Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / Sept. 29, 2005, edition 1 / Page 21
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nmmm Hiiiiiiiiiii 5C SPORTSARe Cfisttotte #o« Thursday, September 29, 2005 STANDINGS THE RACING 411 How the top 10 stack up this week NEXTEL CUP Following the MBNA RaceFbints 400 NEXTEL CUP BUSCH SERIES. 1. Jimmie Johnson — 5,362; previous: 6 2. Rusty Wallace 5,355; previous: 2 3. Ryan Newman 5,350; previous: 3 4. Mark Martin 5,341; previous: 7 5. Tony Stewart 5,339; previous: 1 6. Greg Biffle 5,339; previous: 2 7. Jeremy Mayfield 5,281; previous: 8 8. Carl Edwards 5,259; previous: 9 9. Matt Kenseth 5,238; previous: 5 10. Kurt Busch 5,192; previous: 10 A victory in Sunday’s race at Dover lifted Jimmie Johnson five spots to the top of the Nextel Cup standings. Race: UAW-Ford 500 Where: Talladega Superspeedway; Talladega, Ala. Track length: 2.66 miles (188 laps, 500 miles) When: Sunday, 2 p.m., ET Defending champion: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Track qualifying record: Bill Elliott, 212.809 mph; April 30,1987. Race record: Mark Martin, 188.354 mph; May 10, 1997. Fast facts: Jeff Gordon won the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway earlier this season. Sunday’s race will be the 72nd Cup race held at the Alabama track. Talladega is the longest track on the NASCAR circuit. Race: Kansas 300 Where: Kansas Speedway When: Oct. 8,2:20 p.m., ET Track length: 1.5 mUes Defending champion: Joe Nemechek recorded his 16th victory of his career by beating Tony Stewart on a late-race restart to win last year’s Mr. Goodeents 300. Track qualifying record; Michael Waltrip, 178.365 mph; Oct. 4,2003. Race record: Jeff Green, 129.125 mph; Sept. 29,2001. Fast fact: Following its second off-weekend in three weeks, the Busch Series will make its fifth trip to Kansas Speedway on Oct. 8. CRAFTSMAN TRUCK Race: Kroger 200 Where: Martinsville Speedway When; Oct. 22,1:30 p.m., ET Race length: 0.526 mile (200 laps, 105.2 miles) Defending champion: Jamie McMurray held olT Dennis Setzer on a restart with 12 laps to go to win last year’s Kroger 200. Qualifying record: Mike Bliss, 94.275 mph; April 16,1999. Race record: Jon Wood, 72.069 mph: Oct. 18,2003. Fast fact; Greg Biffle holds the Craftsman Truck Series record for wins in a season — nine. He broke Mike Skinner’s eight-win record at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sept. 24,1999, DOVER REVIEW DOVER NOTEBOOK BUSCH SERIES Following the Dover 200 1. Martin Truex Jr. 4,063; previous: 1 2. Clint Bowyer 4,037; previous: 2 3. Reed Sorenson 3,805; previous: 3 4. Carl Edwards 3,733; previous: 4 5. Denny Hamlin 3,496; previous: 6 6. Kenny Wallace 3,483; previous: 5 7. Paul Menard 3,330; previous: 7 8. David Stremme 3,194; previous: 9 9. David Green 3,193; previous: 8 10. Jason Keller 3,147; previous: 10 Denny Hamlin rose one spot in the standings to fifth following a sixth-place finish in the Dover 200. CRAFTSMAN TRUCK Following the Las Vegas 350 1. Dennis Setzer 2,877; previous: 1 2. Ted Musgrave 2,872; previous: 2 ■3. Ron Hornaday 2,677; previous: 3 4. Mike Skinner 2,627; previous: 5 5. Todd Bodine 2,593; previous: 7 6. Jimmy Spencer 2,593; previous: 4 7. Bobby Hamilton 2,577; previous: 6 8. David Starr A second-place finish in the Las Vegas 350 brought Ted Musgrave to within five points „ „ of standings 2,507; previous: 10 |@ader Dennis 9. David Reutimann 2,493; previous: 8 10. Matt Crafton 2,483; previous: 9 Setzer. Todd Bodine passed Ted Musgrave on the final lap in a green-white-checker finish Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for his second Craftsman Truck Series victory of the season. NASCAR -Jimmie Johnson leads Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Busch in the closing laps of Sunday’s MBNA RacePoints 400, Johnson won the race, the second in the Chase. Johnson wins at Dover Hendrick driver holds off teammate to grab victory By JEFF HOOD Cox News Service ON TV All tunes Eastern NEXTEL CUP UAW-Ford 500 1:30 p.m., Sunday BUSCH SERIES NBC Kansas 300 2 p.m., Oct. 8 NBC CRAFTSMAN TRUCK Kroger 200 1 p.m., Oct. 22 Dover, Del. W ith the lead in the Chase for the Nextel Cup championship hanging in the balance, Jimmie Johnson sat in an ideal position in the closing laps of Sunday’s MBNA RacePoints 400 with Kyle Busch locked on his rear bumper. But Johnson’s rookie team mate had other ideas after a race caution set up a two-lap dash to the finish. Despite being pushed to the limit, Johnson managed to eke out a .08 second victory over the 20-year-old Busch and vault into the lead in the Chase for the Cup. Busch, who closed in on Johnson twice during the final two-lap sprint, said he was never operating under a team directive after he was forced to settle for second. “As far as team orders or any thing, there was none of that,” said Busch, who became the youngest winner in Cup history with his victory at California three weeks ago, “It was go out and get it. I know he’s a Chase factor, but it doesn’t much matter to me. I’m trying to race as hard as I can to win,” Johnson, the runner-up in the title battle the past two seasons, said he was confident Busch wouldn’t resort to tactics seen the previous week at Loudon, N.H., by drivers who used their front bumper to nudge fellow drivers. “That’s all you can ask for, just enough room to race,” said Johnson, who jumped from sixth to the lead in the Chase stand ings. “You know, everybody gets aggressive at times.” “But I felt comfortable leading the race, knowing my teammate was back there. If it was some body else, I don’t think I would have had the same comfort.” Rusty Wallace, who finished third, climbed to second in the Chase, seven points behind Johnson. The veteran driver said he needed more green-flag laps in the closing stages, “Those guys beat me on the restarts,” Wallace said. “I was spinning the tires.” “And second gear in my transmission was really killing me today When I’d go to third gear there was just too much of a spread, and those guys would puU away from me.” Mark Martin edged pole sit ter Ryan Newman for fourth. Elliott Sadler, Jeremy Mayfield, Kyle Petty Carl Edwards and Casey Mears rounded out the top 10. Tony Stewart, the leader in the Chase entering Sunday’s event, was a nonfactor in an event extended to 404 laps fol lowing a caution on Lap 398. Stewart, who struggled to stay on the lead lap throughout the afternoon, dropped to fifth in the standings, 23 points behind Johnson, “Nobody saw this coming for sure,” said Stewart, whose 18th- place run was his first finish outside the top 10 in the past 13 events, “I don’t know why it was so bad.” “We’ve got to just go back to what we’ve been doing. We’ll be fine, We’U get caught up.” Roush drivers sputter in second Chase race By JEFF HOOD Cox News Service Dover, Del. T wo races into NASCAR’s 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup, three of Roush Racing’s five drivers appear on the brink of elimination. For the second consec utive week, defending Cup champion Kurt Busch finished outside the top 20 and remains 10th in the standings, 170 points behind new Chase leader Jimmie Johnson. Despite leading a race- high 192 laps, Busch, who finished 23rd, was BUSCH ■ hurt by untimely pit strategy and a punc tured tire in the closing moments of the MBNA RacePoints 400. Matt Kenseth ran in the top five much of the afternoon until a tire blew under green on Lap 216. Kenseth managed to climb back to 10th with 50 laps remaining, just 17 laps before his Roush Ford slammed into the Turn 1 wall. “Eight races is a lot of racing to do,” said Kenseth, who finished 35th and fell to ninth in the Chase, 124 points behind Johnson. Teammate Carl Edwards climbed one position to eighth in the standings after sol diering a poor-handling car to a ninth-place finish. A replacement named? Rusty Wallace may have inadvertently announced who will replace him in the No. 2 Dodge next season when he said “this is the last hurrah for me in this car before I turn it over to Kurt [Busch].” Busch, who is set to leave Roush Racing and move to Penske Racing South in 2007, might make the transition next season instead. WALLACE “I know those lawyers are still fighting around, trying to get him out of that deal [with Roush],” Wallace said. “I was with him last week golfing and he wants to drive the [No. 2] car. They’ll work it out. I’m pretty confident something will happen.” RACE STATISTICS Time of race: 3 hours, 30 minutes, 41 seconds Margin of victory: 0.080 seconds Winner’s average speed; 115.054 mph Caution flags: 11 for 50 laps Lead changes; 15 among seven drivers Lap leaders; Ryan Newman, 1-30; Jimmie Johnson, 31-70; Greg Biffle, 71-75; Johnson,' 76-108; Kurt Busch, 109; Michael Waltrip, 110; Busch, 111-177; Biffle, 178-186; Busch, 187- 203; Elliott Sadler, 204-229; Busch, 230-319; Mark Martin, 320; Busch, 321-337; Johnson, 338-370; Martin, 371-376; Johnson, 377-404, NASCAR president issues warning Helton says, NASCAR won’t tolerate incidents of retaliation on track By JEFF HOOD Cox News Service Dover, Del. O ne week after a series of retaliation incidents at Loudon, N.H., NASCAR President Mike Helton fulfilled a promise to address the issue in the drivers meeting at Dover. “Those of you who have been around for a while understand the way NASCAR approaches the attitude of the sport when it comes to you in relationship with each other,” Helton said. “But if that attitude starts going in a direction where it is conflicting with the orderly conduct of the events, then we get involved. “And if we see things contin ue in the direction that we’ve seen the last two or three weeks, then we will continue to ramp up our reaction to be more severe than even the last one we issued out Monday [Sept. 19].” Helton defended the penal ties issued, last week, which were viewed as relatively light. NASCAR Vice President Jim Hunter had hinted at New Hampshire that a suspension might be forthcoming. “I don’t think Jim’s com ments were specific as to what had already happened [at Loudon] as much as it was an expression of NASCAR’s desire going forward,” Helton said. After holding drivers for two to five laps for similar retalia tory incidents at Bristol and Richmond, Helton said NASCAR increased the pun ishment by disallowing Kasey Kahne and Robby Gordon’s teams to make repairs to their battered cars. • “We parked them for the day And on top of that, the penal ties they received [on Sept. 19] were far more severe than what we had done in the past.” Michael Waltrip said he phoned Gordon last week in an effort to settle their dispute, which erupted after Waltrip’s Chevrolet turned Gordon’s No, 7 into the backstretch wall at. New Hampshire, “The bottom line is I did not mean to crash him," said Waltrip, who offered to loan Gordon a car from his Michael Waltrip Racing-owned team. “And he obviously felt like I did. He was really really mad, as you might expi^. “Once I gave him a day or two to cool off, I just wanted to call him and say, ‘Look, I know I did wreck you. My intent was not to crash you, and Tm sorry it happened.’ ” Gordon briefly acknowledged the exchange. “I had a conversation with Michael,” Gordon said. “We talked to each other. It’s all good, and on to the next week end.” Gordon, an independent car owner, appeared relieved that NASCAR’s $35,000 fine and 50- point penalty against him were not more severe. “Suspensions would definite ly get everybody’s attention,” (Jordon said. “But it might just put us out of business,” Helton said one of his respon sibilities is maintaining the fine line between entertaining fans and maintaining sanity, on and off the track, between competi tors. “I think we deal with balance every day” Helton said. “This is a sport, and anybody that fol lows it needs to remember that it is a sport, and it’s emotionally charged, just like any other. And it’s pretty aggressively charged.” Helton is confident the tantrums at New Hampshire won’t overshadow this year’s Chase for the Nextel Cup, “1 think the first race of the Chase sets the tone for the bal ance of the season, from a com petition element and competi tiveness on the race track. “And that’s going to be the lasting force the rest of this sea son. It won’t be Robby Gordon and Michael Waltrip. It’s going to be more of Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman.” Newman gets past wrecks to win 4th in row, tie record R yan Newman led 193 laps to easily win Saturday’s crash-filled Busch Series Dover 2(X). It was Newman’s fourth consec utive victory in NASCAR’s junior circuit. “It feels good to win four straight,” said Newman, who tied a mark established by Sam Ard in 1983. “To get to Victory Lane at Dover is spe cial for me because I enjoy the racetrack.” Clint Bowyer finished sec ond, ahead of Jason Leffler, Reed Sorenson and Greg Biffle, Busch Series points leader Martin Truex Jr., who fin ished 12th, saw his champi onship lead shrink to 26 over Bowyer after he got a cut tire with four laps remaining while running second. The winner averaged 115.644 mph in a race slowed three times by 21 laps run under caution. Hood NASCAR Ryan Newman crosses the finish line to win Saturiday’s Busch Series Dover 200.
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Sept. 29, 2005, edition 1
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