Full Throttle

Teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson made themselves the new champion drafting tandem of Daytona on Saturday night, holding off any combination Dale Earnhardt Jr. could muster. Gordon won the Pepsi 400 with Johnson second after riding shotgun the final few laps. The victory left Gordon with his fourth win of the season and his second in three restrictor-plate races.

At Talladega, Ala., in April, Gordon got a break on a late caution that denied Earnhardt a final chance to win. But this time, Gordon won straight-up, with no flukes. Earnhardt, winner of the Daytona 500 here in February, had to settle for third.

“I owe this one to Jimmie Johnson,” Gordon said. “This team builds an unbelievable race car, but he gave me a push [aerodynamically] that no one else would have given me.” “No way I wanted to run second,” Johnson said. “Crossing the start-finish line I used a lot of four-letter words; I wanted to win this race.”

“Next time,” said Gordon, “I’ll give him a push.”

At the end Earnhardt was trying on his own to deal with Gordon and Johnson. After Earnhardt’s teammate, Michael Waltrip, fell back, Earnhardt tried to partner first with Tony Stewart and then Kurt Busch, but none of it worked.

“We tried to make a run at him however we could,” Earnhardt said. “They’ve just gotten stout. We didn’t have the car to get around him tonight.”

Stewart, who hadn’t led all evening, showed up out of nowhere at the front after the final round of pit stops with 20 laps remaining.

Gordon, who’d led before the final stop, was third, followed by Busch, Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Johnson and Earnhardt.

Gordon slipped into second place behind Stewart with 14 laps to go, and he and Johnson blew past Stewart with six laps left. They weren’t challenged from there.

The usual Earnhardt domination at Daytona was broken up briefly during the middle stages, when he was forced off pit road and into the grass by Brian Vickers, who in turn was being blocked on pit road by Gordon.

After plowing through mud and water and regaining control, Earnhardt fell back to 13th during the caution period. On the restart on Lap 76, Gordon and teammate Vickers held the top two positions.

But Earnhardt and Waltrip ripped back up through the field. By Lap 85 they were on Gordon’s bumper; on the next lap Waltrip took the lead; next lap, Earnhardt passed Gordon and tucked into second place.

The race began nearly two hours late because of rain and even then was started under green-yellow conditions so the race cars themselves could finish drying the track. The first nine laps were run under caution before the field actually started racing wide-open.

They could get in only eight clean laps before the first wreck, which started when Ward Burton’s car blew a tire and spun. Matt Kenseth, Ricky Craven and Ken Schrader were collected in the melee.

The incident was costliest to Kenseth, the defending NASCAR champion who entered the race third in the standings, 205 points behind leader Johnson. Kenseth’s car was so badly damaged that his crew had to take it to the garage to replace the radiator.

Waltrip, who’d taken the lead from polesitter Gordon at the end of the first lap of green, dominated the early going, leading both before and after the first round of pit stops under the caution for the Burton wreck. Earnhardt was able to join Waltrip at the front of the draft after the first stop, and the DEI tandem was in business as usual.

John Andretti, returning to the DEI team after months of absence because of a lack of sponsorship for the third car, had a strong run going, running in the top five near his teammates, until he crashed after 44 laps because of a cut tire.

That brought out the second caution and another round of stops, from which the Waltrip-Earnhardt tandem emerged still on top when the race restarted on Lap 50. To break up the monotony, Earnhardt took the lead from Waltrip on Lap 56, bringing a crowd estimated at 150,000 to its feet.

Gordon and an accompanying pack managed to break up the DEI tag-team on Lap 64 by shuffling Waltrip back to seventh, aided by a handling problem in Waltrip’s car.

But Gordon couldn’t get past Earnhardt for the lead. That was a clear indication that Earnhardt was plenty strong even without Waltrip’s drafting help, just as Earnhardt had been last February in winning the Daytona 500.

Carl Edwards came back from a first-lap accident Saturday to win the Craftsman Truck Series Race at Kansas Speedway, his second victory of the season.

“I just can’t believe we won this race. It just doesn’t seem real,” the Missouri driver said.

But Edwards’ Ford failed inspection after the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 because it did not meet the minimum height requirement. NASCAR confiscated some parts of the truck and planned to return them to its research and development center in North Carolina.

NASCAR officials said it’s possible the truck failed inspection because of damage from the early accident.

Points leader Dennis Setzer was not so fortunate in the most caution-filled trucks race in the track’s four-year history.

After Setzer drifted wide and put Edwards into the wall on the first lap, Setzer dropped back into the pack — where he got caught up in a seven-car crash in the second lap. He had to replace his oil cooler and radiator, fell 31 laps down before re-entering the race and finished 25th. His lead over Edwards in the standings dropped from 131 points to 34, with Bobby Hamilton 61 points off the lead after his second-place finish Saturday.

With qualifying rained out Friday and the starting order set by points standings, Setzer was on the pole and Edwards on the outside front for Saturday’s race.

“I was pretty sure it was going to be a bad day after that first-lap incident,” said Edwards, who dropped to 33rd as his crew worked to replace his fender and two tires. “I don’t think it was anyone’s fault. We were both probably racing just a little too hard, and Dennis got loose — which happens.”

Edwards, the runner-up here in 2003, was back in the top four after 31 laps in the 167-lap race and took the lead on the 146th lap.

The last of the day’s 10 yellow flags came out in the 155th lap, when Mike Skinner hit the wall in the back stretch. The green flag dropped with 10 laps left, and Hamilton never was able to make a move to retake the lead he held for 47 laps. “We’d get fast a couple of laps, and then he’d even it out,” Hamilton said. “I would have needed more time. He drove a good race.”

Forty-four laps were run under caution Saturday; the previous record was eight cautions for 34 laps in last year’s race.

Edwards won the season opener at Daytona, one of the nation’s most storied tracks — but this victory, about two hours west of his native Columbia, Mo., was sweeter.

“I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t cry after the checkered flag,” he said. “I thought there was something wrong with my truck when I pulled in to stop and do a backflip, because I heard this noise. I shut the engine off, and it was the crowd.”

Rick Crawford was third in a Ford, followed by Steve Park, Matt Crafton, Jon Wood, Travis Kvapil, Jack Sprague, Chad Chaffin and Terry Cook.

Mike Wallace, wasn?t a favorite heading into Friday?s night Winn-Dixie 250 at Daytona International Speedway, but he was fast. The driver of the No. 4 GEICO Ford Taurus used his veteran knowledge and overcame a series of wild obstacles on the last lap of the 100-lap event to score his first victory of the season, and the first for his team, Biagi Bros., Racing.

The race was solid from the drop of the green, but the sparks really exploded on the last lap when Michael Waltrip, in the No.99 Aarons Dream Machine, blasted his way from 25th on the last restart to take the lead with two laps to go, passing his Nextel Cup teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Behind, Waltrip was the No. 00 of Jason Leffler who scored a victory earlier this season at Nashville Superspeedway.

Heading to the white flag, Waltrip led the huge pack of machines with Leffler in second, and Greg Biffle in third. Heading into turn one, Leffler tried battling the veteran driver on the outside, but didn?t have enough to get by and ducked behind the No. 99. However, Leffler was a little too close for comfort and hit Michael in the rear, sending the Blue and White Chevrolet spinning wildly down the backstretch.

With Waltrip hitting the wall, Leffler backed off, but still retained the lead. Drafting into turn three, Jason Leffler was trying to hold off Chance 2 Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr but Leffler?s Haas Automation machine drifted high and put the two Chevrolet Monte Carlos into the wall.

Meanwhile, Mike Wallace, who is running the entire NASCAR Busch Series this season on a limited budget, snuck underneath the bowtie machines and motored his way to his first victory in more than a decade.

“The last few laps were just intense,” said Wallace, who last scored a Busch victory in 1994 at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

Before all the chaos, it appeared that Robby Gordon would win his first NASCAR Busch Series victory behind the wheel of his No. 55 Fruit of the Loom Chevrolet, but a tire failure following the last restart dimmed his chances at the taste of champagne.

Behind the GEICO/Sport Clips Ford Taurus of Wallace was Jason Leffler who finished second. Many drivers including Dale Earnhardt, Jr argued that the former open-wheel driver was crazy on the last lap. Obviously, Leffler, a former Nextel Cup driver had a different opinion, stating that Michael Waltrip drifted high and his run in with Dale Earnhardt, Jr was racing for the trophy. In a late twist of events, Jason Leffler has been penalized one second by NASCAR not for his actions with Michael Waltrip, but his ordeal with 2004 Daytona 500 champion Dale Earnhardt, Jr. The penalty knocks Leffler to 13th in the rundown.

“I don’t what to say to that, it’s a shame,” Leffler stated. “That’s what you get here in restrictor-plate racing, so it’s difficult, but we’ll take that finish and go on.”

With Leffler being penalized, Greg Biffle is credited with second. Biffle?s No. 60 Charter Communications/B.A.S.S. Ford Taurus was another competitor to grab four Goodyear Eagles on the last run and charged his way to a top five.

Martin Truex, Jr who battled an ill-handling B.A.S.S. Pro Shops Chevrolet Monte Carlo all night finished a solid third. Truex, Jr had a strong car, but when it counted it wasn?t enough.

Outside pole sitter Robert Pressley, in the ST Motorsports machine almost ended his night in the fence nearing halfway, but was another driver that snuck his way back to the front and finished fourth.

Pole sitter, Mike Bliss who looked to be the car to beat early on in the event maintained his position in the top ten for the majority of the night and captured a comfortable fifth.
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This is a little late but the USGP is still news in some ways.

Controversy, rumours, accidents and serious safety questions - it seems everything but the racing dominates the conversation following the North American legs of the Formula One World Championship. And I’m afraid not even the sugary sweet confectioneries so beloved of the US racing fans could make either event easier to swallow for me.

[...]

I’m sorry but this just isn’t what racing should be. I don’t tune in every race weekend to watch the best drivers in the world play the pawns in a high-speed game of chess between team managers. Motor racing used to be about just that - racing. Stunning out braking manoeuvres, wheel to wheel dueling and unpredictability were the order of the day. Now though the emphasis has been taken completely off the track and placed in the hands of strategists and boffins. Call me old-fashioned but I honestly don’t think any motor race should be won or lost by a plump, middle-aged guy with a calculator.

“Strategists and boffins,” I love that line. Read the rest it’s worth it.

Source: Racing News Online