. I just try and focus on my race car. We’re doing the same things that we’ve been doing, trying to get the balance where it needs to be so that we can race and be competitive on race day. Hopefully it works out.”
In 11 career starts at Bristol, Kahne has two top-five and four top-10 finishes including his first-career pole at Bristol in the 2007 fall event. He led 305 laps and finished runner-up.
Driver standings after 23 races
(Chase Field Set Following Race 26)
Pos. driver, points (point lead over 13th)
1. Tony Stewart, 3,500 (+721)
2. Jeff Gordon, 3,216 (437)
3. Jimmie Johnson, 3,197 (418)
4. Carl Edwards, 2,995 216
5. Denny Hamlin, 2,986 (207 )
6. Kurt Busch, 2,957 (178)
7. Juan Montoya, 2,887 (108)
8. Kasey Kahne, 2,884 (105)
9. Ryan Newman, 2,845 (66)
10. Greg Biffle, 2,821 (42)
11. Matt Kenseth, 2,811 (32)
12. Mark Martin, 2,791 (12)
Seven Dodge teams are entered in the Sharpie 500 seeking to give Dodge its 204th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory. All seven drivers are assured berths as they sit inside the top 35 in car owner points. Dodge has earned six wins at Bristol.
Other notes
• Elliott Sadler (No. 19 Stanley Dodge) will have a new voice on the headset this weekend. Wally Rogers, the No. 19’s team’s car chief, has been appointed interim crew chief starting at Bristol. Sadler won the spring event at Bristol on 2001 while driving for the Wood Brothers.
• Sam Hornish Jr. (No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge) earned his second top-five in three weeks with his fifth-place finish at Michigan last weekend. Hornish will be making his fourth-career Cup start at Bristol.
• Reed Sorenson (No. 43 Valvoline Dodge Charger) earned his highest Bristol starting position at the spring event earlier this season. He started seventh.
Teams have one final weekend off to work on their cars before hitting Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Pep Boys Auto 500 on Sept. 6. The race was moved from its previous October date to Labor Day weekend during the off-season. The race will be the 25th of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, making it the penultimate event before the 2009 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
What you need to know
The Race: Sharpie 500
The Place: Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway The Date: Saturday, Aug. 22
The Time: 7:30 p.m. (EDT)
The Track: .533-mile
The Distance: 266.5 miles/500 laps Television: ESPN, 6:30 p.m. (EDT)
__________________
Rick
Nitro Year: 2007 (1 of 113,000 sold)
Nitro Model: R/T 4X4 Stone White
CAT-BACK Exhaust, CAI, Projector Head Lamps
Fully-Equipped w/all factory options
Tonight’s race wasn’t the typical caution-filled, mangled-car calamity of previous Thunder Valley events. Even so, the 500 lap racing on the famed half-mile, 34 degree-banked track in Bristol, TN was exciting all evening long. Three and four wide passing even in the corners was standard throughout tonight’s Sharpie 500. Unfortunately, for the Dodge Boys of NASCAR the evening just wasn’t theirs. Only the #2 Miller Lite Dodge of Kurt Busch showed any ability to run up front. For the rest of the Dodge teams— it wasn’t a spectacular evening, as they could only run in the middle to back half of the pack. Poor car setups lead everyone except Kurt struggling.
The evening really belonged to the #5 Kellogg’s Chevy driven by Mark Martin, but even Mark’s superb running car and driving ability wouldn’t stop Kyle Busch from stealing the win. The kid took the lead in the final 40 laps and just stayed out front through the last two cautions and red flag. The red flag was thrown with 11 laps remaining when Michael Waltrip blew a front tire sending his car into the wall and other cars spinning. One of spinning cars was that of Clint Bowers. Clint’s Chevy backed into Michael’s Toyota and rendered it a total wreck. NASCAR officials had to stop the race for a massive oil/water/car cleanup. When the race resumed 12 minutes later, Mark would challenge Kurt running the final few laps, door-handle to door-handle. However, Mark just couldn’t muscle his way around Kyle. Tonight’s win marks the 17th time that Kyle has won in the Sprint Cup Series.
Kasey Kahne driving the #9 Budweiser Charger finished the race -3 laps down in 28th position. A dismal evening on the track for all the Dodge teams also spelled disaster for championship points. The results moved Kasey down another two positions, to 8th in Chase championship points. He now finds himself on the championship cut bubble, vying with eight other drivers for the final championship positions.
Here’s how all the Dodge Boys finished at tonight’s Sharpie 500 in Thunder Valley:
#2 (Miller Lite), Kurt Busch, 7th
#43 (Valvoline), Reed Sorenson, 19th
#12 (Penske Racing), David Stremme, 20th
#19 (Stanley Tools), Elliott Sadler, 26th
#9 (Budweiser), Kasey Kahne, 28th
#77 (Mobil 1), Sam Hornish, Jr., 35th
#44 (Hunt Brothers Pizza), A.J. Allmendinger, 37th
#37 (Long John Silver’s), Tony Raines, 42nd
With two races, Atlanta and Richmond, remaining before the championship field is set, Kasey must regroup quickly and finish in the top 10 if the #9 Budweiser team intends to really compete for this year’s Sprint Cup Championship. Kurt also must be careful in these final two races. It’s a real pressure cooker for both Penske and Richard Petty Motorsports
(RPM) race teams. So, stay tuned!
Posted Monday, Aug 24, 2009, 9:40 am in Employee News
Kurt Busch has achieved his share of success at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway during his nine-year career. He entered Saturday night’s Sharpie 500 with five wins on the high-banked, .533-mile oval. For most of the 500-lap event, win number six looked well within grasp.
Busch started 13th, but quickly made it into the top 10 and once he made it into the top five, he stayed there for most of the first 400 circuits of the 500-lap event. He was running third in the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger when the seventh caution appeared on lap 422 when raindrops began to fall. All the leaders headed to pit road for tires and fuel including Busch. The weather delay was brief and Busch restarted fifth after one car elected to stay out and a second took only two tires.
Racing resumed on lap 431. The final 69 laps turned into one of the toughest tests of the season for Busch and the No. 2 Miller Lite team. Immediately as the green flag appeared, Busch reported a severe vibration. He dropped to 11th in just five laps and had skidded to 17th two laps later. The situation didn’t get any better as the No. 2 Dodge was hit from behind as it slowed for a wreck ahead. It ended in a five-car mishap which brought out the eighth caution on lap 440 and revived memories of a week earlier when Busch was a victim in a mishap at Michigan. That resulted in a finish of 36th.
Busch’s car received minor sheet metal damage which the team repaired during a series of pit stops during the caution period. And, most important, they found the reason for the vibration – a loose wheel. Busch would normally have restarted 22nd under NASCAR’s new double-file restart rule, but was directed by the sanctioning organization to the rear of the field because of the large number of stops made during the caution. Busch restarted 37th when green-flag racing resumed on lap 451.
Three more cautions and a red flag appeared over the final 50 laps. The first caution, on lap 459, helped the No. 2 team. It provided an opportunity for one final check of the repairs and four new tires. Busch restarted 19th. He was back in the top 10 by lap 479 and made up three more spots in the closing laps to finish seventh.
“I thought we had a car that could win,” Busch said. “We managed to finish seventh with it because of some loose lug nuts. It was a top-five car. It was good to run that well with the COT (car of tomorrow) we haven’t done that since we started using this car at Bristol.”
After voicing his displeasure on the team radio about the loose lug nuts that caused the vibration, he had another message for his Miller Lite team. “I’ll never give up on you guys. I’m sorry I yelled at you. I love you guys. I just get fired up. We live together, we die together.”
The teamwork paid dividends. The seventh-place finish extended Busch’s point lead over 13th to 192 points with two races remaining to set the 12-driver field for the Chase for the Championship over the final two races.
“The Miller Lite Dodge was good all night,” Pat Tryson, crew chief for the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, said. “We just had a little problem on pit road and then another when we got collected in that wreck which put us behind. Kurt did an awesome job getting us back up there and got us some of the positions that we lost.
“It was a good comeback. It’s just a shame it happened (loose lug nut). It’s all part of the game. You don’t always have a perfect night. We salvaged a good finish out of it. We had a good car; that was the biggest thing … a big improvement over the spring.”
Kasey Kahne, the second Dodge driver in the thick of the battle for a berth in the Chase, wasn’t as fortunate. The No. 9 Budweiser Dodge team could not find the adjustments to solve handling issues. Kahne finished 28th. He slipped to 11th in the point standings, 52 ahead of 13th.
“Not much that I can say other than what a frustrating night for the Budweiser Dodge,” Kahne said. “We started toward the back and we were never able to get up front. We just missed it tonight.”
Reed Sorenson finished 19th in the No. 43 Valvoline Dodge Charger. He ran as high as 15th over the final 100 laps.
“That was a decent run for us tonight,” Sorenson. “We had a problem in the pits early in the race that cost us a lot of spots. But Sammy Johns (crew chief) and the guys on the 43 worked hard all night. We lost a lap, but nobody gave up and we got it back. There’s a lot of build on from this race.”
David Stremme finished 20th in the No. 12 Penske Racing Dodge. “We had a pretty good car,” he said. “A top 20 finish, so a pretty good night. We got behind that one run, came back and was running pretty good at the end to finish 20th.”
AJ Allmendinger started 19th in the No. 44 Hunt Brothers Pizza Dodge Charger, but had worked his way as high as 11th and was running 12th when he cut down a tire and broke a brake rotor on lap 135. The team replaced the rotor and repaired the damage. Allmendinger returned to competition, finishing 37th.
Sam Hornish Jr. started 38th, but worked his way inside the top 20 before a radiator issue required an extensive stay in the garage. He finished 35th.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes a weekend off before starting a string of 12 events on consecutive weekends to complete the 2009 season. The next two stops on the schedule are night races at Atlanta and Richmond, Va.
The Dodge Boys
Driver, team, finished
Kurt Busch, No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, 7th
Reed Sorenson, No. 43 Valvoline Dodge, 19th
David Stremme, No. 12 Penske Racing Dodge, 20th
Elliott Sadler,No. 19 Stanley Dodge, 26th
Kasey Kahne,No. 9 Budweiser Dodge, 28th
Sam Hornish Jr., No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge, 35th
AJ Allmendinger, No. 44 Hunt Brothers Pizza Dodge, 37th
NASCAR Sprint Cup driver points
After 24 of 36 races (points ahead of last Chase spot)
1. Tony Stewart, 3,564 (+653)
2. Jimmie Johnson, 3,344 (433)
3. Jeff Gordon, 3,310 (399)
4. Denny Hamlin, 3,141 (230)
5. Carl Edwards, 3,110 (199)
6. Kurt Busch (Dodge), 3,103 (192)
7. Ryan Newman, 2,995 (84)
8. Greg Biffle, 2,986 (75)
9. Juan Montoya, 2,975 (64)
10. Mark Martin, 2,971 (60)
11. Kasey Kahne (Dodge), 2,963 (52)
12. Matt Kenseth, 2,945 (34)
__________________
Rick
Nitro Year: 2007 (1 of 113,000 sold)
Nitro Model: R/T 4X4 Stone White
CAT-BACK Exhaust, CAI, Projector Head Lamps
Fully-Equipped w/all factory options
The AutoGuide.com network consists of the largest network of enthusiast-owned enthusiast-operated automotive communities.
AutoGuide.com provides the latest car reviews, auto show coverage, new car prices, and automotive news. The AutoGuide network operates more than 100 automotive forums where our users consult peers for shopping information and advice, and share opinions as a community.
Linear Mode
