Posts tagged JoeGibbsRacing at FanHouse

NASCAR had to rain on its own parade, but thankfully they didn't induce a downpour.

The sanctioning body placed Sprint Cup point leader Kyle Busch and last Saturday night's winner Carl Edwards on probation Wednesday morning for their post-race antics following the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway:

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Aug. 27, 2008) – NASCAR announced today that it has placed Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards on probation for the next six races in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, as a result of their on-track incident last Saturday at the conclusion of the race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Busch, driver of the No. 18 car and Edwards, driver of the No. 99 car, both violated Section 12-4-A (actions detrimental to stock car racing; hitting another competitor's car after the race had concluded) of the 2008 NASCAR rule book.

The probation takes effect beginning with this weekend's event at Auto Club Speedway.

Prior to 2008, the typical penalty for such post-race encounters included a monetary fine and seemed much steeper, but this penalty falls more in line with NASCAR's pledge from the beginning of the season to let the rough side drag a little more in the sport.

And can you blame them? The biggest news from Bristol was Busch & Edwards, not anything else.

Joe Gibbs Racing finally took away the suspense that was involving the newly-vacant No. 20 ride effective 2009 with Tony Stewart leaving with a press conference on Monday.

OK, maybe there wasn't that much suspense.

Joey Logano, the 18-year-old Connecticut driver with a single Nationwide Series win at Kentucky in 2008, will take over the reigns of the Toyota with Greg Zippidelli as crew chief. Home Depot will be the sponsor, and will continue to do so past 2009 for the young driver.

Anything else you need to go along with that silver platter, Joey?

I'll admit it, this Logano situation just doesn't sit well with me. It's not Joey -- he's a well-trained in dealing with the media, has been successful, and seems to be a nice kid (guy, man, what's really appropriate?) -- and its certainly not the Joe Gibbs Racing team.

It's just that to me, this whole Logano story has been shoved done our throats for too long. It was years (not months) ago that Mark Martin told the world that Logano was best thing to drive a race car since sliced bread. Well, not bread, but you get the picture.

For once, NASCAR seems to have stepped up to the plate in regards to issuing penalties for cheating in the sport.

As you know, Wednesday brought the news from NASCAR of the stiff backhand that the sanctioning body inflicted on the team members of Joe Gibbs Racing's two Nationwide Series teams who were caught cheating last Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.

The penalties included indefinite suspensions for both crew chiefs of the No. 18 and No. 20 cars (Jason Ratcliff and Dave Rogers) as well as five other team members involved in the illicit tampering of the post-race competition testing analysis NASCAR performed Saturday. The term "indefinite" -- to the best of my knowledge -- has never been used by NASCAR for a performance-related suspension.

Point deductions to the tune of 150 driver and owner points for the cars driven by Tony Stewart and Joey Logano were also inflicted, as well as monetary fines to the crew chiefs.

The biggest impact, I think, comes from what the Joe Gibbs Racing team has done about the matter. They've already confirmed that the team members in question will be suspended for at least the remainder of the season and that they will each face internal fines from the company that will be paid directly from their pocket.

Denny Hamlin is no stranger to letting his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team have it when things don't go well.

Back in 2007, he was none too happy with his pit crew after he deemed they lost two or three races for him early in the season. Sunday afternoon at Michigan International Speedway, Hamlin was disappointed with both the team's performance and other factors that left him with a 39th-place finish.

Just five laps from the end, Hamlin blew an engine to bring out the race's final caution. On a TV interview after coming to the garage, he didn't mince words.

"We came here with a new engine package," Hamlin said. "We're a bubble driver and we've made stupid choices. At this point we don't even deserve to be in the Chase."

You can't really blame the guy and his assessment of the "stupid choices" in that situation. Hamlin would have had a Top-15 finish had his No. 11 not blown up.

Can you imagine what the No. 11 in-car radio traffic sounded like as Hamlin coasted in? Salty would have been a good, descript word I bet.

The 39th-place finish pushed Hamlin to 12th in points -- the edge of the Chase to the Championship cutoff -- and only 26 points ahead of Clint Bowyer and David Ragan who are tied for 13th points-wise.

For the first time since Mark Martin in 1993, a driver has completed the weekend sweep at Michigan International Speedway.

That driver was Roush Fenway Racing ace Carl Edwards who powered his way win number five of the 2008 season by winning Sunday's Sprint Cup Series 3M Performance 400, an encore performance to his victory Saturday during the Nationwide Series event.

The NASCAR world may have just found out why Joe Gibbs Racing has been so dominant in the 2008 Nationwide Series.

The No. 18 and No. 20 JGR Nationwide Series teams -- driven by Joey Logano and Tony Stewart -- were accused Saturday night at Michigan International Speedway of tampering with the post-race inspection process after NASCAR found magnets attached to the back of the accelerator pedals on both cars during a chassis dyno test.

During the test, NASCAR officials discovered magnets on the accelerator pedals of the two Gibbs Toyotas. Several sources said the magnets could, in theory, keep the pedals from being fully depressed, which would limit the engines' output and distort the data available to officials.

"This was an attempt to interfere with NASCAR's post-race inspection process, and we are taking it very seriously," said Jim Hunter, vice president of corporate communications for the sanctioning body.

The test measures the horsepower, torque, and other numbers of an engine as it sits inside the race car and by putting a magnet behind the pedal, the numbers NASCAR would get from the test would be incorrect, leading to incorrect conclusions about the parity of the competition.

Are you in the market for gently-used NASCAR Sprint Cup driver motorhome used for at-the-track lodging, Nintendo Wii-fests during rain delays, and a hiding spot from the media or other angry drivers?

Well, Denny Hamlin is the man you need to talk to.

Hamlin donated such a motor home to Motor Racing Outreach -- the organization that is at the track every weekend providing church services and other help to the NASCAR community -- this week after hearing they were in need of such a vehicle.

"MRO has been a friend to the drivers, teams and everyone affiliated with the sport for a long time so I was really happy to be able to help them out. It seems like everyone in the garage supports MRO in one way or another and they deserve the recognition," Hamlin said.

"By donating my motor home to them I hope it will save them some money in lodging and I think it will really give them the opportunity to do more and more within in the sport. I know we'll all benefit from that - and I am proud to support their efforts."

Don't expect Hamlin to be staying at the local Super 8, though, when NASCAR is in town.

So much for that business about Kyle Busch cooling down.

Instead, Busch showed that he was just ready to take on his newest title as the Sprint Cup's next great road course ace after winning Sunday's Centurion Boats at the Glen.

At least he got to meet Jack Bauer before he lost his ride.

J.J. Yeley's fall from one of the top teams in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series took another tumble Wednesday afternoon as he was dropped from his ride in the No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing Toyota.

Yeley, who has put together an unremarkable season of one whole Top-5 (it came in the same race that Kurt Busch won thanks to rain at New Hampshire) after getting bounced from Joe Gibbs Racing in 2007 will be replaced with Brad Coleman, the team announced today:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Aug. 6, 2008) – Hall of Fame Racing officials announced Wednesday that NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Brad Coleman, who has been under contract as a test driver for Hall of Fame Racing since November 2007, will make his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut by piloting the No. 96 DLP HDTV Toyota Camry in the Aug. 17 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.

Coleman, 20, is currently running a full-time season in the Nationwide Series and has put together equally unimpressive results with a single Top-10 at Las Vegas in 2008. He drove for Joe Gibbs Racing's Nationwide Series program in a limited role in 2007.

Since sweeping the weekend with a win in both the Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series races at Chicagoland Speedway in July, racing in NASCAR has been a little rough on the Sprint Cup points leader.

Yep, Kyle Busch has simply cooled off for the past two race weekends. Cooled off, that is, from a high point somewhere on the momentum scale just past red hot.

His two finishes in the last two Sprint Cup events at Indianapolis and Pocono? Try 15th at the Brickyard and a staggering 36th at Pocono. Combined, those finishes have dropped 86 points off his lead over Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the standings to a smaller 176-point advantage.

Both Indianapolis and Pocono are flat tracks -- a venue that the Joe Gibbs Racing driver admittedly hasn't found a great handle on yet in 2008. The 15th-place finish at Indy was about how good the No. 18 was that day, but the 36th-place finish at Pocono was a matter of the team running out of fuel at the end of the race.

He does have a win in the Nationwide Series Kroger 200 at O'Reilly Raceway Park, but on the previous night in the Craftsman Truck Series, he struggled heavily with what he called "the worst truck" he's ever driven.

So, is this the point in the 2008 season where we see Kyle Busch come back to the pack? It very well could be.