Posts tagged SprintCup 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.

For years and years and years, winning a pole in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series meant a whole lot more than getting to start out front for that specific race, or getting first selection of a pit stall.

Now, because of NASCAR's fumbling of sponsorship contracts, it means a whole lot less.

Winning a pole in the Sprint Cup Series in the previous season meant a driver was guaranteed a spot in the next season's opening event, the Budwieser Shootout at Daytona. The race is an exhibition of sorts that serves as a great tune-up to the coming NASCAR season a week in advance of the Daytona 500.

The race will still exist in 2009, but the format has changed the qualifying procedures have turned the event more into a showcase for sponsors instead of an underdog team that might have snuck into the race with a pole win in the previous season.

NASCAR announced the format change on Tuesday, and the specifics of the race include lengthening it by 5 laps to 75 laps and giving teams a 10-minute break after lap 25. The qualfying procedure, though, is what ticks me off.

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.

75 percent? That number works just fine for Carl Edwards.

Banging the Sprint Cup point leader out of the way for a win? Well, that works too.

For the third time in four races, Edwards has chopped into the bonus point lead held by Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch via a race win in the Sprint Cup Series. Saturday night that win -- his sixth of 2008 -- came in the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Halfway through Saturday night's Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, three of four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets were nowhere near the lead as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, and Casey Mears all had suffered early trouble.

Jeff Gordon, meanwhile, was managing to hang on to the Top 5.

Jeff Gordon has had two weeks of racing in a row that he would just like to forget.

Combine that with a season of ups and downs, and 2008 has been nothing like 2007 was for the four-time Sprint Cup champion. Thankfully for No. 24, though, the annual late-summer Sprint Cup visit to Bristol Motor Speedway is on tap for Saturday night.

With finishes of 29th and 42nd the past two weeks at tracks Gordon is normally quite good at -- Watkins Glen and Michigan -- the points situation for the Hendrick Motorsports team has tightened up quite a bit. Prior to that two-race stretch, Gordon was nearly in the group of drivers who could have been considered locks to the Chase.

A flat tire and a poor handle on his road course car derailed those thoughts as now Gordon sits less than 100 points from the Chase for the Sprint Cup cutoff spot of 13th position. Gordon currently sits ninth in the standings, but he was as high as sixth two weeks ago.

To go along with his ugly stats of recent, Gordon has failed to win a Sprint Cup race in all of 2008's 23 events.

History, though, is on Gordon's side as the Sprint Cup Series prepares to line 'em up for 500 laps at Bristol Saturday night.

Carl Edwards talked a few weeks ago about how this part of the Sprint Cup Series was going to be fun.

Fun, he said, because the team no longer was going to be racing for points but rather simply for wins in an attempt to catch Kyle Busch's win total and bonus point lead as the series heads towards the Chase to the Sprint Cup after Richmond in September.

Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates has to be scrambling to come up something -- anything -- in the way of sponsorship for 2009 with Wednesday's news about the sponsor of Juan Pablo Montoya's No. 42.

From Sirius Speedway's blog, "The Motorsports Soapbox":

Sirius Speedway has learned that Chevron-Texaco will not return as sponsor of Juan Pablo Montoya's #42 Dodge next season. [...]

Texaco-Havoline will not move to another team in 2009, electing instead to end their longstanding involvement in NASCAR. That decision leaves Ganassi Racing in need of at least two new sponsors in 2009, and possibly three. Team owner Chip Ganassi recently parked the #40 Dodge driven by Dario Franchitti due to lack of sponsorship, and there are longstanding rumors that Target may not return to the #41 Dodge currently driven by Reed Sorenson.

Of all the sponsorships one would have expected to stay with NASCAR, the Texaco-Havoline ride is near the top of the list mainly because of the staying power it has had in Sprint Cup Series competition.

Got reservations for 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup races in Bristol, Atlanta, California, or Talladega? Better get on the phone with your travel agent.

NASCAR unveiled the 2009 schedules for all three series' -- Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Craftsman Truck Series -- Tuesday afternoon with a few a changes here and there that mostly seem to be very good.

There weren't any new tracks added to the schedule Sprint Cup for 2009 and Auto Club Speedway isn't scheduled for demolition (there's always next year!) but date changes and schedule location swaps were the name of the game. Chronologically the changes were:

• - Bristol: The spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway has long tried to dodge rain and even snow in its March location on the schedule, and it got a little bit of relief by being pushed back one week from 2008 to March 22 in 2009.


• - Atlanta: The next change on the schedule will see Atlanta Motor Speedway move to Labor Day weekend for a Sunday night race at the 1.5-mile track. If nothing else, it means NASCAR will race on Labor Day some 2,100 miles closer to where it should be that weekend. Ahem, Darlington.

Tony Stewart is already changing things up at newly-formed Stewart-Haas Racing, despite a car having yet to turn a lap under the team's banner.

Monday night on his radio show, Stewart decided -- or at least he informed everyone -- that Ryan Newman wouldn't be driving the No. 4 as originally planned. Instead, Newman will parade the No. 39 yet-to-be-sponsored Chevrolet in 2009.

The switch comes three days after Stewart formalized plans at Michigan International Speedway for Newman to compete with the No. 4.

Stewart offered two reasons for the change: The No. 39 is special to Newman because he won his first United States Auto Club midget race with the number, and Stewart wanted to leave the No. 4 available to its long-time carrier, Morgan-McClure Motorsports, should the team return to the Sprint Cup Series next year.

Newman has also driven the No. 39 in a number of Nationwide Series starts with Penske Racing over the past few years.

The second reason Stewart gives, though, seems more like the real reason for the switch after Tim Morgan voiced his displeasure to a Bristol, Tenn. newspaper last Friday about the SHR number selection.