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.