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5C #®0 SPORTS/^^c Charlotte $nst Thursday, March 30, 2006 DID YOU KNOW? Richard Petty holds the record for most Cup wins at Martinsville (15), most top- five finishes (30) and most top-10 finishes (37) there. THIS WEEK Race: DIRECTV 500 . Where: Martinsville Speedway * When: Sunday, 1:30 p.m. ET ^ « Television; Fox Defending race winner: Jeff Gordon At Martinsville, the key to winning is ... Avoiding trouble By RICK MINTER Cox News Service Atlanta M artinsville Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway often are lumped together, largely be cause they’re the two half-mile tracks on the circuit and their races fall back-to-back m the spring. But that’s misleading. “There’s a lot of difference in the two tracks,” said Brian Vickers, driver of the No. 25 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. ‘About the only thing they have in common is the half-mile part, and there’s some difference there.” Bristol is a 0.533-mile track in length, while Martinsville, site of this weekend’s DI RECTV 500, is a 0.526-mile track. There are other differences, too. Bristol is banked 36 de grees in the turns and 16 on the straightaways, producing speeds more like those seen on superspeedways. The track record is 128.709 mph, set in 2003 by Ryan Newman. Martinsville has almost no MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY Track length: .526 mile Race length; 263 miles (500 laps) Grandstand seating: 65,000 Banking in corners: 12 degrees Banking on straights: 0 degrees Frontstretch: 800 feet Backstretch: 800 feet Qualifying record: Tony Stewart, Chevrolet; 98.083 mph; Oct. 21, 2005 Race record: Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet; 82.223 mph; Sept, 22, 1996 banking (12 degrees in the turns and 0 degrees on the straights). The Martinsville track record, set last year by Tony Stewart, is 98.083 mph. There are similarities. “Both are short tracks, and you have to finesse them to a certain point, and it’s real easy to overdrive them,” Vickers said. “Bristol is unbelievably fast for the size of it, and Martinsville is much, much slower.” The key to success at both tracks, he said, is avoiding wrecks. “They’re like Daytona and TaUadega in that respect,” Vickers said. “It’s staying out of trouble and being there at the end.” And to be a contender after 500 laps means doing a little mirror driving at times. “It’s more a matter of not getting passed as much as it is passing people,” he said, adding that the nature of rac ing at Martinsville can lead to hot tempers and an occasional payback maneuver. “When the whole field is sep arated by three-tenths [of a sec ond per lap], it can be frustrat ing,” Vickers said. “You’re fighting, scratching, clawing for a hundredth of a second or a tenth of a second. It’s so easy to get wiped out in somebody else’s mess with 43 cars out there. “It’s not like Late Models, where there are 20 cars in the field and there’s lots of dispari ty in speed from the front to the back.” For Cup rookie Clint Bowyer, running at MartinsvUle will be unlike anything he has ever done. Since he has never raced at MartinsvUle, his crew tried to DAMON HIGGINS / Cox News Service Dale Earnhardt Jr. is proud when he brings in his No. 8 Chevrolet dent-free. Wiser Earnhardt keeps cars intact In his seventh full season in Nextel Cup, Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he has become smarter and less prone to tearing up his cars. And he’s proud of it. “When you first come in, you run as hard as you can and bounce off a lot of stuff,” he said. “Hopefully as you get more races under your belt, you bounce off less stuff. "I pride myself in not being bad on my equipment. I pride myself in finishing a race where all they’ve really got to do is pressure wash the car for the next one.” But he has to balance the desire to protect his car with the need to get every ounce of speed out of it all day long. “It’s important to me that when the race is over it was evi dent to [my team] that I drove as hard as I could every lap,” he said. It’s paying off. He’s sixth in points heading into this week’s DIRECTV 500 at Martinsville. —RickMinter prepare him by having him run simulated laps on a PlayStation 2 game console. His crew chief, Gil Martin, told reporters that Bowyer spun out nearly every lap while playing the game. Bowyer didn’t deny it. “I don’t fare too good on the PlayStation when it’s Martinsville,” he said. “I hope it’s a little bit different when we get there for the real thing.” To help Bowyer prepare, his Richard Childress Racing team has entered him in Saturday’s Kroger 250 Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville. “That should help,” Bowyer said. “In 250 laps I can learn where to pass, where to get runs, just learn how to pass.” And he said he won’t be sorry to get past Bristol and Martinsville and back to the mUe-and-a-half tracks where he has more experience. “Bristol and MartinsvUle are the ones that can make or break you,” he said. “You’ve got to make the best out of these two weekends, do the best you can to keep the fenders on it and be there at the end.” NUMERICALLY SPEAKING 40 Victories by Chevrolet at Martinsville Speedway, tops among all manufacturers (Jeff Gordon, right, won both races at the track last year.) Victories at Martinsville by Petty Enterprises, tops among all other teams 19 Top-10 finishes at Martinsville by Bobby Labonte (left) in 26 career starts) Fewest laps led by a Martinsville winner (John Andretti on April 18, 1999) What ever happened to ... Ned Jarrett “Gentleman Ned” Jarrett won 50 races and two championships, in 1961 and 1965, on NASCAR’s top circuit. He’s tied with Junior Johnson for 10th on the all-time victory list. He retired as a driver after the 1966 season and be came a broadcaster. Jarrett, 73, is retired in his hometown of Newton, N.C. His son Dale drives the No. 88 Ford for Robert Yates Racing. On a typical week: “I get up on Monday morning and if it’s fair, I play golf. We tee off at 10:30 m the morning. I’m flattered to get a lot of fan mail, and I go through that. I manage my own assets; I have since I started an IRA. Fortunately that takes a lot of time.” JARRETT On his activities related to racing: “I record ‘The World of Racing’ on Tuesday I do a few appearances for the Dale Jarrett ' Racing Adventure. I do a half a dozen appearances for Coca-Cola each year. I do two or three for Ford Motor Co., and I’vd already done a couple for Nextel this year. I probably average two to three appearances a month. Then I play golf and go watch the grand- kids in whatever sport they're involved in.” On whether he’d ever consider a return to the TV booth: “I’m really not mterested in that. If it were just a guest appear ance or for a race weekend, Td entertain that.” On whether “Gentleman Ned” was always an appropriate moniker: “Jim Paschal used to say the name was wrong. He said, ‘If you get him on the backstretch of a half-mile dirt track somewhere, you’ll see how much of a gentleman he is,’ and he was right. I never questioned him. I didn’t go out and purposely do things to people on the race track, but I do go out and race peo ple hard, and I tried to stand up for myself,” —RickMinter Rick Minter’s OBSERVATIONS A weekly State of the Union as NASCAR heads to Martinsville. KENSETH THE STORYUNES • The Bristol victims: WhUe fans seem to love the pushing and shoving and wrecking on the short tracks of the Nextel Cup circuit—Bristol and Martinsville — the incidents ap pear to take a heavy toU. Exhibit 1: Matt Kenseth. He seemed to have Sunday’s Food City 5(X) in his grasp, having taken the lead due to a quick pit stop with 90 laps to go. He appeared to be showing his fellow competitors the kind of respect and consideration he expects from them. But he wound up losing the race and getting shoved by Jeff Gordon in the pits afterward. And a once-strong friendship was strained. While leading the race, Kenseth came upon the slower car of Dale Jarrett, who re fused to move out of his way even as even tual race winner Kurt Busch closed on Kenseth’s bumper. Busch took the opportunity to knock Kenseth aside and go on to win for the fifth time in 11 starts at Bristol. Then in the clos ing laps, Kenseth and Gordon got into a fender-banging exchange that led to Gordon spinning out. Kenseth recovered to finish third and take the series points lead. Kenseth said he would have yielded to Jarrett If the roles were reversed. “I felt like Dale Jarrett could have moved out of the way” Kenseth said. “I sure would have moved out of his way I felt like he cost me the race.” The shove on the track from Busch seemed to upset Kenseth more, in a personal way than the physical push from Gordon. “As good of a relationship as Kurt and I have had, and as good a friends as we’ve become, and as much as we’ve always respected each other on the track — teammates or not team mates — I couldn’t have done that to him,” Kenseth said. “He hit me so hard I did everything but wreck. I don’t think I could have done that to him and brought my trophy home and felt good tonight and been smiling and sleeping, but that’s just me.” Busch said it’s all part of racing at Bristol. “That’s what goes on,” he said. “This racing is awesome. Fans digit.” • The Busch standings: Kevin Harvick is atop the Busch Series driver points standings, 121 points ahead of J. J. Yeley and Harvick’s car owner Richard Childress is 122 points ahead of Yeley’s car owner Joe Gibbs in the owners standings. While the numbers are nearly identical, Harvick and Childress took vastly different paths to get there. Harvick has driven three different cars in the first six races —the No. 29 for Childress at Daytona, his own No. 33 at California and Las Vegas and the No. 21 at Mexico City Las Vegas and Bristol, where he won on Saturday Childress is leading the ovmer standings with the No. 21, which was driven by Jeff Burton at Daytona, California and Atlanta, where he won. But the ride hopping is ending for Harvick, so he and Childress can get down to a serious championship run in the No. 21. “Once we get past Texas and I can be in the 21 car week-in and week-out, we should be able to get in a pretty good rhythm,” he said. The question then becomes whether Harvick resigns with Childress—his contract is up this year — or jumps to anoth er team, like Toyota. So far, Harvick has said little about his future plans. “It’s an important decision, but right now the main focus is driving the car,” he said. • Teams in trouble: The Nextel Cup circuit has run five races, so the provisional starting spots that have been based on last year’s points standings will revert to this year’s points, and that spells trouble for several teams now out of the top 35. Among the drivers on shaky ground are Sterling Marlin, whose team is 36th, and Kevin Lepage, David Stremme, Scott Wimmer, Brent Sherman and Travis Kvapil, who are 37th- 41st, respectively In danger of dropping out of the top 35 are the teams of Michael Waltrip, Jeremy Mayfield and Scott Riggs, who are 33rd-35th, respectively Several established Busch Series teams have dropped out of the top 30 in owners’ points, which guarantee starting spots in that series. Among them the No. 36 Chevrolet and driver Tim Sauter, the No. 59 of Stacy Compton, the No, 4 of Mark Green, the No. 43 of Aaron Fike and the No. 38 of Anthony Foyt. Also out of the top 30 is the No. 27 of David Green, but he has a past 'Cham pion’s provisional starting spoUf needed. • Super streak: Joe Nemechek’s 28th-place finish at Bristol extended his streak of races in which he was running at the finish to 37. The last race he didn’t finish was last March at Atlanta Motor Speedway when a punctured radiator put him out of the race. NHRA making gains in diversity While NASCAR has struggled to diversify its driv er and fan base, the NHRA drag-racing circuit is on the other end of the spectrum. At the same time Bill Lester was making history in Atlanta by becoming the first black driver in 20 years to race in Nextel Cup, three women drivers made the final rounds of the NHRA’s Gatornationals m Gainesville, Fla. In Top Fuel, Melanie f roxel was runner-up to Australian Dave Grubnic but extended her points lead to 73 over Rod Fuller. Erica Enders was runner-up in Pro Stock to Tom Martino, and AngeUe Sampey beat black driver Antron Brown to win Pro Stock Motorcycle and extend her division points lead. Meanwhile, Ashley Force, the daughter of Funny Car driver John Force, won in Top Alcohol Dragster, Troxel, who won the season opener at Ponoma, Calif., met with NASCAR media members at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday and said the NHRA has moved far beyond simply having women in the line up. “More than anything, what I’m proud of is that so often the story is about female racers,” she said. “It's nice to get to the point where it’s about females that have a shot at winning the race, rather than being about females in a male-dominated sport. “It’s so hard to get excited talking about just the fe male aspect. It’s nice to be focused a little more on the fact that we’re all competitive.” — Rick Minter ■ : i TROXEL Catching up with ... BumeyLAMAR Busch Series rookie Burney Lamar has been surprisingly successful so far this season driving the ,No. 77 Chevrolet for Kevin Harvick Inc. The 24-year-old West Sacramento, Calif., native came to the Busch Series from NASCAR’s Grand National West Series, where he was fourth in points last year. He started the season with a runner-up run at Daytona and is seventh in the standings. Cox News Service writer Rick Minter talked with Lamar and filed this report: Ql How would you rate your season to date? A: “The season has been great. We started off good at Daytona, finishing sec ond there. When I think about it, we sort of set the bar high. We went to Las Vegas and California and sort of struggled there. But the thing about it is [crew chief] Gene Nead and the guys, they did a great job on figuring out what we needed. I think at Atlanta we sort of found out what we’re looking for.” Q: Whaf s it like having Harvick for a mentor? Al “Kevin has been helping me out a lot. Before we went to Atlanta, we sat down with him and [team manager] Rick Carelli and had about an hour meeting. We talked about some stuff that really helped me. I think that helped sort of pick up the pace at Atlanta.... Kevin has been a huge help, at Daytona especial ly I was sort of a fish out of the water there.” Q: Whaf s the expectation from here on out? A: “For the tracks that we’ve been to, like Phoenix, I think we can run in the top 10 maybe top five. Other places we don’t know what to expect... places like Dover, Darlington and Bristol, you have to be re alistic.” Ql What about the origin of your name? A: “It comes from Burney Falls in northern California; I had a great uncle named Burney I think that’s where that came from.” STANDINGS NEXTEL CUP Following the Food City 500 Kyle Busch jumped three spots in the standings after finishing eighth at Bristol. Cup next up: DIRECTV 500; Martinsville Speedway TV; 1:30 p.m. ET, Sunday; Fox Busch next up: O’Reilly 300; Texas Motor Speedway TV; 3 p.m, ET, April 8; Fox Truck next up: Kroger 250; Martinsville Speedway TV: 3 p.m. ET, Saturday; Speed Channel 1. Matt Kenseth 782; previous: 3 2. Kasey Kahne 774;.previous: 2 3. Jimmie Johnson 763; previous: 1 4. Mark Martin 750; previous: 4 5. Kyle Busch 677; previous: 8 6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 664; previous; 7 7. Jeff Gordon 644; previous; 6 8. Casey Mears 642; previous: 5 9. Tony Stewart 601; previous: 12 10. Dale Jarrett 593; previous: 9 BUSCH SERIES 1. Kevin Harvick 952; previous: 1 2. J.J. Yeley 831; previous: 2 3. Denny Hamiin 814; previous: 5 4. Clint Bowyer 791; previous: 4 5. Carl Edwards 774; previous; 7 TRUCK SERIES 1. Mark Martin 560; previous: 1 2. Todd Bodine 535; previous: 2 3. Ted Musgrave 495; previous: 3 4. David Reutimann 458; previous: 5 5. Johnny Benson 433; previous: 9 Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate for Cox News Service. (800) 255-6734. 'For release the week of March 27, 2006.
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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March 30, 2006, edition 1
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