Biffle splashes way to 8th-place finish

While Greg Biffle had fun in the first major NASCAR points race in the rain, the Sprint Cup driver won't be quite as eager the next time it pours.

"I kind of was looking forward to this because I've never raced in the rain, but I don't think I will be from now on," Biffle said Saturday after the Nationwide Series race at rain-drenched Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.


"It got a little hairy there when it started raining so hard. The car would hydroplane bad down the frontstretch and I mean a 140 or 150 miles an hour hydroplane is not very safe. It made it hard to see there at the end. It was raining so hard and everything was getting so wet. The guys said there was an inch of water in the right side of the car on the floorboard. So the car started to fill with water and we were going to start having electrical problems."

Biffle, also racing Sunday in the Sprint Cup race at Pocono, finished eighth in the race -- the first major NASCAR points event ever run on grooved rain tires.

"It was fun. It was a lot of fun," he said. "I'm glad I made history today."

David Reutimann, also doing double-duty, finished 17th in the difficult conditions.

"It's probably not something we should do unless we come up with a better system to be able to see," Reutimann said. "The tires worked fine. All that stuff worked OK. I don't have a problem with that, just the lack of being able to see is the big issue and that's pretty dangerous. If we come up with a better scenario there's no reason why we couldn't do it in the future, but not with what we have now."

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LOGANO CRASHES: Teen star Joey Logano finished 17th in his first NASCAR road-course start after crashing during the final caution period.

"I hit a lapped car with no brake lights. I have no idea who it was," the 18-year-old driver said. "I couldn't see 5 feet in front of me down the straightaway, under caution. Somebody stopped. I locked up all four and boom! ... It's just not right."

In position to replace Tony Stewart next year in Joe Gibbs Racing's Sprint Cup lineup, Logano won at Kentucky Speedway in June in his third Nationwide Tour start and added second-place finishes at Milwaukee and Gateway.

"I'll take what I learned this weekend, try to forget about all the stupid stuff that happened and we'll get to do it again next week," Logano said.

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HOMEBREW: Quebec driver Andrew Ranger won the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race Saturday morning in dry conditions.

The 21-year-old Ranger, 29th in the Nationwide Series race, took advantage of leader J.R. Fitzpatrick's last-lap spin to win for the first time in eight races this season. Series leader Scott Steckly was second in the 23-lap race.

"I haven't won a race here in a long time and to do it in front of my family and fans is really nice," said Ranger, second last year.

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LUGNUTS: Nationwide Series leader Clint Bowyer finished ninth. He has a 168-point lead over fellow Sprint Cup driver Carl Edwards. ... Gilles Villeneuve, driver Jacques Villeneuve's father, was killed in a crash during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix. The Montreal track was renamed Circuit Gilles Villeneuve soon after the accident.

Wallace hopeful of Nationwide date for Iowa

Now that Mexico City will not be on the Nationwide Series schedule in 2009, speculation is rampant about a replacement. And the one track that comes up constantly is Iowa Speedway.

But Rusty Wallace, who helped design the 0.875-mile track in Newton, Iowa, said NASCAR has not promised the track a date for next season.


"We have always asked NASCAR for a Nationwide race or a truck race, and there's never been room in the schedule," Wallace said at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, site of Saturday's NAPA Auto Parts 200. "Now, there's room in the schedule. NASCAR has not called me up and said, 'Hey, we're going to go to Iowa.' They have said they really like our track. They like what it looks like.

"At this point, I'm not going to speculate. I've got my fingers crossed. I hope we get it. But they have never come up to me and said, 'You're getting it. Here's the date.' We're absolutely 100 percent at their mercy."

Nationwide Series driver Landon Cassill, an Iowa native, said he'd love to be able to race there next year.

"It's just an awesome race track," Cassill said. "I raced there in Late Models, and there's three grooves in Late Models. I'd hate to see what it'd do in a Nationwide car. It would open up pretty good.

"Rusty did a nice job designing the place. Everything from the track surface to the campgrounds and the stands and the club seats, the bus lot. Every garage has a drain for your cool-down units, so you don't have water all over the place. Everything is so nice and state-of-the-art, you'd be crazy not to go there."

Wallace, of course, would agree.

"If Iowa Speedway could be the recipient of that [Mexico] date, I'd gladly take it," Wallace said. "But I've got to reiterate, they have not told us. I don't want to lead anybody on."

Fellows wins in the rain in Montreal

Carl Edwards used a squeegee to clean his windshield while he drove under caution. Jacques Villeneuve and Joey Logano wrecked with the yellow flag flying. And rooster tails flew off the grooved -- yes, grooved -- back tires.

It certainly was a history-making day at rainy Circuit Gilles Villeneuve -- right down to the winner, Canadian road-racer Ron Fellows.


In the first NASCAR points race run on grooved rain tires, Fellows splashed his way to victory -- his fourth road-race win in 13 Nationwide Series starts -- in the event that ended 26 laps early because of heavy rain and poor visibility.

"Visibility was the big, big problem," said Fellows, the first Canadian winner in a major NASCAR race in Canada. "At over 70 mph, there was just so much spray."

The 48-year-old Ontario driver took advantage of Marcos Ambrose's pit-road speeding penalty to take the lead, and had about a half-minute advantage over fellow Canadian Patrick Carpentier when the NAPA Auto Parts 200 was red-flagged.

"It's very dangerous," Fellows said minutes before the race was called.

After just eight laps on the 2.71-mile, 14-turn road course, rain and lightning forced an eight-minute delay. The cars returned to the track with the grooved Goodyear tires and many also had a single windshield wiper.

"This is ridiculous," early leader Scott Pruett said over his radio.

Grooved tires also were used in 1999 during a Craftsman Truck Series practice on the road course at Watkins Glen. In 1997, rain tires were used in practice and qualifying for an exhibition race in Japan.

After averaging about 90 mph on the regular slick tires before the rain arrived, the leaders' average speed dropped to about 75 mph on the grooved tires.

"That was different," Fellows said. "This is incredible."

Fellows, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s JR Motorsports, led the final seven laps. Ambrose finished third after leading a race-high 27 laps.

Ron Hornaday was fourth, followed by Boris Said, Edwards, Jason Leffler, Greg Biffle, series leader Clint Bowyer and Scott Wimmer.

"All in all, I'm surprised how well everyone did and how few accidents there were," Said said. "In the end, people were wrecking under caution because you just couldn't see. The cars were hydroplaning."

Villeneuve, the former Formula One and CART champion racing on the track named after his late father, had so much trouble seeing out of his Toyota that he ran into the back of another car during the final caution period.

Running sixth at the time of the accident, he ended up 15th.

"I couldn't see a thing," Villeneuve said.

Logano also wrecked during the final caution.

"I hit a lapped car with no brake lights. I have no idea who it was," Logano said. "I couldn't see 5 feet in front of me down the straightaway, under caution. Somebody stopped. I locked up all four and boom! ... It's just not right."

The teen star finished 16th.

"It was fun, but it's not good to see guys wrecking under yellow," Edwards said.

The historic tire move came a week after tire troubles derailed the Sprint Cup race at Indianapolis. Goodyear's tires weren't durable enough to withstand more than 10 or so laps at a time, creating a chaotic and confusing caution-filled race.

Pick 'em: Michigan

Each week the staff at NASCAR.COM will pick a race winner, a dark horse for the checkers and the ain't-got-a-chance driver (no scrubs; someone with a Q score).

Our scoring system: Experts receive as many points as the "winner" pick gets in the race.

3M Performance 400

Writer Winner Here's why ... Dark Horse No Chance Points

Josh Pate Jimmie Johnson Remember how good Kyle Busch was at the start of the year? That's where Jimmie is now. In five of his past six Michigan races he's finished sixth or better. He's never won at MIS, so while Roush steals all the headlines, the 48 team will snag the trophy. Brian Vickers Clint Bowyer 3,187
Duane Cross Tony Stewart Conventional wisdom had me thinking Matt Kenseth, but now that his shop is in order I think we may begin to see Smoke emerge from the fog. Martin Truex Jr. Kurt Busch 3,171
Bill Kimm Carl Edwards Roush owns this track and I'm going to go with his hottest driver. Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle each have their two wins here, now it's time for Edwards to get his second. kasey Kahne Clint Bowyer 3,131
Joe Menzer Dale Earnhardt Jr. Last time he broke his long winless streak at Michigan by winning on fuel mileage. This time, he'll do it because he's got one of the best cars and he and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. are starting to take more aggressive chances. Juan Montoya Ryan Newman 3,045
Raygan Swan Carl Edwards Everyone knows that Roush Fenway Racing cars dominate in Michigan so Carl Edwards is the obvious pick this week and he's looking to cut into Busch's lead heading into the Chase. David Raygan Clint Bowyer 3,003
David Caraviello Matt Kenseth He's overdue, and he needs a strong run to solidify his place in the Chase. He'll get that and more Sunday at a track where Roush Fenway cars have traditionally dominated. Kurt Busch Jeff Gordon 2,988
Dave Rodman Jimmie Johnson He is getting into a zone that may result in his third consecutive Cup championship, but at the very least will result in a victory Sunday. Brian Vickers Clint Bowyer 2,882
Jarrod Breeze Carl Edwards Gotta go with arguably the second-best driver all year -- at least in terms of wins (four) and points (currently) -- whose track record at Michigan also is arguably second to none. He's good there because of Roush; but Roush is good there because of Edwards. Elliot Sadler Kasey Kahne 2,764
Mark Aumann Carl Edwards With seven top-10s in eight starts, has the best average finish of any active driver at Michigan. And he's hungry to find 10 more bonus points.

Vickers follows top practice run with pole at Michigan

It didn't take Brian Vickers long to realize that his No. 83 Toyota was a potential pole winner.

By the second lap of Sprint Cup practice Friday at Michigan International Speedway, Vickers knew he had something special. Later that afternoon, Vickers put his Camry on the pole position for Sunday's 3M Performance 400 at the 2-mile track.

3M Performance 400
Race Lineup

Pos. Driver Speed Time

1. B. Vickers 188.536 38.189
2. J. Johnson 187.028 38.497
3. E. Sadler 186.577 38.590
4. Dale Jr. 186.321 38.643
5. J. Gordon 186.032 38.703
6. P. Carpentier 185.979 38.714
7. D. Reutimann 185.907 38.729
8. R. Smith 185.874 38.736
9. G. Biffle 185.821 38.747
10. S. Riggs 185.821 38.747

• Lineup | Videos | Photos"We tried some things during practice that didn't work at all,'' Vickers said. "So we went back to where we were and I think that's one of the best qualifying cars I've ever had. It was a heck of a lap.

"Sometimes you just hit it. You don't know why.''

Vickers turned a lap in 38.189 seconds (188.536 mph) to knock Jimmie Johnson off the top spot late in the Friday's session and secure the first pole for Red Bull Racing (watch video), which made its debut in Cup racing last year.

"It was there from the first lap, the first turn,'' said Vickers, who won his fifth career pole and his first since leaving Hendrick Motorsports at the end of the 2006 season.

"Some days, some weeks you just hit it -- and we hit it," Vickers said. "We wish we knew what caused that, because you'd do that every week. Obviously, we've come a long way since last year."

Last season was mostly a struggle for Vickers, who finished 38th in the standings. But the 24-year-old, who raced to fourth here in June -- one of three top-fives this season -- has made big strides this year and is a solid 17th in the standings.

"I'm very proud of everybody at Red Bull Racing and Toyota,'' he said. "We've come a long way since last year.

Johnson (187.028 mph) will start on the outside of the front row (watch video).

"We picked up speed from practice, but I just knew inside the car that it wasn't the perfect lap," Johnson said. "It was way tighter than it needed to be. I was shocked when they told me the lap time."

Johnson's lap was more than three-tenths of a second slower than Vickers.

"And I think, for that [Red Bull] team and Brian, this has been a track that fits their style. He'll be ever more of a threat come race time," Johnson said.

"That's a great team,'' Vickers said of Johnson and his No. 48 Hendrick Chevrolet. "It's the team to beat in our sport for the last several years.''

And the fast lap by Vickers wasn't a fluke. He was also fastest in the 90-minute practice earlier Friday (speeds).

"To lay that lap down in practice and back it up in qualifying, that's a really good feeling,'' the youngster said. "Really unbelievable. I wish we could take that and apply it to every week. But it's not that easy.

"But anytime you can see progress, feel progress, patience comes easier.

Elliott Sadler (186.577 mph) will start third in Sunday's race, followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. (186.321 mph) and Jeff Gordon (186.032 mph), as Hendrick Motorsports drivers claimed three of the top-five spots on the grid.

Patrick Carpentier, David Reutimann, Regan Smith, Greg Biffle and Scott Riggs will start from the sixth through 10th positions, respectively, on Sunday.

Notes: Brad Coleman, who will make his Cup debut on Sunday, was the last car to make the race on speed. Coleman has replaced J.J. Yeley in the No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing Toyota. ... Of 44 drivers competing for 43 starting spots, Johnny Sauter was the odd man out. Sauter's No. 08 Dodge was more than .2 seconds slower than Coleman's Camry. ... Terry Labonte didn't need his past champion's provisional to get into the field. He'll start 17th in the No. 45 Petty Enterprises Dodge, 18 positions ahead of his brother, Bobby Labonte, who drives the No. 43 Petty car. In a nine-car pileup last week at Watkins Glen, Bobby Labonte took one of the hardest hits of his career. ... Matt Kenseth, trying to protect 12th position on the Cup standings, starts 14th. Clint Bowyer, 13th in points, will have to rally from the 41st starting position.

Burton: Fewer teams best for long-term health of Cup

Jeff Burton was on a roll Friday morning at Michigan International Speedway, and he wasn't even on he track.

Burton was asked about how only a year ago there were concerns about too many sponsors with too many cars and no guarantees of making Sprint Cup Series races, and about how this weekend, for the third time this season, only 44 cars showed up to attempt making the 43-car field for this Sunday's 3M Performance 400.

“
I think there was a time in our country where you looked at the auto manufacturers as an empire that could never go away -- and I think today we can't look at it in that fashion, which is sad.
”
JEFF BURTONIt was only one question. But he rambled on with his passionate answer.

"I don't think there's any question it's a function of sponsor involvement -- and the sponsor involvement has a great deal to do with the economy," Burton said. "A company has to be 100 percent committed to motorsports in this kind of economy to be able to spend the money that it takes, which goes back to part of the reason that I believe it's not in our best interest to have 48, 49 teams."

In Burton's mind, NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series actually would be fiscally healthier with fewer teams.

"How many cars did we have at Daytona [for the Daytona 500] this year? Fifty or so [actually 53]?," Burton quizzed. "We're having teams shut down. Every time a team shuts down, there is somebody who is left unemployed.

"We put ourselves in a position where with this change of car count, over a three-year or four-year period you go from 49 full-time teams to maybe 44, that's a five-team switch. If you put 60 people on a team, that's 300 people whose jobs are impacted by that."

Burton said he has a simple answer to put an end to all that economic uncertainty, whether the nation's economy is in a slump as it is now or it's when the good times are rolling.

"Our sport would be so much more secure, our employees would be so much more secure, our sponsors would be so much more secure, if we had 43 teams," Burton said. "There is no benefit in having [more than 43] teams. It only creates insecurity for sponsors, for car owners, for crew members.

"We need 43 teams to put on a race. If we have 43 teams that we knew were going to be in the race, then the sponsor's investment is much more secure -- and at a time when the economy is iffy, the sponsors that want to be involved in the sport want to know that they're going to be in the race."

Burton knows that NASCAR has long frowned on the idea of limiting its field to what essentially would be 43 franchises.

"I'm not even saying the F-word," he joked, laughing.

He even conceded that he understands the philosophy behind letting more than 43 cars attempt to make a race on a weekly basis. He just doesn't think it's sound business in the long term.

"The philosophy of having 48 cars all vying for 43 spots, I know that's cool and everything. Or the thought that if you're not good enough, you just go home because you don't deserve to be in the race. But that's not economically sound," Burton said.

"This is a time when you start seeing a negative side of having a bunch of teams. The sponsorships are being spread out over more cars. The cost of sponsorship is being de-valued because they have more choices. There's really no advantage in all that and our sport is less secure."

As Burton and the rest of the Sprint Cup drivers prepare for this Sunday's race in the backyard of America's Big Three automobile manufacturers, Burton's comments cast a long shadow. That significance was not lost on him.

"I think there was a time in our country where you looked at the auto manufacturers as an empire that could never go away -- and I think today we can't look at it in that fashion, which is sad," Burton said. "If you think about how big the American manufacturers are to the economy of America, it's huge. The amount of employment, the things that they do, it's unbelievable. And it's hard to see them struggling because it should be a source of pride for our country.

"They're really struggling hard. I don't think you can take them for granted anymore. ... You think they always will be involved, but they still have to be able to write the checks."

If they had fewer teams to write them to, perhaps that would help.

"Forty-three cars that are assured of being in the field is the best scenario for our sport," Burton insisted. "Professional golf being the exception, we are the only major sport that has to make the investment that we make and you don't know 100 percent that you're in the field.

"Now the top-35 rule is a tremendous step in the right direction. It's way better than it used to be, but it ought to be a 43 rule. I don't know how you go about determining whose going to get the car owners and all. I'm a driver, so I get to point at somebody else and say figure it out. But it's in our best interest to have 43 well-funded teams and sponsors that are secure in what they're doing. That's in our sport's best interest. That's my opinion."

As Chase nears, 10th-place Biffle deflecting pressure

Sitting 10th in the points with four races left would be enough to stress anyone. Being 10th in points, only 83 in front of 13th-place Clint Bowyer with four races left will add gray to the hair of the strongest of drivers.

But Greg Biffle is calm, cool and collected as he looks to secure a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, beginning with this week's 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

3M Performance 400
Race Lineup

Pos. Driver Speed Time

1. B. Vickers 188.536 38.189
2. J. Johnson 187.028 38.497
3. E. Sadler 186.577 38.590
4. Dale Jr. 186.321 38.643
5. J. Gordon 186.032 38.703
6. P. Carpentier 185.979 38.714
7. D. Reutimann 185.907 38.729
8. R. Smith 185.874 38.736
9. G. Biffle 185.821 38.747
10. S. Riggs 185.821 38.747

• Lineup | Videos | Photos"I wouldn't say desperation, but we know where we are in the points," Biffle said. "We know that we need to finish 10th or better in these next four events."

That shouldn't be a problem at Michigan, where Roush Fenway Racing has dominated in what could be called the team's home track. In 139 races, Roush Fenway has compiled 10 wins, 39 top-fives and 74 top-10s. Biffle specifically has run very well at the 2-mile oval with two wins, four top-fives and six top-10s.

Unfortunately for Biffle, the past three races have seen a decline in those strong results. Finishes of 38th and 19th in the '07 races followed by a 20th in this year's spring race have Biffle struggling at a track at which he's unaccustomed.

Biffle, though, looks at the big picture, not just at where he crossed the finish line.

"The last time we were here we were running third and fourth and got the air hose caught on the splitter," Biffle said. "So the results on the piece of paper show we finished 21st or 20th and that's certainly not where we ran all day.

"We feel good about this weekend and getting a good, solid run. We feel like this is a good opportunity for us."

Things got off to a great start for the No. 16 team during Friday's practice, when Biffle posted a lap of 184.981 mph, tied with Jeff Gordon for 10th in the session behind Brian Vickers' fast lap of 187.373 (speeds).

It was more of the same in qualifying. Biffle will roll off ninth Sunday, after a lap of 185.821.

With no wins on the season, Biffle -- if he makes the Chase -- will be down at least 80 points to leader Kyle Busch when the 10-race playoff begins at New Hampshire. Biffle isn't concerned about bonus points though; he knows his focus has to be on points racing in the final four events at Michigan, Bristol, Fontana and Richmond to ensure a spot in the top 12.

"We've been saying for the last six races, we know if we [finish] 10th or better we're technically gonna lock ourselves in because we feel like those are good enough finishes.

"Certainly we want to win, get in the top five, that's the focus we have. But we feel the urgency to be in the top 10, for sure."

Newman makes it official, will drive for Stewart-Haas

Tony Stewart plans to build his new NASCAR team into one that can win races and championships sooner than later.

The two-time Sprint Cup champion figures signing Ryan Newman as his teammate at Stewart-Haas Racing is a big step in that direction, though both drivers have a little unfinished business to take care of first.

“
The thing that impressed me the most about Ryan was that he asked all the right questions. The questions he asked me about were how are we going to win races, how are we going to win championships, how are we going to get the right people in place to do the right jobs.
”
TONY STEWARTStewart is trying to nail down a spot in the Chase for the championship -- and maybe another title -- in his final season with Joe Gibbs Racing, while Newman hopes to leave longtime employer Penske Racing at the end of this season with another win or two to add to his season-opening victory in the Daytona 500.

Stewart made the much-anticipated signing of Newman official at Michigan International Speedway on Friday, and the soon-to-be teammates sat side-by-side, smiling and talking about the future.

"This is an exciting day," Stewart said. "I mean, it's very important to Stewart-Haas Racing, obviously."

Stewart, leaving the Gibbs team after 10 successful seasons to become part owner of what has been the midpack Haas CNC Racing, added, "The flood of personnel that have come over and wanted to join the team since we made that announcement has been huge. With the addition of Ryan coming on board now, I think it's even going to make that list even grow larger."

The new owner-driver knows he's facing a lot of work to make a contender out of his new team, which currently has Scott Riggs 37th in the car-owner points and Tony Raines 43rd.

But Joe Custer, general manager of what is still Haas CNC Racing at this point, said things are changing quickly.

"It's overwhelming in ways," Custer said. "You know, to have Tony come on board, obviously, and now Ryan, it's just unbelievable. ... Tony's led the charge. The program's growing. It's exciting to be part of it."

Newman said he had at least three other serious offers for a new ride in 2009, but went with Stewart-Haas mostly because of its new co-owner.

"It's just a great opportunity," Newman said. "I think a lot of Tony from a personal standpoint as well as a driving standpoint, and I've seen his success from an ownership standpoint with the USAC cars and the World of Outlaws cars. I've seen him get the job done in other venues, and I look forward to the opportunity."

Skinner replaces McDowell in No. 00 for three races

Craftsman Truck Series regular Mike Skinner will pilot Michael Waltrip Racing's No. 00 car in the next three Sprint Cup events, while regular driver Michael McDowell sits out so the organization can reexamine its program.

McDowell, a Sprint Cup rookie, stands 36th in owner points, eight points behind A.J. Allmendinger for the final guaranteed starting spot this week at Michigan International Speedway. Skinner will also attempt the forthcoming events at Bristol and Fontana, while McDowell is slated to return to the car for the Sept. 6 race at Richmond.

“
We're struggling right now, and we're outside the top 35, and our program as a whole is struggling right now. It gives us a chance to put Skinner in, and evaluate where I'm at, where our whole team's at.
”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL"We're struggling right now, and we're outside the top 35, and our program as a whole is struggling right now," McDowell said Tuesday. "It gives us a chance to put Skinner in, and evaluate where I'm at, where our whole team's at, and hopefully get better, which ultimately is the goal of this whole process. I'm definitely getting back in, that's not a question. It's just a matter of getting our program better."

McDowell finished 25th in last Sunday's event at Watkins Glen International after being involved in a large crash near the end of the race. In 17 starts since replacing the retired Dale Jarrett, McDowell has made every race and has a top finish of 21st on the road course at Sonoma, Calif. He said the switch to Skinner had been discussed even before the crash at Watkins Glen, which began when McDowell collided with David Gilliland. Seven other cars were also impacted.

"The whole melee at Watkins Glen was obviously unfortunate, but it wasn't what made us come to the decision that we need to do something different," McDowell said. "It's something we've been working on, and it really had nothing to do with [the fact] that Watkins Glen was a bit of a disaster. It was an opportunity for us to evaluate the program."

Waltrip's approach is similar to one taken earlier this season by Team Red Bull, which put Skinner in its No. 84 car for five races in place of Allmendinger, a second-year NASCAR driver who had failed to qualify for the first three events of the year. Allmendinger showed marked improvement when he returned to the car, and has recorded top-20s in his last four starts. He is in the top 35 in owner points this week for the first time.

"I thought [Skinner] did a really nice job of working with Red Bull and A.J. Allmendinger earlier this year, and our No. 00 team could use the same experienced insight," Waltrip said in a statement released by the team. "We feel the same way about Michael McDowell as we did when we signed him. But this is the toughest, most competitive form of racing in the world, and I know Michael and MWR can benefit from Skinner's input."

But unlike Allmendinger, McDowell has made every race since he first stepped into the No. 00 car at Martinsville Speedway in March. He's spent most of the season inside the top 35, falling out for the first time two weeks ago after a 34th-place finish at Indianapolis. He made the next race at Pocono on speed, and was in the starting field at Watkins Glen after qualifying was canceled by rain.

"It's not ideal. It's not something I wanted to do," McDowell said. "But I'm going to do everything I can to get back in the racecar and to help the program."

Dale Earnhardt Inc. names Hutchens competition vp

Dale Earnhardt Inc. has named NASCAR veteran Bobby Hutchens vice president of competition. Hutchens, who previously served as general manager of Earnhardt-Childress Racing Engines after a long tenure with Richard Childress Racing, will oversee all competition efforts at Dale Earnhardt Inc., including its four Sprint Cup teams.

Hutchens' new position came as the result of a joint decision between DEI and RCR. The championship-winning NASCAR racing organizations have a long history of successful collaboration including, among others, ECR Engines and the RAD aerodynamics program that also included Andy Petree Racing.

Hutchens, who graduated from North Carolina State University with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1982, is highly regarded in Cup racing for his research, development and computer testing accomplishments. Hutchens has managed and developed all facets of RCR's R&D program, while overseeing RCR's engineering, engines, engine R&D, manufacturing, chassis R&D and aerodynamics programs. He was named general manager of ECR Engines when the program was put together in May 2007.

He started at RCR in 1989 as a member of the No. 3 GM Goodwrench team with driver Dale Earnhardt. During his 20-year career at RCR, Hutchens worked his way from team engineer to shop foreman to crew chief and, eventually to vice president of competition.

Hutchens also is an accomplished third generation Modified racer. In addition, he helped co-develop the Hutchens Device, a driver head-and-neck safety restraint system.

Truex clawing back with career-best on road course

The Chase be darned. Martin Truex Jr. is here to race.

And that's why the star of the young man from the Jersey shore was among the brightest on pit road at Watkins Glen International on Sunday evening; and why Truex planned to be at a test session at Kentucky Speedway the very next day.

Truex had just notched a career-best finish on a road course, fifth in the Centurion Boats at The Glen. Never mind that he picked up two positions in the Sprint Cup standings, moving him into 15th.

“
We're not looking at points, we're just going out there and racing hard and we'll see where we end up when the racing's over with.
”
MARTIN TRUEX JR.At that rate, Truex will only gain 156 points by the Chase cutoff event in September at Richmond International Raceway -- not enough to get him into his second consecutive Chase in the No. 1 Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevrolet.

While that's a great disappointment to Truex and his team, Sunday's run at The Glen was the latest step in their rebound from a horrendous six-race stretch in the spring that knocked them from eighth in the standings, back to 17th.

Only recently have they shown signs of recovering, and that rebound has a few notable aspects. Three races ago, crew chief "Bono" Manion and car chief Gary Putnam began serving six-race suspensions for a technical violation at Daytona.

Truex only recently re-signed a one-year contract extension with DEI (read more) and before The Glen he credited his team, including interim crew chief Mike Greci -- his former crew chief on Truex's family run Busch East team -- for stepping up.

"That's probably the biggest reason I'm here, because I've got that communication with [Truex] for all these years, now," Greci said. "Obviously, we miss Gary and Bono a whole bunch, but the last three races we've been getting better and better and we'll go to Michigan in good shape, I think."

For his part, Truex was still enjoying Watkins Glen.

"Man, it was smooth -- the first time in a real long time that we've had a really smooth race in a while, so hopefully that monkey's off our back," Truex said. "We're not looking at points, we're just going out there and racing hard and we'll see where we end up when the racing's over with."

Crash a violent reminder that road courses can bite

It looked less like the garage area at Watkins Glen International, and more like a salvage yard. Ruined racecars sat in their stalls, exposed bars and wires dangling to the concrete floor. Crewmen used electric saws to cut away piece after piece, dumping them all in a heap in the corner. The place was strewn with wreckage -- part of a crumpled radiator lying here, a piece of torn sheet metal there.

And then there was David Gilliland's Ford -- or what, until a few minutes earlier, had been David Gilliland's Ford. The car was so damaged, the exterior so collapsed and scraped up, that it barely resembled the vehicle that had taken the starting flag in Sunday's Sprint Cup event. No wonder, given that it had been at the epicenter of a harrowing nine-car pile-up with seven laps remaining Sunday, a wreck that halted the road course race for 43 minutes and sent one former series champion to the hospital.


Labonte sent to hospital
Lap-by-Lap: Watkins Glen
Video: Big wreck, red flag
"I just want to understand who started all of this, because that is crazy," said Max Papis, the road-course ace driving Haas CNC's No. 70 car. "Someone hit me in the back first, spun my car around. The next thing there was a black car stopped. I was wide open, let off and on the brake, someone was pushing me and I ended up in the wall. It was a heavy impact against the wall, but my Chevrolet car was awesome. With the HANS device and the protection of God, I am all right."

And thankfully so, given that Sunday's accident was a violent reminder of just how treacherous a road-course event can be. Papis, Gilliland, and Dave Blaney were each examined and released at the track's infield care center following the wreck, but Bobby Labonte climbed out of his No. 43 car gingerly and was transported by ambulance to a hospital in nearby Elmira. Labonte had complained of discomfort in his rib and abdomen area, according to Robbie Loomis, the vice president of his Petty Enterprises team. Later Sunday, NASCAR announced that Labonte had been released from the hospital and cleared for return to competition.

"They think he's OK," Loomis said immediately after the event. "He's a little sore. That was a heck of a wreck."

That it was. It started exiting the track's 11th and final turn, when Michael McDowell appeared to lean into Gilliland and send the No. 38 car crashing into a tire barrier lining the outside wall. Gilliland rebounded into the narrow chokepoint between the frontstretch and the entrance to pit road, and suddenly cars were slamming into each other. He took two tremendous hits from the cars of Joe Nemechek and Labonte. Papis' car ricocheted off one vehicle after another. And Sam Hornish Jr. careened into the sand barrels protecting the end of the outside pit wall, showering the track in jagged pieces of yellow and black plastic that track workers later dumped into a ditch in the infield.

Busch makes history with dominant win at The Glen

If Kyle Busch appeared "vulnerable" in recent weeks to some of his fellow NASCAR Sprint Cup competitors, the aura of invincibility returned to the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on Sunday at Watkins Glen International.

After a restart on Lap 86 of 90 in the Centurion Boats at The Glen, Busch held off victory-starved JGR teammate Tony Stewart by 2.275 seconds to claim his eighth victory of the season and clinch the top seed in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, regardless of what happens in the four races before the Chase field is set Sept. 6 at Richmond (watch video).

Centurion at The Glen
Official Results

Pos. Driver Make

1. Kyle Busch Toyota
2. Tony Stewart Toyota
3. Marcos Ambrose Ford
4. Juan Montoya Dodge
5. Martin Truex Jr. Chevrolet
6. Kevin Harvick Chevrolet
7. Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet
8. Denny Hamlin Toyota
9. Carl Edwards Ford
10. Kurt Busch Dodge

• Results | Points | Lap-by-Lap
• Race Videos | Photo GalleryThe win was the 12th of Busch's career, and it negated the comments of his former Hendrick Motorsports teammates, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, who said they had seen weakness in the No. 18 team, based on lackluster performances in the past two races, at Indianapolis and Pocono.

"I'm sorry, what slump?" Busch said on his radio after crossing the finish line of the 2.45-mile road course. "They can keep trying to play these mind games. We'll just keep winning."

Crew chief Steve Addington also marveled at the notion that a two-week downturn in performance could indicate vulnerability in his team.

"I can't believe it," Addington said. "We don't win a race in three or four weeks, and we're in a bad slump?"

Marcos Ambrose, who picked up his first NASCAR victory in Saturday's Zippo 200 Nationwide Series race, worked his way through the field from the 43rd starting position to third at the finish in his third Cup start. Juan Montoya came home fourth, followed by Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick.

"Kyle ran an awesome race today," said Stewart, who will leave JGR at the end of the season to drive for his own team, Stewart-Haas Racing. "He never made a mistake today, and he was fast in all the right spots.

"I can't be disappointed with a second-place finish to a teammate like that. He's been on fire this year. ... You'd cut off one of your legs almost to have the kind of year he's having."

A wild wreck in Turn 11 stopped the action on Lap 83 in what had been a relatively tame race to that point. Contact from the Toyota of Michael McDowell sent David Gilliland's Ford spinning out of control into the guardrail. Sam Hornish Jr. slid sideways, driver's-side-first, into the barrier of sand barrels dividing the racetrack from pit road (watch video).

Bobby Labonte limped away from his damaged No. 43 Dodge after the crash, which also damaged the cars of Michael Waltrip, Dave Blaney, Joe Nemechek, Max Papis and Reed Sorenson. Labonte was transported from the infield care center to a local hospital for further evaluation (read more).

McDowell and Gilliland were called to the NASCAR trailer after the incident to discuss the aggressive driving that triggered the wreck.

After a stoppage of more than 43 minutes, the race restarted on Lap 86 with Busch leading Stewart to the green flag, followed by Ambrose, Montoya, Truex, Denny Hamlin and Harvick.

News & Notes

• Jimmie Johnson had one of the strongest cars Sunday, but a flat left rear tire forced the No. 48 Chevrolet to make an early pit stop on Lap 42. Johnson rallied from the setback to finish seventh (watch video).
• Busch swept both Cup road course races this season, having won at Infineon Raceway in June. He also won on the road course at Mexico City in the Nationwide Series this year and finished second to Ambrose in Saturday's Nationwide race at The Glen.
• Ambrose's third-place finish was the first top-five for the Wood Brothers since Ricky Rudd finished fourth at Bristol on Aug. 27, 2005.
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. waited one lap too long to pit and got caught when the caution came out on Lap 64. Forced to pit under the yellow, he restarted 32nd on Lap 67, finished the race in 22nd and dropped from second to fourth in the Cup standings.

Second has Stewart happy to keep digging for Chase

Tony Stewart smiling after a second-place finish is the surest sign he's at peace with his current situation while NASCAR charges toward the fifth annual Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.

Stewart, a prohibitive favorite on Sunday to win his fifth Cup race at Watkins Glen International, could only chase his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Kyle Busch, across the finish line in the Centurion Boats at The Glen.

It was Busch's eighth victory of the season and had Stewart experiencing déjà vu -- but also a lot of respect.

Centurion at The Glen
Official Results

Pos. Driver Make

1. Kyle Busch Toyota
2. Tony Stewart Toyota
3. Marcos Ambrose Ford
4. Juan Montoya Dodge
5. Martin Truex Jr. Chevrolet
6. Kevin Harvick Chevrolet
7. Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet
8. Denny Hamlin Toyota
9. Carl Edwards Ford
10. Kurt Busch Dodge

• Results | Points | Lap-by-Lap
• Race Videos | Photo Gallery"I can remember years where we finished second or third and I went home the most miserable person on the face of earth because I felt like we should have won the race," the two-time Cup champion Stewart said. "It makes a [winless] year like this for us -- it makes you respect those years that you have runs like [Busch's] and you have strings where you're in Victory Lane a lot."

Stewart's victory drought has now stretched to 36 races dating to this event in 2007. Even though he missed his chance at a venue where many felt he was a sure thing, he wasn't upset.

"I'm pretty happy with [the day], it was pretty uneventful from our side and we didn't have any big dramas in the race," Stewart said. "The red [flag] there at the end kind of killed us but I'm really happy with the day. I'm proud of Kyle and how he ran, and I saw behind us that Denny [Hamlin, teammate who finished eighth] was having a good day, too, so I'm really proud of the whole organization. It was a good day for us." (Video: Strong day for JGR)

It was far from a good day for the nine drivers that were involved in a brutal crash with seven laps to go that caused a 43-minute, five-second red flag to clear the debris and wrecked cars (read more). Stewart's chances, he said, were wrecked as well.

"The thing that hurt us at the end was just the [length of] the red flag," Stewart said. "That cooled the tires down and dropped the air pressures and it seemed like we were a little bit low on the left-front tire and it seemed like when the pressures were low it really hooked the front-end to the right. But even if we got that fixed, I'm not sure we would have been fast enough to beat Kyle."

It was the second time in Busch's league-leading eight victories this season Stewart's finished second, but he said his No. 20 Toyota was as good as he and his team could make it.

And that fact, along with unofficially moving up two spots in the Sprint Cup standings to seventh and stretching his advantage over 12th-place Matt Kenseth to 116, was enough for this weekend, which leaves four races until the cutoff for the Chase.

Labonte sent to hospital after big wreck at The Glen

Former series champion Bobby Labonte was taken to an area hospital after being involved in a nine-car accident that marred the final laps of Sunday's Sprint Cup event at Watkins Glen International.

Labonte was taken by ground to a hospital in Elmira, N.Y., according to members of his Petty Enterprises organization. Team vice president Robbie Loomis said the driver was complaining of discomfort in his rib and abdominal area, but did not believe he was seriously hurt.

Lap-by-Lap: Watkins Glen
Video: Big wreck, red flag
"They think he's OK," Loomis said after the Centurion Boats at The Glen. "He's a little sore. That was a heck of a wreck."

A NASCAR official said later Sunday that Labonte had been released from the hospital and been cleared to resume competition.

Following the accident, David Gilliland, Dave Blaney and Max Papis were each examined and released from the track's infield care center. The crash on Lap 83 of the 90-lap event began when Michael McDowell and Gilliland collided exiting the final turn, sending cars careering into the narrow straightaway. Gilliland absorbed two big hits, one from the car of Joe Nemechek and another from Labonte's Dodge.

"I'm a little sore everywhere, I think," Gilliland said. "But I'll be OK, I think."

The car of Sam Hornish Jr. crashed hard into the barrier separating the frontstretch from pit road, necessitating a 43-minute red flag for repairs. The vehicles of Reed Sorenson and Michael Waltrip were also involved, turning the garage area at the legendary old road course into something resembling a salvage yard. Gilliland and McDowell were both summoned to the Sprint Cup hauler after the race.

"It was crazy," Papis said. "We came out of the last corner, somebody pushed me in the back, the next thing I saw was kind of a black car in the middle smashed from the back to the side. Then my car was destroyed. I know when it comes down to [seven] to go, you need to get up to the wheel and push hard. But that was too much, I think."

With another road win, Chase top seed is Busch's

The Chase for the Sprint Cup championship is still five races away, but series leader Kyle Busch can take his first step toward winning it with a victory Sunday at Watkins Glen International.

A sweep of this season's road-course events would clinch the top seed in NASCAR's 10-race playoff for Busch, who currently holds a 40-point edge over Carl Edwards in the bonus points that decide Chase seeding. Since drivers receive 10 Chase bonus points for each victory and only four regular-season events remain after Watkins Glen, an eighth win on the season would give Busch an insurmountable 50-point edge over Edwards, who has won four times but had his bonus points at Las Vegas Motor Speedway deducted for infractions found on his car.

“
The way this deal works, if you go to New Hampshire and blow the engine on the first lap, you can still win the championship. It doesn't matter.
”
CARL EDWARDSWhat does that mean? Reigning champion Jimmie Johnson entered last year's Chase with a 20-bonus-point edge over teammate Jeff Gordon, and fell as low as fourth in the standings before rallying to win the title. But he believes those bonus points gave him something of a cushion early in the Chase, and given his eventual 23-point margin of victory over Gordon, they proved crucial late.

"You know, it's important, especially for the first two or three races when everybody is so worried about the points and where you're at. It really buys you some sleep and peace of mind at the start of the Chase," said Johnson, who has two wins on the season, and whose lap of 121.815 mph was fastest in final practice Saturday at Watkins Glen.

"From my own experience, now, it can be different for others, but as the season wears on and those final 10 wear on, you're really just looking at the total and where it's at. For whatever reason, you forget about the seeding process, especially when you leave tracks like Talladega and Martinsville. You have so many other things on your mind that the seeding process is kind of at the bottom of the totem pole. Even though it is an important factor, but you just start worrying about what's ahead and those challenges that you have at the track. But he's definitely going to have a margin going into it. And the way those guys have been and how good they've been, we're all going to have to show up on our game to beat them."

Although Edwards is third in points behind Dale Earnhardt Jr., his four victories on the season would vault him into second if the Chase were to begin today. Busch clinching the Chase's top seed would have no effect on his strategy, which is simply to go for as many wins as possible between now and the playoff opener Sept. 14 in New Hampshire. And he doesn't believe a deficit would hamper him once the Chase begins.

Successful or not, rain tires aren't option for Cup -- yet

Minutes before Friday's 11:45 a.m. ET Sprint Cup practice for the Centurion Boats at The Glen was scheduled to open, a downpour that had threatened the area around Watkins Glen International all morning struck.

It cast the entire day's schedule into question, as rain tires have not been an option for Sprint Cup Series teams on road courses since 2006. And until the Cup Series' schedule was settled, several Nationwide Series crew chiefs said their practice status couldn't be determined.

“
I think we'll always consider anything. Knowing now that we ran a race in the rain, I think we'll sit down as a group and discuss the potential of doing that and the nightmare of doing that and see if it's worth it or not.
”
ROBIN PEMBERTONSprint Cup Series practice and qualifying were ultimately canceled at about 2:30 p.m. with qualifying rained out for the fourth time in the last five years. NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said that, despite those statistics, too many factors weigh against using rain tires for Cup events.

"When you run a companion race, like here at Watkins Glen, Cup has precedence over Nationwide," Pemberton said. "So if we rain out Saturday and Sunday and we race on Monday, Cup gets it first; and Nationwide could be here one or two extra days they don't need to be.

"There are a lot of things that go into it, but the current thinking is that Cup should be on the next clear day, and that it would take precedence."

Even though Goodyear's specially grooved wet weather tires -- which were used for the first time in a national touring series event last weekend in the Nationwide Series race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal -- could be used if necessary for that series' events leading up to Saturday's Zippo 200, they were not on Friday. Rain continued until about 1:30 p.m., and the scheduled 1:45 start time for the first Nationwide practice passed. At least one car, owner James Finch's No. 1 Chevrolet, sat in its garage spot on rain tires.

Goodyear has 600 rain tires, or 150 sets, on site at Watkins Glen for the Nationwide cars. Goodyear's marketing manager for the Sprint Cup Series Rick Heinrich said that, due to the tires' construction, in ordinary wet conditions a single set could be used for an entire 200-mile race.

"It's a little heavier tire and a little stiffer construction," Heinrich said of the rain tires. "Typically a slick tire would have 3/32nds of an inch of tread rubber, and no grooves, and the rain tires have 6/32nds of tread rubber with grooves."

While slick tires create grip by generating heat, Heinrich pointed out that rain tires' groove patterns, which are designed to disperse water to the outside of the tire, enabled the tires to be used on any corner of the car, but that they had to be mounted facing in the correct direction.

Truex happy to have DEI contract extension finished

Martin Truex Jr. and Dale Earnhardt Inc. principals Max Siegel and John Story appeared at the Watkins Glen International media center to confirm what had been reported earlier in the week -- that Truex will drive the No. 1 DEI Chevrolet next season with continued sponsorship from Bass Pro Shops.

Truex said after the news conference that he and DEI already had begun discussions toward a longer-term deal.


Truex Jr.Community
Superstore
"We've already started talking about it, so we'll see where it goes -- but we're working on it," said Truex, who currently is 17th in the Sprint Cup championship standings, having suffered a 150-point penalty after the roof of his car failed to meet the template during pre-qualifying inspection for the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona in July.

In essence, Truex has agreed to a one-year contract extension that will take him through the option year on his current deal. The agreement eliminates debate as to whether the option lay with DEI, Truex or both.

The performance of the No. 1 hasn't measured up to its 2007 standards, when Truex qualified for the Chase to the NASCAR Sprint Cup and finished 11th in the final standings. The decision to stay with DEI keeps Truex united with crew chief Kevin "Bono" Manion, who currently is serving a six-race suspension for the Daytona violation and isn't eligible to return until the Sept. 6 race at Richmond -- the final race before the Chase.

"It's all about the people," Truex said. "If you don't believe in each other, you might as well go fly a damn kite. You ain't going to get nothing done. At the end of the day, I still believe in the people that are working on my cars, the people that I'm working with on my cars, the people that are getting sponsorship and buying the stuff we need. We've got everything we need. Yes, we need to do a better job of utilizing it."

Truex's Chevy is the flagship car for DEI, which, according to DEI vice president of motorsports operations John Story, hopes to keep all four of its cars on the track next year. Paul Menard drives the No. 15, Regan Smith the No. 01, and Aric Almirola and Mark Martin split time in the No. 8. Martin will drive full time for Hendrick Motorsports next year, leaving the No. 8 ride solely to Almirola.

"As far as our 2009 program, obviously our goals have not changed," Story said. "Four cars is our objective for next year: Certainly the No. 1 with Martin [Truex], the No. 15 with Paul Menard, the No. 8 with Aric Almirola, and Regan Smith in the No. 01. But we are all still working to round out sponsorship on the No. 01 car. The goal remains to run all four teams next year."

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who left family-founded DEI after the 2007 season to drive for Hendrick, said he had no input into the decision of Truex, his close friend, but that he has happy the decision had been made.

"I was happy for Martin and DEI, because he can see next year what the landscape's like," Earnhardt said. "He remains the premier driver for that whole company. I think Martin made the right decision to wait it out for another year.

Struggling Hall of Fame turns to Nationwide driver

When he signed with Hall of Fame Racing as a test driver late last year, Brad Coleman figured he'd be in a Sprint Cup car at about this time in the 2008 season. But he thought his debut at NASCAR's highest level would be in a second vehicle, and not the organization's flagship No. 96 Toyota.

Not that he's too choosy, mind you. "I'll take this," Coleman said Friday, two days after team management informed him that he would take over the No. 96 beginning next weekend at Michigan. "I'm excited about it."

“
Brad's got a tremendous amount of talent. He's going to be challenged as a rookie here, but he's shown us a lot.
”
TOM GARFINKEL, OWNERMired 38th in owner points and with only one finish better than 24th this year, the Hall of Fame team this week fired J.J. Yeley and turned to the 20-year-old Coleman, who will slide behind the wheel after P.J. Jones competes in Sunday's road-course event at Watkins Glen International (read more). Although Coleman has never won in more than two years in the Nationwide Series, Hall of Fame brass is more focused on his reputation as a strong qualifier -- the Texan has seven starts inside the top 10 this year, and won a pole at Talladega last season.

"If you watch what he's doing every week in the Nationwide Series, he consistently out-qualifies his practice times by two or three tenths [of a second]," team co-owner Tom Garfinkel, also an executive with the Arizona Diamondbacks, said by telephone from his Phoenix office. "He brings the car home where the car should be or higher, he doesn't get in crashes, he communicates well about what he needs in the car to make it better. What he did last year in really good Nationwide equipment, qualifying up front at Bristol the first time he's ever seen the place, winning a pole at Talladega the first time he's ever been there, Brad's got a tremendous amount of talent. He's going to be challenged as a rookie here, but he's shown us a lot."

There's little room for error -- the No. 96 car is a distant 216 owner points out of the top 35, the line that separates teams with guaranteed starting berths from those who must qualify on speed. Coleman will have to earn his way into the field next week at Michigan, and perhaps do the same for much of the rest of the year. But he knows that's why he's being brought on board.

"We're going to put a lot of emphasis on qualifying," he said. "In order to get back in the top 35 in points, you've got to qualify for races. I look at myself as a pretty good qualifier. Through my Nationwide career, my ARCA career, I've qualified up in the top 10 most of the time. I'm excited to get in there and try one of these out."

Qualifying is what doomed Yeley, who this time last year lost his ride in Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 18 car -- which now belongs to series points leader Kyle Busch. The affable Phoenix native and former U.S. Auto Club champion failed to make four events this season, and never started better than 22nd. Garfinkel said team management had some "frank discussions" with Yeley after they missed the June 8 race at Pocono, and again after they missed the June 22 race at Sonoma, and made the change after a 43rd-place start and 39th-place finish last weekend at Pocono.

Cup qualifying rained out; Said replaces Petty in 45

Boris Said's "bucket list" will get another check Sunday at Watkins Glen International when the veteran road racer drives Kyle Petty's No. 45 Dodge in the Centurion Boats at The Glen.

For the fourth time in the last five years, pole qualifying for the Sprint Cup Series' second road race of the season was canceled Friday when rain eliminated NASCAR's "window of opportunity." Said is a part owner of No Fear Racing, whose No. 60 Ford was sent home Friday. That's when Petty approached him.

“
If somebody had told me 10 years ago that I would drive for Eddie Wood and now Richard Petty I would have told 'em, 'Yeah, you're crazy -- I might as well land on the moon.
”
BORIS SAID"I love Watkins Glen, but I don't love Fridays at Watkins Glen because it's always raining, and this is two years in a row," Said said of being sent home without a qualifying attempt. "Kyle Petty asked me to drive his car to help them out in the points situation -- and for me, personally that was like the movie The Bucket List.

"It's pretty cool to put on your bucket list that you drove for the King [Richard Petty] and Kyle. So I'm pretty pleased about it. If somebody had told me 10 years ago that I would drive for Eddie Wood and now Richard Petty I would have told 'em, 'Yeah, you're crazy -- I might as well land on the moon.'"

Last year when qualifying also was rained out, Bill Elliott stepped out of the Wood Brothers' No. 21 Ford and let Said drive. He finished 14th.

"Boris is known around the world as one of the premier road-course racers," said Robbie Loomis, vice president of operations at Petty Enterprises. "He'll give us another great opportunity to assess our program. Everyone at Petty Enterprises is grateful to Boris for helping us out."

The No. 45 Dodge is 40th in the owner standings, 242 points out of the top 35.

It's the 10th consecutive race in which Petty has been out of the seat. The absence began when he attended daughter Montgomery Lee's wedding at the beginning of June, included six races in which he was part of the TNT broadcast team and continues as the team evaluates its cars and organization.

Points leader Kyle Busch and second-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. will lead the 43-car field to the green on Sunday after the lineup was set according to the rulebook for the fifth time this season. Previous rainouts occurred at California, Bristol, Michigan and Chicagoland.

Gordon, Earnhardt have unified plan for Sunday

If Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans decide to throw beer cans at Jeff Gordon again, they'd better be careful, they might just hit their favorite driver.

The Hendrick Motorsports teammates, two of the greatest restrictor plate racers in the sport, have a plan for Sunday's Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Both men have agreed to set aside their competitive differences, for a portion of the race at least, and work on their team building skills.

“
We both think we are the best so that's where the conflict comes in. Who is supposed to be out front and who is supposed to be helping who.
”
-- DALE EARNHARDT JR."Me and Jeff are thinking about going up front, running hard ... go up there and try to learn how to work together," Earnhardt said. "I think it will work good, we got to make it work."

Teammates or not, Junior Nation may find this pairing a bit unsettling.

Talladega Superspeedway is sacred ground for the Earnhardt family and the fans don't take kindly to interlopers. The city of Talladega has become a Mecca of sorts, a holy city. Thousands of Earnhardt fans make the pilgrimage to 'Dega twice a year to worship their beloved driver. Needless to say, the place has special meaning for Earnhardt.

Special not only because he has five wins and his late father 10, but because it feels like home and the fans, evident by the loud roar that rolls from the stands whenever he takes the lead in the race, adore him.

"Well, to me it's special. I don't think everyone gets that sensation going into the race," Earnhardt said. "But to me it's a pretty important place just because my family's done so well there. And the way the fans treat us there make it exciting, make it a place you look forward to. I think that's probably the biggest key, the fans and how they've treated us at that track."

His fans are loyal -- to the point of dangerous.

Last year when Gordon bettered the late Dale Earnhardt's all-time victory list with 77 wins at the revered track, fans were enraged and began chucking beer cans onto the track pelting Gordon's No. 24 (watch video).

But a year later, Gordon and Earnhardt are in a position to align, combining their knowledge and ability to master the draft.

"We just said we'd go up there and work together and enjoy working together instead of being so competitive," Earnhardt said after posting a 15th-place qualifying lap Saturday. The No. 88 driver was forced to qualify a backup car after an early crash in practice Friday caused by a blown right rear tire (watch video). "We should be fine. I'm pretty happy with the way the guys rebounded and I feel like really prepared going into the race even after the day we had yesterday."

Of course at the end of the day, nearing the final laps of the race, Earnhardt said both drivers will go for the win, determining the dominant plate racer for the time being.

"Well we both think we are the best so that's where the conflict comes in. Who is supposed to be out front and who is supposed to be helping who," Earnhardt said. "We do a pretty good job at it ... we are getting better working together for 75 percent of the race. [Gordon] knows what he's doing, he can be a great help to you. You get what you give and maybe sometimes I'm not as giving as I should be."

Earnhardt Jr. crashes in practice, forced to backup

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s day at Talladega Superspeedway started out poorly when the engine on his No. 88 Chevrolet went sour just eight laps into Friday's first practice session.

But things went from bad to worse in an instant when the right rear tire exploded while he was leading a pack of cars during final practice for Sunday's Amp Energy 500, setting off a chain-reaction accident that damaged at least six cars (watch video).

Earnhardt had no warning when the tire exploded and sent him out of control.

"I think the tire seemed to come apart at the tread and the sidewall," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We looked to the car, and really nothing has fell off of it. Normally you look at exhaust straps and stuff like that, but it just come out of nowhere.

"It is hard to say. I will look at some of the replays to see if anything came out from under it. Maybe we can find it on the replay, something we might have run over."

David Gilliland's No. 38 Ford was directly behind Junior and had a close-up view of the incident as the single-file pack exited Turn 2 nine minutes into the final practice session. Earnhardt was leading Gilliland, Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne when chaos reigned.

"Junior blew a right-rear tire," Gilliland said. "In the middle of the corner, the thing just came apart. It's just an unfortunate incident.

"There was nothing he could do and there was nothing I could do. It was just kind of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

While Earnhardt and Gilliland collided and blocked the top groove, several other cars took evasive action. Stewart was sent on a wild ride through the infield grass. Kahne nearly had the incident missed, but his right front fender clipped one of the spinning cars, and the resulting flat tire did serious damage to the quarterpanel.

Kahne said it happened so fast, he didn't have much time to react.

"I was right in the middle of a pack of cars when all of a sudden, I just saw tire rubber everywhere," Kahne said. "I tried to get by without hitting anything, but just got clipped in the right front."

Goodyear officials were inspecting what remained of Junior's tire to determine if it had been cut by something externally rather than suffering internal failure. The explosion and resulting accident was severe enough to tear nearly all of the sheetmetal off of the No. 88, from the rear window to the back bumper.

"From what we can determine, it has all the signs of a puncture," said Goodyear spokesman Rick Heinrich.

Earnhardt and Gilliland were checked and released from Talladega's infield medical facility. While that was going on, their crews were busy unloading backup cars from their haulers. In addition, the damage on Kahne's Dodge, Clint Bowyer's Chevy and David Reutimann's Toyota was significant enough for them to decide to pull out the backups.

The track reopened for practice nearly 30 minutes after the incident.

Not even Johnson immune to Talladega's harsh reality

Talladega Superspeedway is known for close-quarters, high-speed racing on the high banks, which is a combination that can sometimes result in wild, multi-car crashes. And it's that threat on every lap of the 2.66-mile oval that looms in the mind of every driver in the Chase for the Sprint Cup this weekend.

This is the track that has tripped up the championship chances of Chase drivers in the past, particularly for Jimmie Johnson, the current points leader.


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In 2004, Johnson collided with Kasey Kahne on pit road (watch video) and damaged the air duct to his radiator, which caused the engine to overheat and finally expire late in the race, leaving him 37th. The next fall, Johnson was at the center of a chain-reaction crash involving Elliott Sadler, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin, with Michael Waltrip getting the worst of it (watch video).

Johnson was also involved in a huge 25-car wreck that spring (watch video), which resulted in Junior calling him "an idiot." So Sadler wasn't very complimentary after Johnson ran into the back of his car, triggering the pileup.

"I'm really upset at Jimmie," Sadler said. "I guess he's trying to keep his streak alive. He caused a big wreck here last year and he caused a big one again this year. Maybe that's his way of racing here at Talladega ... try to get rid of everybody so he can win the race."

Earnhardt, who was giving Johnson a bump draft, said the accident had more to do with circumstances.

"It was just hard racing," Junior said. "We're all together so it's hard to miss something when you're going so fast. You can turn left, but the car is still going to go straight. It's just frustrating, because there's nothing you can do."

But if you need an example of how fortunes can change in an instant at Talladega, one only needs to look back at the 2006 UAW-Ford 500, when soon-to-be ex-teammates -- and future teammates -- wound up having a major effect not only on the finishing order of the race, but on the championship.

With an opportunity to make major gains in the standings when Jeff Burton pitted late for a flat tire, Earnhardt and Johnson expected to make it a two-car fight to the finish on the final lap. But Brian Vickers -- who had already announced plans to leave Hendrick Motorsports at the end of the season -- had other plans.

Earnhardt: Don't look for changes in radio chatter

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants there to be no mistaking how badly he wants to win the Sprint Cup championship, and Friday at Dover International Speedway he insisted that anyone who monitors his radio communications with his team will understand his passion.

He didn't apologize for the emotion he displayed last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on his way to fifth place, and said not to expect any changes in the future -- despite a lot being made about car owner Rick Hendrick coming on his radio frequency during last week's Sylvania 300, ostensibly to calm him down.

“
It's real easy to get frustrated when you're not realizing the potential every weekend, because I feel like we're a great team that should be in the thick of this. I don't want to be sitting there five races in, 150 points out, going, 'What the hell did we do wrong?'
”
DALE EARNHARDT JR."I would love to be calmer under those types of situations, I would," Earnhardt said before qualifying 10th for Sunday's Camping World RV 400. "And I was [calmer], when I first started, I was. And then I got called lackadaisical. I got compared to my father and his determination. I got questioned about if I quit partying so much and focused and this, that and the other -- so now I'm on the chip and want it more than anybody else and I am getting hell for getting too excited.

"Regardless of how I act, somebody is going to criticize me one way or another and find an angle. I don't really want to change because I don't want to lose my enthusiasm and I don't want it to matter less -- I want it to matter as much as it matters to me. If that means it is going to get me excited when things don't go right, I just need to be better at controlling that, you know?"

But don't expect Earnhardt to seek professional help, such as from the sports psychologists some of his competitors have sought.

"No I haven't [seen a sports psychologist]," Earnhardt said. "But I could probably teach him a thing or two."

Virtually all of Earnhardt's success has come with his cousin, crew chief Tony Eury Jr. Earnhardt said that relationship and the cousins' affinity for each other leads to some of their broadcast emotion.

"Me and Tony Jr. have worked together for a long, long time," Earnhardt said. "I think Rick likes being in the middle of it because it's fun. I don't know of any driver on the racetrack that doesn't get hot under the collar. I don't do it every race. But I have had some real good ones you all missed apparently -- last week wasn't my best. I've had some pretty good ones.

Making car better is more than just crew chief's job

Maybe it's because he looks comfortable in a camouflage ball cap and speaks with a good-'ol-boy twang. Maybe it's because he doesn't have an engineering degree or a reputation as a mechanical genius. Maybe it's because he calls the shots for NASCAR's most popular driver, representative of a fan base for whom nothing is ever enough.

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Regardless, the pit box must seem like anything but a pedestal these days for Tony Eury Jr. A botched call that might have cost the No. 88 team a shot to win at Watkins Glen, cars that seem to be great early but rarely get better, a middling position in a Chase filled with other drivers making more dramatic moves -- it all adds up to heat for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief. Sure, he helped snap that ugly two-year winless streak, got his driver into the Chase, and has Junior lined up for his best points finish since 2006. But the masses want more. There isn't another person in NASCAR who catches such criticism for performing consistently well.

Because really, that's what Eury has done. The ill-informed out there like to dismiss him as the weak link in the chain, when in actuality Eury's touch with the new car has set the stage for everything Earnhardt has accomplished this year. Remember, it was the crew chief who made the move from Dale Earnhardt Inc. to Hendrick Motorsports weeks before last season ended, allowing him to learn the ways of his new organization and lay the groundwork for a season that would see Earnhardt return to his place among the sport's elite.

Yet still he's a pariah, the one blamed for every shortcoming, the one faulted every time a car that was in first place midway through a race winds up sixth or seventh. Here he is, with a driver running for the championship, and based on public perception you'd think he was struggling to stay inside the top 35. There's a sizable segment of Junior Nation out there that wants a risk-taker, wants a mechanical mastermind, wants someone else. It's as if Eury is the coach of a college football program that's winning, but not winning quite enough to satisfy a booster club whose aspirations don't quite mesh with reality.

Well, reality settled in Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and it came in the form of car owner Rick Hendrick -- who in so many words told Earnhardt to quit complaining and start giving his crew chief better information over the radio. He did it in his own way, of course, that genteel, fatherly manner that made it sound less like an order and more like advice. In radio conversations with Earnhardt and comments made later to the media, Hendrick mentioned Eury's name only sparingly. But it all came across as a tacit endorsement of a crew chief whose shortcomings may stem from the fact that he's not getting enough help.

"I know Tony will be better, and can help him more if [Earnhardt] is calmer when he is giving him information," Hendrick said. "When you say, 'I am so loose, I am so loose,' but you have to talk a little bit about your drive off and your entry so you know if you are going to fix one, are you going to hurt something else? I have had the benefit of listening to a lot of drivers over the years."

Hendrick spending extra time with Junior over radio

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a new radio therapist.

The man doubles as owner of the No. 88 Chevrolet Earnhardt drives for Hendrick Motorsports, and he was put to the test in the middle of Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

“
You get somebody with that much respect on your tool box to talk to him, telling him things are going to be all right. It makes a world of difference. I can talk to him until I'm blue in the face -- but when Rick says it, it just comes across different.
”
TONY EURY JR.In a tale that has been repeated often this year, Earnhardt appeared to have the car that was the class of the field at the midway point of the 300-lap event at the 1.058-mile track -- only to suffer through some adversity that forced him to eventually settle for a fifth-place finish.

This time the culprit, according to Earnhardt, was a bad set of Goodyear racing tires that were placed on the car during a pit stop just past the halfway point.

"We put on a set of tires midway through the race and that thing got so loose I couldn't drive it, and we lost a bunch of spots," Earnhardt said. "I've got to thank my pit crew. They got me a bunch back on pit road. They're an awesome bunch of guys. They did a good job to get me a top-five finish."

Earnhardt wasn't so cordial toward his crew or anyone else when he came on the radio after falling all the way from the lead to 10th following the tire change that he found questionable. That's when team owner Rick Hendrick had to come onto the radio to calm him down, continuing a tradition that they began three races ago at Bristol.

Their conversation during a caution that ran from Laps 215-220 went as follows (listen):

"We need a security guard over there watching those [expletive tires]," Earnhardt said. "I can't figure out why we keep [messing] up in the middle of all these races. Every [expletive] time."

Hendrick: "You've got a great car right now. Just take it easy."

Earnhardt: "This is [expletive bullcrap]."

Hendrick: "You got a bad set of tires. It happens."

Earnhardt: "I need to find another series that runs half-distance races."

Hendrick: "You can do this. Talk to everybody about what the car is doing. We can make the right adjustments."

Earnhardt: "I'm [ticked] off. Sometimes you go your fastest when you're [ticked] off. So we'll see."

Hendrick: "Take it out on those guys in front of you."

For Earnhardt, no relief from the title expectations

They always expect him to win it.

The belief is always there, every day, every race, every year, regardless of whether or not his results merit such anticipation. Dale Earnhardt Jr. walks through the Sprint Cup garage carrying burdens seen and unseen, from the legacy of his family's name to the ebb and flow of NASCAR's popularity to the unyielding pressure to win. Back in the Chase for the first time in two years? Nice. Snapped that 76-race winless streak at Michigan? Good. But the bigger prize, the one that will both validate and feed his popularity at the same time, is still unrealized. And no matter where he is in the point standings, no matter how well or poorly his car is running, the throngs of Junior Nation expect him to take it.

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That's quite a heavy load for a 33-year-old with 18 career victories on NASCAR's premier series, no matter what organization he's driving for. Sure, Earnhardt has it all -- those rugged good looks, more cash than he could ever spend, and an ability to drive a racecar that's earned him the adoration of millions. But he also drags around the weight of expectation, like a cannonball chained to his leg. The magic is that he's able to handle it with such grace and relative understatement, somehow embracing all that rampant expectancy yet tempering it at the same time.

"You can never live up to those," Earnhardt said when asked about meeting the expectations of his massive fan base. "I wouldn't expect to. I would hope their expectations are super high. Anything short of a championship is not reaching their expectations, I'm sure."

Of course, Earnhardt wants to win the Sprint Cup championship himself. But wanting and expecting are two very different things. Regardless of how this season turns out, Earnhardt's first campaign with powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports will be a rousing success -- he's back in the year-end Chase for the first time since 2006, he's contending for race wins again, he's outrun the painful family drama that swallowed the end of his tenure with Dale Earnhardt Inc. He and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. have shown a promising touch with the new car, and should only get better going forward. We're on the verge of once again seeing the real Junior, the one who finished third in final points in 2003 and won six races the next year, the one who squashes all the short-sighted contrarians who think he's living off his last name.

But is that enough? Can Junior Nation be satisfied with progress and potential? For their driver's sake, let's hope so. With his low-key nature and his lazy North Carolina drawl, Earnhardt can come off as a guy with no worries. But he feels it. When you're NASCAR's most popular driver by a rather wide margin, it would be impossible not to.

Potential Chase drivers find trouble early, often at BMS

Twenty minutes after the Sharpie 500 had been completed in dramatic fashion at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night, Dale Earnhardt Jr. sat on the edge of the back of his hauler, head in hands.

Looking just as dismayed, crew chief Tony Eury Jr. sat next to him, commiserating about the difficult night they had just endured. They looked like a pair searching for answers after finishing 18th, two laps behind winner Carl Edwards.

“
Obviously we aren't doing things right here. We need to get smart and do it right. It was a tough night; it was tough to deal with.
”
DALE EARNHARDT JR."We struggled all night. I don't know what the deal was," Earnhardt said.

Earnhardt was not alone in wondering what the deal was on a night when Bristol reclaimed much of its former glory during an entertaining race in front of a crowd of 165,000 -- the 53rd consecutive sellout at the venue nestled in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.

As bad a night as Earnhardt thought he had, he actually moved up one spot in the point standings to third behind leader Kyle Busch and Edwards as his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson fell one spot after finishing 33rd in Saturday's race -- 18 laps off the winning pace.

Earnhardt's problems began technically before the race even started. He qualified horribly, in 40th starting position, and then tried to make up for it by passing folks before he had even reached the start-finish line after the green flag dropped to begin the race.

That's illegal, and Earnhardt promptly was ordered to serve a pass-through penalty that put him a lap down right away (watch video). He never made it up, even though he got close a couple of times.

"The car handling was pretty bad all night," Earnhardt said.

Johnson encountered his own early problems. He ran into the back of Sterling Marlin's No. 09 Chevrolet on Lap 27, cut a tire that forced him to make a green-flag pit stop, and never recovered from the mishap (watch video).

Earnhardt and Johnson weren't the only potential contenders in the Chase for the Sprint Cup who suffered through difficult nights. Jeff Burton was running fourth in the race and was up to third in points for the moment when he was taken out in a wreck on Lap 196.

Dale Jr.'s "Shifting Gears" to be available on DVD

Hammerhead Entertainment and Team Marketing have partnered to bring Dale Jr. -- Shifting Gears, the five-episode ESPN sports documentary featuring Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his move to Hendrick Motorsports, to DVD this fall.


Earnhardt Jr.
Shifting Gears
Pre-sale orders are being taken now at NASCAR.COM. The DVD will feature all five episodes, plus never-before-seen bonus footage of commercial shoots, video outtakes and bloopers.

"We had a lot of fun shooting Shifting Gears, and I think the fans enjoyed watching it," Earnhardt said. "I was glad to hear we are releasing it on DVD, because that gives me, my family, and my fans a really nice documentation of my first year at Hendrick Motorsports to keep forever. Plus, the DVD will include bonus footage that never made the show. I'm actually looking forward to seeing that myself."

Shifting Gears debuted in February and provided a unique, behind-the-scenes perspective of Earnhardt's decision to leave family-owned Dale Earnhardt Inc., to drive for Hendrick. Earnhardt allowed access to team meetings, commercial productions, and the odds-and-ends responsibilities that come with changing jobs.

Shifting Gears also captured never-before-seen footage at the race track, including his season-opening win in the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona, and his emotional Father's Day victory at Michigan.

Junior looks to rediscover magic at site of earlier win

If it isn't time to start counting again, it's getting close.

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. won at the LifeLock 400 at Michigan International Speedway this past June, it broke a 76-race winless streak in points races that had stretched across more than two full years. The victory was greeted with a generous combination of relief and jubilation as Earnhardt scored his first career victory in the No. 88 Chevrolet he now drives for Hendrick Motorsports.

“
Starting here, we will start to see some improvement and start a run like we had been on at the start of the year. Like we are capable of doing.
”
DALE EARNHARDT JR.But that was June, seven races ago.

OK, so some of us have started counting again, as unfair as that might seem. Such are the expectations when your last name is Earnhardt and you drive for the man named Hendrick.

"That is part of being in this sport, man," Earnhardt said Friday at MIS, just before he went out and qualified fourth for this Sunday's second race of the season at the track, the 3M Performance 400 (watch video). "You know, you have to live up to all expectations ... and you get paid a lot of money to do it."

Since winning the June race, Earnhardt hasn't lived up to expectations at all. In the seven races since, he has finished in the top 10 only once -- taking eighth in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona on July 5. He hasn't exactly been horrible in the other six races, finishing 12th three times. And he led a total of 122 laps in the seven races combined, leading at least one in five of them.

But his 22nd-place finish last weekend on the road course at Watkins Glen dropped him from second to fourth in points, and left much of the racing world wondering if his title hopes are beginning to slip away even before the Chase to the Sprint Cup commences.

Earnhardt's teammates at Hendrick Motorsports are quick to come to the defense of Junior and his cousin crew chief, Tony Eury Jr.

"They've been consistent all year long and continue to be consistent," Jeff Gordon said. "I would really like to see them -- as high up in the points as they've been at times -- I'd like to see them going out there ... leading more laps and being a little more dominant. But I really don't feel like they've lost anything."

Two-time defending points champion Jimmie Johnson said that it's obvious the No. 88 team isn't as sharp now as it appeared to be coming into the last Michigan race.

Hendrick boys seemed poised for big day at Indy

Coming to Indianapolis Motor Speedway never gets old for Jeff Gordon, and why should it?

He visited often as a kid, watching one Indianapolis 500 in person and many others on television. When the Cup Series started coming to the track to run races in 1994, it was Gordon who won first -- and has won the most often, capturing a total of four victories at the Brickyard.

Lineup
Allstate 400 / Brickyard

Pos. Driver Speed Time

1. J. Johnson 181.763 49.515
2. M. Martin 181.393 49.616
3. R. Newman 180.970 49.732
4. K. Kahne 180.810 49.776
5. J. Gordon 180.545 49.849
6. E. Sadler 180.397 49.890
7. Ku. Busch 180.343 49.905
8. J. McMurray 180.321 49.911
9. C. Edwards 180.209 49.942
10. M. Kenseth 179.917 50.023

• Lineup | Videos | PhotosGordon qualified fifth for this Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard and will start on the inside of Row 3. Coupled with the fact that his No. 24 Chevrolet was the fastest in the next-to-last practice session Saturday at Indy, registering a top lap speed of 174.496 mph, it's understandable why he is confident about his chances of capturing his first win of the 2008 season.

"It's just the thoughts of memories that I had as a kid watching at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indy 500, the legends that raced here," Gordon said. "The fact that I get to race on that track, the one those greats competed on when I was watching on TV as a kid, it's just awesome.

"Ever since the first year that we came here and won, having that win under our belt just gets me excited about coming back here each and every year. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of year we're having. I just always feel like we can come here and be competitive."

Of course, Gordon is not the only driver who enters Sunday's event with high hopes. Optimism is running rampant throughout the Hendrick Motorsports operation, with teammate Jimmie Johnson having won the pole in qualifying trim with a speed of 181.763 mph in his No. 48 Chevy and finishing Saturday's final practice session atop the speed charts in race trim with a top lap speed of 175.298 mph.

Gordon posted the second-fastest lap speed in the final practice session (174.958 mph), followed by Denny Hamlin in his No. 11 Toyota (174.408 mph); Carl Edwards in his No. 99 Ford (174.118 mph); and Ryan Newman in his No. 12 Dodge (174.068 mph). Rounding out the top 10 were Mark Martin in the No. 8 Chevy (174.024 mph); Jamie McMurray in the No. 26 Ford (173.839 mph); Kasey Kahne in his No. 9 Dodge (173.564 mph); and rookie Sam Hornish Jr. (173.427 mph), who is no stranger to Indy because the former open-wheel star once won the Indy 500.

Those who struggled during the final practice session included defending race champion Tony Stewart, who has won the event two of the past three years (with Johnson winning the one in between); and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Stewart qualified 14th and ranked just 27th in the final practice session with a top speed of 171.910 mph. Earnhardt, who qualified 11th, posted a top speed during the final practice session of 172.894 mph that ranked 18th on the speed charts.