Roush-Fenway Racing rookie Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., and his #99 Ford used a solid restart on Lap 107 of 112 to steal the race lead from Scott Speed and the No. 2 Red Bull Toyota and drive away to his first ARCA RE/MAX Series win in front of 10,273 “Drive Smart! Buckle-Up Kentucky 150” fans at Kentucky Speedway tonight.

Stenhouse, Jr., led the closing six laps before crossing the finish line ahead of Scott Speed in the #2 Red Bull Toyota. The margin marked the third-closest finish in the series 16 Kentucky Speedway races and the second straight May win for the Roush-Fenway #99 at the track. Current NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Erik Darnell took top honors last season.

“We’ve had good runs the last few weeks, so to finally get a win was just awesome. It was pretty tough. I’ve never really led a restart in one of these stock cars, and, actually those last few restarts when we were behind him (Speed) were the best restarts I’ve ever had in a stock car. I’m just trying to get better ever week, and learn as much as I can,” Stenhouse, Jr., said.

“This is a special win compared to the sprint cars I’ve won in, and means the most to me to finally get a win in a stock car. I can’t say enough about this Ford Fusion and the Roush V8 Engines, they really ran down the straightaways tonight.

“There’s a lot of competition here, and a lot of good cars in the ARCA/REMAX Series, but it’s getting better and better for us every week. It was another good night for points for us, and we’re just going to try to keep the momentum up going to Toledo. . I’m just glad we got this one, and hopefully there are more to come,” he added.

Ryan Fischer took third in the %25 TufTruckdirect.com/Venturini Motorsports Chevrolet, Ken Butler III wheeled to a fourth-place finish in the #22 Aaron’s Lucky Dog Dream Machine and John Wes Townley completed the top-five in the #09 John Wes Townley Zaxby’s/SPS/BB&T Ford.

The Roush Fenway driver spoiled what looked to Speed’s night. Speed seized the race lead on Lap 52 from Jake Francis and his #48 Dodge and led until Lap 106 when his solid run was ended by a series of late cautions.

The race restarted at total of four times in the closing 14 laps. Speed managed to hold point on all but the final restart, when his car experienced mechanical difficulty.

“Our Fuel strategy was fine. The only problem was on like the original green-white-checker. We got off to a nice little lead, but we broke third gear. So, the rest of the restarts they kept doing the green-white-checker and the gear was destroyed. It was a challenge. We definitely had a fast car. We should have won,” Speed said.

Current Points Standings:
Pos Driver Points
1 Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. 1365
2 Frank Kimmel 1360
3 John Wes Townley 1320
3 Matt Carter 1315
5 Tom Hessert III 1295
6 Scott Speed 1240
7 Justin Allgaier 1230
8 Patrick Sheltra 1215
9 Ken Butler III 1165
10 Tayler Malsam 1140

Technorati Tags: Auto racing, ARCA RE/MAX Series, Kentucky Speedway, NASCAR, Craftsman Truck Series, Roush Fenway Racing, Ricky Stenhouse

What do you do when you’re labeled by one of the MSM darlings as the “least popular” NASCAR driver (”most loathed” by another), supported by a driver introduction featuring a 150 decibel chorus of “BOO,” smack the fence five times and have loose nuts resulting in a stop-n-go?

The answer is obvious if your one Kyle “The Desperado” Busch, you turn the Lady in Black into the Lady on Her Back and take a bow to your less than adoring crowd after yet another win.

It’s all pretty simple isn’t it?

Busch when asked post race whether the boo-birds have any effect: “Not really. I don’t care. I’m here to race. I’m here to win. If I win, just makes ‘em more upset and crying on their way home.”

“By the way, somebody threw a beer can at me. Next time just make sure it’s full so I can enjoy it out there, all right?”

Somewhere Jeff Gordon is smiling as the cascade of beer cans have found another mark.

And somewhere else someone should be tracking down the asshat that did it so he/she/it can be banned from NASCAR sanctioned events for life.

Technorati Tags: Kyle Busch, Auto racing, NASCAR, Darlington Raceway, Motorsports

I have a death to report.

Not a death, death, but a blog’s death.

David Exum has been doing the blog thing for the Boston Herald by his count that last 4 years.

According to his last post published Saturday he’s giving it up to “seek future endeavors,” and has also decided to not cover NASCAR for the newspaper.

I have no reason to doubt that, but find it odd he’s posted a non-blog article for the Herald’s Sunday edition with no mention he be leaving that post as well.

There’s also a small thought in the back of my mind a post of 3 days ago may have helped decide to seek other assignments. Over the last few months he lost control of his own comment section and it became a cesspool of hate and the mentally challenged.

Whether that had anything to do with his departure I won’t speculate on, but will say once you let a few nutcakes have their way it can become very frustrating to deal with.

Regardless Full Throttle wishes him the best and as they say in my former profession; “fair winds and following seas.”

Race drivers love to complain, and that’s especially true when things aren’t going their way or their ream isn’t living up to expectations.

It’s been that way since Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1895 and I see no chance it will abate in the near future.

It was only natural when seeing the latest Jeff Gordon quotes I filed them away along with a century of history preceding them.

But then I read them again: ” … NASCAR knows it’s happening,” Gordon said on Friday at Darlington Raceway. “They are the ones that see the cars come through inspection. They see it. When cars can’t even get on the scales because they’re running sideways, it’s something they need to address.”

Gordon’s referring to the cars doing the “crab-walk” down the straightaway. After a second reading the light bulb of cognition flicked on in my skull. “Yeah that’s it, that’s what I saw during Friday nights NNS event.”

At the time I thought nothing of it. After all the Cup series has just cast aside a car that can be best described as a Twisted Sister as compared to their street models. Prior to the CoT coming into being the old “template cars” were so bent out of shape they resembled something made during an Old-Fashioned Taffy Pull Party.

But there they were, the new car’s right rear hiked up like an incontinent dog in a fire hydrant factory.

I only wish I had a tape on the NNS event to go back and review it, because despite Gordon’s contention, more “legs were hiked” than just the pack of Roush-Fenway mongrels cars.

I seem to remember a much larger litter and NASCAR Series director John Darby not only admits to the phenomena but insists Hendrick Motorsports was the first to experiment with the new car as a twisted Sister and that Edwards’ #99 team was one of the last.

That leads me to believe I was correct in not calling out Jeffy as a whiner, but feel fully justified in saying he and any other members of Hendrick Motorsports thanking or speaking the same are Pots calling the Kettle black.

None of which bothers me in the slightest. If Roush, or any other team, finds a way to make the car work and NASCAR gives it a pass, more power to them both.

One thing I will do is pay closer attention to which teams are doing the crab walk down the Lady in Black’s straights this evening.

Technorati Tags: Darlington Raceway, Jeff Gordon, NASCAR, Auto Racing, Sprint Cup Series, Roush Fenway Racing, Full Throttle, F1 Rage!, Carl Edwards

This edition of trivia involves the “number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9.”

And no, before you ask, I haven’t turned Full Throttle into a Beatles anthology blog.

A clue to the drivers name pictured can be found within the lyrics of the Beatles Revolution 9. In fact more than just a clue but his “actual” given name can be found there. Sort of, you’ll have to be foolish enough to trust me on that.

By day this driver was a florist from Long Island, New York.

By night he was at the wheel of the Geisha Girl #9 modified stock car at the now defunct Islip Speedway and reigned as a Modified Champ at the historic 1/5th mile bull ring.

His NASCAR Grand National career consisted of three starts as either the driver or driver/owner, a single start in 1960 at Charlotte and 2 starts at Daytona in 1961.

Your final clue are the initials DFD, they are not related to his name directly, meaning his name for example isn’t Dave Fred Daytona or something similar, but the acronym is very much in the news today and that’s where the connection is.

That’s it for clues, good luck, you’ll need it.

Yeah ok, so I’m a U.S.D.A. Prime Choice A-Hole, I readily admit it so no reminder needed.

Unfortunately some people need to be taught my normal modus operandi. Case in point:

“Steve,” apparently represents a dating website for “NASCAR singles” that many of you have probably seen advertised via the major NASCAR websites.

It would appear all that exposure isn’t enough and he has taken to sending unsolicited emails that include a press release detailing the website. I say unsolicited because the mail I was sent didn’t come via my contact page and was sent directly to me via my normal email addy.

In addition I have never visited his site or commented on it.

Which only means one thing, “Steve” has been trolling NASCAR related sites, I suspect with an emphasis on blogs, and collecting email addy’s by whatever nefarious means for his use to help pimp the website.

But never let it be said I didn’t take at least one message he sent to heart. The first line of his mail reads thusly: EDITOR: Please let us know how we can be helpful.

If any of you have received the same email obviously you’re free to deal with it as you wish, my “helpful hints” are quoted verbatim from the mail I sent to “Steve.”

Steve:

So, you want to know how you can be helpful?

Ok, lets start with this. Act like a legitimate and professional business and not troll the Internet looking for NASCAR related blogs with the sole object of collecting email addresses of the authors.

And secondly when said email addresses are gathered act responsibly with them, i.e. DO NOT send unsolicited mail that amounts to nothing more than spam pimping a junk website?

Got it Steve?

If not I can be much more, shall we say, “explicit” in my response.

Marc
Full Throttle
Asian Motor Sports
F1 Rage

Do ya think he got the message?

Hope so, ’cause I would certainly “hate” to resort to going over his little pinhead and contact his boss. (assuming he has one)

Really, I would!

With all that’s going on within the F1 Circus over the last few weeks is this really how Reuters wants to headline a story?

“Fisichella penalised for red light infringement.”

It’s factual, that I’ll give them.

But you wonder if the Reuters staffer is completely oblivious to Max “The Littlest Perv” Mosley’s sexual escapades or he/she might be having a little fun with word play at the expense of the unaware?

Anyway, enough of the falderal, on to more [semi]important stuff.

Stuff like the price of gas, specifically the variety that powers NASCAR’s traveling circus of transporters.

“We’re really noticing it in credit card costs,” said Jay Frye, general manager of Red Bull Racing. “We’re getting bills back for thousands and thousands of dollars in diesel fuel that’s needed to get the haulers to the track each week. So every time gas prices go up, it affects our monthly budget because we’re paying a bigger gas bill than we did last month.”

At approximately 300 gallons a pop to fill up an 18=wheeler it costs more than $1,200 for a transporter that only gets between 4.5 and 7.5 miles per gallon.

I feel their pain, I guess, but didn’t come this way to sympathize. I mention it because it could be worse, much worse.

Rather than 18-wheelers criss-crossing the nation NASCAR’s best could be making the trip between Eastern Australia and a couple thousand kilometers west to Perth for a weekend of racing at Barbagallo Raceway in Perth.

Why would that be worse?

Funny you should ask, rather than 18-wheelers they would be making the trip at the wheel of a gas guzzling 34-wheeler!

Go ahead, click on that image I dare you to behold that behemoth. In fact throw caution to the wind and click twice to get up close and personal with the beast.

Those familiar with Australia are probably aware of the Road Trains that are the mainstay of cargo transport across the outback. I’ve seen enough of them in my time spent there, including a couple near Alice Springs and Darwin that were still adored with Kangaroo entrails flapping in the breeze and dust, but had never thought of race car transporters configured as Road Trains.

I’m thinkin’ Dale Jr. should have had one exported to the States after his visit to Australia this past winter. Talk about a statement rolling into Daytona with a 34-wheeler.

An illegal statement, but a statement non-the-less.

Technorati Tags: NASCAR, Red Bull Racing, Auto racing, Barbagallo Raceway, Jay Frye, Alice Springs

Can we (we meaning ink-stained wretches) all just forget about making the lame Busch - Intimidator comparisons? I’m getting bored stupid seeing my reader fill up with gazillion headlines all touting the same line of tripe.

If Kyle Busch puts the slightest scratch on his right rear quarter panel on his way to a win at Darlington I fully expect the next tsunami of headlines will be Busch - King Richard comparisons. Petty pretty much patented the Darlington Stripe in the mid to late sixties.

While on the subject of ink-stained wretches, did you know Darlington may have been the only sport venue in the country where the press box filled up from the back row forward.

Until 1966 the Darlington press box provided the nation’s motor-sports writers with a unique opportunity to prove their collective family jewel size. The box was situated precariously on thin stilts just outside the first-turn guardrail. The closest reporters were no more than 20 feet from the top of the metal strips that were generously called “guardrails.”

Note I said until 1966. That year Earl Balmer (pictured above) gave everyone, ink stained or otherwise something to ponder.

Balmer had the reputation of a hard charger, who drove more with his foot than his head. As one pitside observer said: “He’ll jam that car into the corner as deep as it’ll go, and if he makes it through the turn, he figures he can jam it in a little deeper the next time around.”

Needless to say he didn’t make it through turn one that year. While running down the main straight, his car was tapped from behind; Balmer lost control and climbed the guardrail. It is generally agreed that he came within a whisker of falling outside the track and collapsing the press-box supports.

After that the press box picked up the name “Balmer’s Box” and was the only one on the circuit that remained virtually empty on race day.

Quotes on the Darlington Stripe: Fireball Roberts once said of turns 3-4, (now 1-2) “If you could put roller skates on the side of your car, this turn would be perfect.”

“No one really wanted to hit the rail, but you had to drive as though it wasn’t there,” said Pete Hamilton. “You usually got it with the right rear first. You would hit and never get off the gas. It was so quick—just a whap. Geez, the first time for me it sounded like the car had fallen apart. I thought I had destructed. It would go blrrp because the sections of the rail overlap and it was like you’d run a stick across a picket fence.”

That Lady in Black bites:

In 1964, Darel Dieringer spun in the first turn of the first lap, sending about half the field every which way, then spun again in the third turn of the same lap, a record. “Gawdamn,” said Dieringer, who does not like to be reminded. “Everybody thought I was drunk.”

Bobby Allison once called the track a “witch” after an unusual accident that was caused by apparently nothing at all. “At other tracks I might feel like running a short-track race on the way home,” he said, “but when this race is over, I don’t feel like doing anything.” And Buddy Baker added, “You got to be a genius just to drive into the pits.”

Richard Petty: “I’ll tell you, a lot more races are lost on this track than are ever won. On most tracks, you’ve got a margin for error; here you’re on the edge all the time. You’re so close, you slide just a little and you watch the rest of the race from the pits. “It’s like a road course. It’s more fun to drive alone than in traffic. You don’t race the other drivers, you run against the track.”

And finally on the tracks weird pear shaped configuration: “We built the track the way we did because that’s the way it came out.” - Barney Wallace one of the original group of investors in Darlington.

And the final “finally,” a Darlington Tribute and Camp Darlington.

An addendum to the final “finally:” Swervin’ Irvan and Ken Schrader make the top ten list of Stupidest Moments in NASCAR History at the 1990 TranSouth 500 at Darlington.

Technorati Tags: Bobby Allison, Richard Petty, Auto racing, Dale Earnhardt, Buddy Baker, Darel Dieringer, NASCAR, Darlington Raceway

It’s not often I remark on anything related to the World Rally championship. Not that an interest isn’t held it’s just a matter of time and priorities, in point of fact I tend to believe those that ply their trade in the WRC are some of the most accomplished drivers on the planet.

Regardless of my time constraints, sometimes things just have to be said, and this case it’s, “just shut the hell up!”

Surinder Thatthi, chairman of the Confederation of African Countries in Motorsports (CACMS), and Morrie Chandler, president of the World Rally Championship (WRC) commission have taken on the collateral duty of WRC Fashion Police.

In an exchange of emails these two nitwits have been critical of 4-time WRC champ Sébastien Loeb’s (4 consecutive I might add) appearance calling it “scruffy.”

“I watched the WRC Mexico highlights last night and I have to voice my opinion on the poor appearance of Sebastien Loeb on WRC-TV”, Thatthi wrote in his mail to Chandler, a copy of which was made available to Reuters.

“He was unshaven, scruffy looking and with unkempt hair,” Thatthi added.

(yeah, life’s a bitch when it includes having a bad hair day caused by a crash helmet worn while racing thru woods at over 150kph! -ed)

“It is wrong … when the FIA gives him global TV coverage to millions of viewers and to many children worldwide he is a hero and role model. “I know there is a level of personal freedom one is allowed but I feel he is taking this too far and someone should talk to him or his team about this.”

(So, Thatthi if you’re so pissed about bad hair and some razor stubble can we count on your no vote in the Max “The Littlest Perv” Mosley matter? Or do you believe Max has his “personal freedom” and will give him a pass? -ed)

Chandler, in his reply, agreed with Thatthi that the issue should be addressed.

“Yes I watched the same as you did … unfortunately it is not a problem that is unique to our sport as the same happens in football and other ‘male’ sports,” Chandler wrote.

(”Male sports?” So does that mean you have no problem with half naked female rugby players? Or were a bit titillated by Brandi Chastain redefined feminist expression by her bra baring at the 1999 Women’s World Cup?)

“Of course these persons are an insult to real males.

(Like your boss at the FIA I presume? The one who gets his satisfaction from getting whipped by 5 goose-stepping nazi prostitutes? -ed)

“My only solution is that we suggest to (rallying rights holders) ISC that the camera does not cover them close up.”

(Yeah that’s the ticket deny all his sponsors TV time for the millions they spend on his WRC efforts. -ed)

Thankfully, ISC managing director Simon Long offered a different view of what these two nitwits are suggesting: “I do feel that it is precisely Sebastien’s ‘ruggedly good-looking’ appearance which has helped endear him to so many new and young fans both in France and around the world,” Long wrote back to Chandler.

He was way too kind. I’ll stick by my just shut the hell up you two nitwits! (and call your boss Mosley)

Technorati Tags: Sébastien Loeb, World Rally Championship, Rallying, Motorsports, Auto Racing, Sebastien Loeb

Of all the noise heard within NASCAR Nation the past few days (the loudest being the Junior/Busch non-sense) one couldn’t help noticing the many stories concerning Chrissy Wallace’s recent exploits. Not that is isn’t deserved, she has the talent and more importantly, the pedigree of the Wallace family to aid her drive to the top of NASCAR.

My question is, is there room on the Wallace bandwagon for Tiffany Daniels?

Daniels has just signed with Eddie Sharp Racing (ESR) to compete in the Camping World East Series. She makes her first series start May 31st in the The Strutmasters.com 150 at South Boston Speedway.

“Eddie Sharp Racing is a top-notch organization, so I feel very confident entering the Camping World East Series race at South Boston Speedway,” said Daniels. “South Boston Speedway is an excellent track for my debut in the Camping World East series. I have a great deal of racing experience at the track, so my familiarity with the 0.4-mile oval should translate into a successful CW East race. I believe that I will be very competitive in ESR equipment. Driving this race for ESR is a great opportunity to take a step forward in advancing my driving career.”

For those unaware Daniels should be in top notch equipment, ESR also fields the #2 Red Bull entry of Scott Speed in the ARCA RE/MAX Series. Although caught up in an accident at Rockingham this past weekend Speed scored his first win with a ESR machine in the Kansas Lottery $150 Grand at Kansas Speedway the previous week.

Technorati Tags: ARCA RE/MAX Series, Sports, Motorsports, Auto Racing, Kansas Speedway, NASCAR, Camping World East Series, Tiffany Daniels, Chrissy Wallace