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Thursday, March 16, 2006
DID YOU KNOW?
A tornado caused
extensive damage to
Atlanta Motor Speedway
last summer.
THIS WEEK
Race: Golden Corral 500
Where: Atlanta Motor Speedway
When: Sunday,-1 p.m. ET
Television: Fox
Defending race winner: Carl Edwards
Carl Edwards (99) leads the pack on his way to victory in last year’s Golden Corral 500. Edwards said he
loves races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, a track that provides drivers with numerous racing grooves.
Atlanta:
Where drivers go
to have some ‘fun’
By RICK MINTER
Cox News Service
Atlanta
A fter two consecutive races
/\ at tracks that tend to pro-
X Aduce boring stretches of
racing, the NASCAR circuit is
head^ to a place where the
drivers can ready race.
The Nertel Cup, Busch and
Craftsman Thick Series will
run this weds at Atlanta Motor
Speedway where a combination
of wide, high banking and worn
asphalt m^e for a three-groove
race track that tends to produce
three-wide racing with an occa
sional photo finish.
Few have mastered the 1.55-
mile track as well as Carl
Edwards. In his three Cup
starts at Atlanta, he has won
twice and finished third. He
won his only AMS start in the
Busch Series and was seventh
in his only truck race there.
Edward said he liked the
track from his first practice lap
because it offers a driver so
many alternative ’ racing
grooves.
“I go out there and run five
different lines,” he said. “[My
crew members] tell me my lap
times and whichevo- one is
fastest, I stick to it.”
Usually Edwards prefers the
hi^ groove he learned to love
as a dirt racer years ago, but he
said the multiple grooves at
AMS allow drivers the luxury of
solving handling problems on
the go.
“At Atlanta, if your car’s real
ti^t running around the bot
tom, you can go up top and
maybe itT work up there. If it
doesn’t work there, I can go to
the middle.”
Multiple grooves also add an
element of drama because a
driver never knows whethei' the
challenge for position will come
on the inside or outside.
Edwards slipped to the out
side of Jimmie Johnson offThm
Four on the final lap of last
spring’s Golden Corrd 500 to
get his first Cup victory in his
17th career start.
“That pass on the last lap of
Jimmie Johnson, that’s a per
fect example,” he said. ‘You can
go anywhere hei-e. That’s what
makes it so exciting.”
Matt Kenseth has three ca
re^ victories at California (cme)
and Las Vegas (two), the two
tracks pi-eceding AMS on the
Cup schedule. He has never
won at Atlanta, but he likes rac
ing there.
“I like all the beginning
tracks, [but] the most fim track
as a driver is probably Atlanta,”
he said on NASCAR’s weekly
teleconference. ‘You can run the
white line or you can have the
right rear scraping the fence
like Carl [Edwards] does and
probably run the same lap
times around there.
‘You never have an excuse for
not passing the cai' in finnt of
you. If you’re faster, there’s no
excuse for not getting areimd
them.”
Oddly Edwards said ninning
the Busch race on Saturday
which he and a host of oth^
Cup drivers typically do, doesn’t
give him a huge heads-up on
racing conditions for Sunday’s
SOO-mile Cup run.
“This is one of the places
where running the Busch car
can’t help you a ton because the
speeds ai'e so high,” he said.
“The spoiler’s differences [rear
spoilers in Busch are 6 1/4 inch
es tall, 4 1/2 in Cup] and the
horsepower differmces [less
power in Busch] make the two
series quite diff^ent.”
ATLANTA
MOTOR SPEEDWAY
Track length: 1.54 miles
Race length: 500.5 miles
(325 laps)
Grandstand seating;
124,000
Banking In corners: 24
degrees
Banking on straights: 5
degrees
Frontstretch: 2,332 feet
Backstretch: 1,800 feet
Qualifying record: Geoffrey
Bodine, Ford: 197.478 mph;
Nov. 15. 1997
Race record: Bobby
Labonte, Pontiac; 159.904
mph; Nov 16,1997
DAVID TULIS / Cox News Service
Flippin’ out: In the above sequence of photos, Carl Edwards flips from the roof of
his No, 99 Ford after winning last year’s Golden Corral 500 at AMS.
NUMERICALLY SPEAKING
Consecutive laps in which Stacy Compton passed
another driver without being passed himself in the
Sam’s Town 300 Busch Series race at Las Vegas.
That leads all other drivers.
270
99
The number of Craftsman
Truck Series races in which
one or more female drivers
have participated, including
the past 54 (dating back to
October 2004 at Phoenix).
Races run in the Craftsman Truck
Series, including Friday’s John
Deere 200 at Atlanta Motor
Speedway.
Keep on truckin’; Mark Martin
(6) and Mike Skinner race
during the GM FlexFuel 250
truck race Feb. 17 at Daytona
International Speedway.
LESTER
Rick Minter’s
OBSERVATIONS
A weekly State of the Union as NASCAR heads to Atlanta.
THE STORYLINES
• No chief, no problem: No Chad Knaus, no problem for Jimmie
Johnson. With Knaus, his longtime crew chief sei-ving a four-race
suspension for cheating during qualifying for the Daytona 500,
Johnson has rolled to two victories in the first three Cup races of
the 2006 season.
His dramatic victory at Las Vegas on Sunday came at the ex
pense of Matt Kenseth, who led the most laps only to see the en
gine in his No. 17 Foi-dbegin to falter in the closing laps.
Johnson and his No. 48 team, led by interim crew chief Daiian
Grubb, adjusted his car throughout the race and came up with a
winning combination for the gi'een-white-checkei’ed-flag nm. As
the two leadei-s spedoff'Iiim Fom'on-the final lap, Johnson mo
tored to the outside and won by less than a car length. It was the
only lap he led aU day
The last-lap dash to the outside wasn’t a surprise. Jolmson has
used that move before to beat Bobby Labonte at Charlotte, and
he lost in a similar scenario to Carl Eklwai-ds at Atlanta Motor
Speedway last year.
“I won one that way and I knew I could do it again,” he said in
\fictory Lane.
Johnson’s latest victory the 20th of his careei-, combined with
his Daytona 500 victory and a iunnei--up finish to Kenseth at
California, put him 52 points ahead of Kenseth in the points
standings.
' Making histoiy Bill Lester, a CaUfornia
I native living in Mableton, Ga., is set to make
history this weekend at liis adopted home
ti'ack, Atlanta Motor Speedway Lester, who
i races in the Craftsman Tuck Series in a
I 'IbyDtaT\mdr-afieldedbyBLllDavis,isex;'ect-
1 ed to enter the Golden Corral 500 in a Davis-
I prepai-ed car;
I Ifhe makes tire field, he’ll be the fii*st black
driver to race in NASCAR’s elite division
since Willy T. Ribbs blew an engine on the 65tii
lap of the Miller American 400 at Michigan International
Speedway on June 15, 1986. That i-ace, won by Bill Elliott, was
one of Ribbs’ three Cup starts, the other- two coming in 1986 at
North Wilkesboro, N.C., and Riva-side, Calif.
• Kasey at bat: Aithor^h he has struggled at times in Nextel
Cup, Kasey Kahne has been outstandii^ in his Busch and
Craftsman Tuck Series appearances. He’s undefeated in trucks,
winning his only two starts — at Darlington and Homestead in
2004. Last week he rolled to victory in the Busch Series race at
Las Vegas, running his victory tote to fom- in 108 career starts.
The 25-year-old Dcx^e driver has one Cup victory at Richmond
last year, but he has six poles in Busch and Cup.
He’s also getting bette-, it seems, in Cup.
On Sunday he backed up his Busch victory witli a strong
fourth-place finish in the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Vegas.
He’s third in Cup points, 85 behind leader Jimmie Johnson.
“We had a great weekend,” he told i-eporters.
• Pole record: Ryan “Rocket Man” Newman (right), who has
won 35 poles in 155 career Nextel Chip
starts,willtrytoclaimashai-eofthepole I
lecoi-d at Atlanta Motor Speedway this |
week. He already owns the rrecoid for I
consecutive poles, having won the top I
star-ting spot six consecutive times, dat- I
ing back to the Bass Pi-o Shops MBNA I
500 on March 9, 2003.
Ifhe runs the string to seven, he’ll tie |
his mentor. Buddy Baker, for most poles I
overall at AMS.
But success on Friday hasn’t car-tied I
over to Sunday for Newman, whose best I
AMS finish has been a fifth in the spring ®
of2004. His avm-age finish is 14.8.
In 93 races at AMS, the polesitter has won just 13. Fireball
Roberts did it fii-st in the track’s inaugui-al race in 1960. Bobby
Labonte in 1996 was tire last to do it.
• Youth being served: Joey Logano, 15, continues his steady
march toward the Nextel Cup circuit. Last year, the former resi
dent of Alpharetta, Ga., broke Brian Vickers’ i-eccrd for being the
youngest driver to win a Hooters Pi-o Chip race. Then on
Saturday he diT5ve his Joe Gibbs Racing entry to victory in
Saturday’s 250-lap Hooters Pro (2up race at South Georgia
Motorsports Park in Cedi, Ga. He led 88 laps, then held off vet
erans 9iane Wallace and Benny Goi-don in a green-white-check-
ered-flag dash to tire finish.
Logano, who caught the eye of Nextel Cup driver Mark Mar-tin,
was ejqrected to sign with Martin’s team, Roush Radi^, but
when Roush hesitated because Logano wasn’t of legal age, Joe
Gibbs Racing stepped in with a contract.
Logano told reporters after the 250 at South Georgia that he
expects to be hear-d from a lot more this year.
“I think we can be this good aU year this year-,” he said.
Cox News Service
What ever happened to ...
Gerald Duke
By Rick Minter / Cox News Service
Gerald Duke, 77, of College Park, Ga., had a very
impressive start to his brief career on the circuit
now known as Nextel Cup. He ran one race in
1959, but in 1960 he had seven top-10 finishes —
including a fourth in the inaugural World 600 at
Charlotte — in 11 starts in a Ford Thunderbird he
built and prepared himself
He also had one fi-ont-row start, at Spartanburg,.
S.C. By 1962, his family was growing and his bardc
accormt was shrinking. Four blown engines in a
short span put him out of the series for good. For
the past 36 years, he has operated Metro
T-ansmissions in his hometown.
• On his early superspeedway races: “In the first
World 600, they started 60 fears and I was 44tlr, I
finished fourth. That was a miracle. Then at
Daytona, I was running thii-d on the last lap and
ran out of gas, so I finished ninth.”
• On his biggest career mistake: “Lee Petty came
to me and said he was starting a third team at
Petty Enterprises and offered me a job driving for
him. I didn’t take it because I had my own T-Bird
runnir^ pretty good.”
• On h^ing away firom the sport; “I miss it every
day If I was a young man, that’s whei-e I’d be.”
• On what he does for thrills today “I still ride
motorcycles, and my daughter 'Iferri and I fly my
210 Mooney And sometimes I still jmnp out of air
planes. I guess youcouldsay I’ve lived a pretty ex
citing life,”
Catching up with...
Jeremy MAYFIELD
Jeremy Mayfield, a five-time wiimer in
the Nextel Cup Series, has qualified for the
Chase for the Cup the past two seasons. A
nine-time pole winner, Mayfield made his
Cup debut in 1993 when he finished 29th
in the October- race at Lowe’s Motor
Speedway in C3rai-lotte, His only victory
last season came at Michigan in August.
The 36-year-old Mayfield, a native of
Owensboro, Ky, drives the No. 19 Dodge
for Evemham Motorspoi-ts. He sat down
with Cox News Service writer Jeff Hood to
talk about racir^ and Ms likes and dislikes:
Q: What do you like to watch on TV?
A: “I’m not real on TV I do watch “The
Apprentice.’ I thmk that’s pretty cool.
[Donald] Trump, he’s pretty bad. I hke ac
tion movies and I like watching the news.”
Q: What about your music tastes?
Ai “I’m kind of all over the board. I can
listen to rock and Mp-hop. I’ve got to listen
to the good stuff to get me fired up, like
Eminem. And I like Charlie Daniels and
Hank WjHiams Jr, too.”
Q: What about the NASCAR hall of fame
selection?
A: “I’m sure the hall of fame will be a
tremendous
success. But it
depends on
how it’s mar
keted from
here on out. If you just let it sit there and
hope people come by and stop and look at it,
itis probably not going to happen.
Everybody is busy Race fans have to work,
and 'ey’re busy every day too. If you don’t
have excitement, nobody is goir^ to come.”
Q: How do you feel about NASCAR going
international?
A: “I think you’ve got to be careful there.
I don’t know how people in other coimtries
perceive our type of racing. I know we went
to Japan, and it wasn’t much of a Mt. You
take people like us who go over there and
can’t speak the language, and it makes it
hard on us. I don’t know if sponsors would
go for that. Right now we’re peaked-out
running what we’re running. How would
you add any races to our sch^ule? Are we
going to t^e out Martinsville and add
Tbk}^? I think it would be so expensive that
no one would be able to do it. We’ve got it
covered pretty good right now in the United
States.”
STANDINGS
NEXTEL CUP
Following the UAW-DaimlerChrysler400
1. Jimmie Johnson
540; previous: 1
2. Matt Kenseth
488; previous: 3
3. Kasey Kahne
455; previous: 4
4. Casey Mears
454; previous: 2
5. Mark Martin
430: previous: 6
6. Kyle Busch
403; previous: 12
7. Clint Bowyer
389: previous: 8
8. Elliottt Sadler
385; previous: 10
9. Jeff Gordon
374; previous: 15
10. Jeff Burton
373; previous: 14
A third-
place finish
at Las
Vegas lifted
Kyle
Busch six
spots in the
I Cup
i standings
Cup next up: Golden Corral 500;
Atlanta Motor Speedway
TV: 1 p.m. ET, Sunday; Fox
Busch next up: Nicorette 300;
Atlanta Motor Speedway
TV: 3 p.m. ET, Saturday; FX
Truck next up; John Deere 200;
Atlanta Motor Speedway
TV: 9 p.m. ET, Friday: Speed
Channel
BUSCH SERIES
1. Kevin Harvick
642; previous: 1
2. J.J. Yeley
600; previous: 3
3. Denny Hamlin
595; previous: 2
4. Jamie McMurray
560; previous: 4
5. Clint Bowyer
538; preVous: 5
TRUCK SERIES
1. Mark Martin
380; previous: 1
2. Todd Bodine
350: previous: 2
3. Ted Musgrave
335; previous: 3
4. Jack Sprague
320; previous: 5
5. David Reutimann
303; previous: 9
Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate for Cox News Service. (800) 255-6734. *For release the week of March 13; 2006.