Full Throttle

Christian Jones will compete in the 2004 Macau F3 GP with an Asian Formula Three supported TME Dallara TOM

FORT WORTH, Texas - Todd Bodine won his second straight NASCAR truck race Saturday, leading the final 38 laps after a lengthy red flag.

Bodine, the 40-year-old former Nextel Cup driver, finished a second ahead of Johnny Benson, another former Cup driver. Bodine, who averaged 115.179 mph in the Silverado 350K, is the first this season to win consecutive races.

“The truck was perfect, absolutely perfect,” Bodine said. “That last run, I was barely lifting out of the throttle. When you can do that, it’s awesome.”

Bodine regained the lead on Lap 109, the first green-flag lap after the race was stopped for 28 minutes because of a crash involving five trucks.

Bill Lester got loose on Lap 104 and slid into Zephyrhills native David Reutimann. Both trucks slammed hard into the wall coming out of Turn 4, and three other trucks were caught in the aftermath.

Lester’s truck came to rest on the frontstretch, and Reutimann slid to the inside wall along pit row. Both drivers were alert when they were taken by ambulance to Harris Methodist Hospital. After the delay, in which debris was removed and repairs were made to the SAFER barrier on the wall that absorbed the impact, Bodine passed polesitter Mike Skinner.

Jimmie Johnson held off teammate Jeff Gordon by 1.7 seconds in a “must win” situation that even he admits may not help his Chase fortunes without outside help. Johnson snatched the lead with 16 laps left in the UAW-GM Quality 500, then held off Gordon to revitalize, at least momentarily, his effort to win his first Nextel Cup championship.

“I think we still have hopes, but I think it is out of our control,” Johnson said. “It is going to require Jeff, (Kurt Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr.) to have some bad luck to put us back in a window where we can control it.”

The top five in the Chase standings remained the same. Busch has a 24-point lead over Earnhardt [the 25 point penalty still looms large - ed ], followed by Jeff Gordon (74 behind), Elliott Sadler (157) and Mark Martin (186).

The rookie curse still plagues Kasey Kahne as he dominated with 207 laps led of the 267 he completed before a right front tire blew on his No.9 Dodge, and sending it into the Turn 2 wall and out of the race. Mark Martin’s quest for his first Championship may have suffered a fatal blow when he became a victim of a late race collision between Brendan Gaughan and Jimmy Spencer causing major front-end damage to Martin’s No.6 Ford.

“It’s hard for me to believe some of these guys could pass a driver’s test,” Martin said of the accident that ruined his night.

When asked if his bid to win his first championship was over, Martin paused before answering.

“We gave it a great run,” he said. “I can’t help it.”

What remains is most probably a two man race to the Championship.
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I’ve already stated my belief the Chase is down to three players, but credit is due Ryan Newman for a stellar performace in qualifing for Saturday night’s UAW-GM 500. Newman lost ownership of the track record at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in May. Thursday night, he regained the record with a lap at 188.877 mph.

Newman’s lap, which took just 28.590 seconds, beat the mark of 28.869 seconds (187.052 mph) that Jimmie Johnson had set in May when Johnson beat Newman to win the pole for the Coca-Cola 600.

“That was pretty close to a perfect lap,” Newman said after winning his sixth pole of the season and the 24th of his career. “I told Krissie (Newman’s wife) I wanted the record back, and we got great weather and a good lap.”

Rookie Kasey Kahne ran 187.311 mph, also faster than the previous record, but it was only good enough for the outside spot on Row 1 since it was more than a quarter of a second slower than Newman ran.

“I watched his lap and it looked completely perfect,” Kahne said of Newman. “My lap felt really fast, but I didn’t think I ran the perfect line. Ryan missed all of the bumps and put down a cool lap.”

Casey Mears, who’d won the pole for tonight’s SpongeBob 300 race in the NASCAR Busch Series earlier in the evening, was the early leader in Cup qualifying too after running 187.279 mph as Dodge swept the top three positions.

“I wasn’t surprised at how fast Ryan went,” Mears said. “When they told me what I ran, knowing what Ryan had run in practice in the heat of the day, I didn’t think that was going to be good enough.”

Scott Riggs, another rookie, qualified fourth fastest in his Chevrolet.

CONCORD, N.C.

Added to the eariler Terry Labonte announcement, Mark Martin issued a press release stating his intentions to scale back his schedule after the 2005 NASCAR season. Currently 5^th in this years “Chase” for the Cup it appears he will take one last shot at gaining the Championship, one of the few unfullfilled accomplishments remaining in an illustrious career.

“First off I have to be clear that I’m not retiring from racing,” said Martin. “I’m too young to retire from racing, but I’ve been out here chasing this thing for a long time. I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to do over the years. There are a lot of guys out there who never got to win their first race in NASCAR and I’ve been fortunate to accomplish a lot of things. I never worry about the things that I haven’t done, instead I focus on all the things that I’ve been able to do and that makes me very proud. For me it’s just time to do something different.”

“Hey, the first time I ever got in a Cup car back in 1981 at North Wilkesboro, I was there to win the thing,” said Martin. “Next year when we climb in that car at Homestead for the last race, I can guarantee you that we’ll be looking to win that as well. I just wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t race because I love going in circles at fast speeds, I race to win and that is what we are going to try and do.

“I have a great team and we’ve overcome so much to be where we are right now,” added Martin. “The focus of the Viagra Team will continue to be to win that championship and to win races. We’d like nothing more than to go out on top, and it’s important to me that we go out that way.”

Martin’s career includes 34 Nextel Cup wins, 45 wins in the Busch Series, a series record, and also a record 4 Championships in the International Race of Champions, (1994, 1996, 1997, and 1998). In a preview of his NASCAR success Martin won the American Speed Association Championship 4 times.

If this story out of Brazil turns out to be true it may come to pass.

Tony Kanaan, who recently clinched the American Indy Racing League championship, says that he will be given a test with BAR as a ‘thank you’ by engine supplier Honda. Tha Brazilian, who has completed every single racing lap in the IRL this year, clinched the championship with one race to run.

Speaking to a Brazilian radio station, Kanaan said: “It’s a childhood dream of mine. Honda told me the test will happen.” But he added that nothing should be read into the test. “It’s just a gift,” he said. “I am signed with Andretti Green Racing until 2008, and we have big plans.”

Kanaan is very good friends with Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello, who has also in the past few days been linked with BAR should Jenson Button finally head to Williams.

That’s some “gift,” Santa never brought me an F1 test. And about that little contractual thing, we all know they aren’t worth the paper they are written on. Money talks and speaks a different language than the legal jargon found in signed contracts.

Prost having gained valuable experience in attempted f1 comebacks, after a year

A couple “Chase” drivers may embrace this idea purposed by Dale Jarret after their less than steller finishes at Kansas City this past weekend. One of the problems I noted from the inception of NASCAR’s “playoff” system is how severe a penalty a driver would suffer by a poor finish in one of the 10 Chase races. If a driver finishes in thirty third with five races remaining due to a blown engine if would effectively drop him from contention for the cup. Jarret has what may be a better idea.

The veteran driver, who won the Winston Cup in 1999, isn’t among the 10 drivers contending for this year’s title. But Jarrett said Saturday that those drivers’ finishes should be scored differently.

“Say that Jeff Gordon finished fifth and was the first of those 10 drivers,” Jarrett said. “He would get the 180 points for being the highest finisher of those, and then the next guy might be Elliott, who might finish 10th, but he would be the second-highest and he would get 170. Then it would just drop down from there, regardless of where their finish was.”

Complicated? Yes, but Jarrett figures his format would keep one bad race from dropping a driver from title contention.

“The most anybody could lose would be somewhere between 50 and 55 points,” he said, “so you’re going to keep everybody closer for the extended period of time.”

Sounds reasonable to me. In effect a driver would have one “throw away” race where the cost of a poor finish wouldn’t drop him 150 or more points, plus any points he entered the weekend behind the leader. As it stands now this years Chase is basiclly down to the top three in points due to the gap between fourth place and the leader with only six events left on the schedule.

UPDATE: Monty Dutton of the Gaston Gazette notes an unintended consequence of the current Chase format. With most of the press centering their NASCAR coverage on the ten chase participants those on the outside are concerned about their sponsors, here is the money quote.

All the exposure granted the new championship format has left those not fortunate enough to be in it feeling more than a little overlooked. They

On lap one of the Banquet 400 at Kansas pole sitter Joe Nemechek was passed by the Dodges of Kasey Kahne and Jeremy Mayfield, who then dominated much of the race. But Nemechek gambled, stayed out midway through the race when most others pitted, and then took full benefit of a string of late cautions to take the victory.

In victory lane Nemechek celebrated a weekend that could not have gone much better