NASCAR Notebook: Dover
Barry F. Hess
June 02, 2006
Monster Mile
They call it a monster for a reason and this Sunday all 43 drivers in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup circuit will be reminded once again exactly why Dover International Speedway is not only one of the most demanding tracks on the schedule but one of the most difficult to navigate as well.
With summer’s unofficial start coming last week look for the action on the track to heat up in record levels as well with just 14 races remaining until the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup is set to begin.
When it comes to Dover it’s all about experience and know-how and even drivers that have been racing at Dover for years can sometimes get eaten up by the famed Monster Mile.
Jeff Burton has managed to leave Dover in one piece more often than not throughout his career, finishing inside the top 10 eight different times.
With the stellar season he and Richard Childress Racing are having look for Burton to qualify well and compete for the lead much of the afternoon.
Burton, currently eighth in points with eight top 10 finishes already to his credit, is in the midst of one of his best seasons of his career and will be looking for his first Nextel Cup win since the fall race in Phoenix of 2001.
Last year’s winner, Greg Biffle, is finally in the middle of the stretch of strong runs he and crew chief Doug Richert have been looking for since Daytona.
Biffle has finished inside the top 10 in three of his last four races and will look to finally break into the top 10 in points with a strong run on Sunday.
Biffle has finished inside the top 15 in four straight races at Dover and with Tony Stewart’s injury likely to set him back in the point standings as well as Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch’s continued downfalls look for the driver of the No. 16 National Guard Ford to take advantage of the opportunity to get back inside the top 10 in points for the first time since ending the season in second place last year.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has made it abundantly clear his poor season of one year ago was nothing but a chip in the armor and that he is back and better than ever in 2006.
Earnhardt, who already has a short track win at Richmond to his credit this year, is currently fifth in points and has been Mark Martin-like consistent all season.
What should make the other drivers competing for the championship worried is the fact that Earnhardt and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. have consistently made poor cars strong contenders by the end of several races this season, including their win at Richmond. With that entire team tuned in look for Earnhardt to drive a car with a great set up from the get go and compete for his second win this year.
When it comes to Dover logic tells you that experience and veteran instincts reign supreme but then again rookie sensation Denny Hamlin has been breaking logic all season long with strong run after strong run.
When Joe Gibbs signed the 26-year old Virginia native he never could have imagined the No. 11 FedEx car had the slightest of shots to make NASCAR’s version of the playoffs but with 14 races until the Chase Hamlin is sitting in 12th place.
Hamlin has already proven the tough short tracks on the schedule don’t intimidate or overpower him after finishing inside the top 15 at Bristol and earning a second place finish at Richmond.
If Hamlin can qualify well and drive in clean air for much of Sunday’s race look for the sure to be Rookie of the Year to compete for his first points race victory.
Prediction: If ever there was a sport where momentum from week to week plays an vital role in an athlete’s success it would have to be NASCAR.
And by that estimation no driver has more momentum heading into Dover than Carl Edwards.
After earning five top 10 finishes in his last six races Edwards has gained almost 10 positions in the point standings and will look to follow his teammate Greg Biffle into the top 10 in points with a strong run on Sunday.
Edwards, who finished third in the Coca-Cola 600 last week and first in the Busch Series race, has worked through the famed sophomore jinx most drivers in his position suffer and is back to his winning ways of one year ago.
Look for Edwards to get out in front early and dominate Sunday afternoon en route to his first win of 2006.
Stewart to Start…Rudd to Finish
After crashing into the wall hard in last weekend’s Busch race Tony Stewart was hoping for an uneventful day behind the wheel of his Nextel Cup car in the hopes of not re-injuring his sore shoulder and for 32 laps he did just that.
But on lap 33 another hard smack against the wall not only sent Stewart to the pits but to the hospital for the second night in a row…this time to learn he broke his shoulder blade.
After a thorough evaluation by the doctors on staff at Joe Gibbs Racing the team has decided that Stewart can physically drive the No. 20 Home Depot car it’s just a matter of how much pain the two-time series champion is willing to sustain.
Nextel Cup veteran Ricky Rudd will both practice and qualify the No. 20 car before Stewart climbs in to begin the race until the first caution, where Rudd will take over for the remainder of the event.
The demanding, both physically and mentally, 400 miles Dover offers is less than ideal for a driver with an injury as Stewart has, a fact that went into the decision to have Rudd step in.
When you're healthy it's a long 400-mile race, yet alone when you're dealing with an injury,” Stewart said. “I guess if you were going to have a weekend where you had to have it, this is not a good weekend to have it.”
While he is likely to drop in the point standings for the second straight week, last week he dropped from second to fourth, Stewart’s injury is hardly enough to remove him form the championship picture all together.
Back in 2002, the year he won his first championship, Stewart was forced to use a replacement driver in Darlington after sustaining an injury in a previous race.
Prior to that in 1999 then Joe Gibbs driver Bobby Labonte suffered the exact same injury as Stewart when he crashed hard in the wall at Darlington only to go on and race the remainder of the season.
If it's anything like we saw with Bobby, there isn't much you can do for it,” said Joe Gibbs Vice President Jimmy Makar. “It's more of a pain threshold type of thing. As long he can withstand the pain or we can give him some local medicines to deaden that area of his back, he'll be ok to drive.”
Though Stewart and team are ready to concede somewhat of a hit in the point standings they still have the outside hope that Rudd will deliver yet another strong performance at Dover, a track he has had much success at during his illustrious career.
In 55 starts at the monster mile Rudd as four wins, 14 top five finishes and 26 top 10 finishes to his credit.
As far as the Busch Series in concerned, the injury won’t prevent Smoke from getting back into the No. 33 Old Spice Chevy.
Trust me, I don't have any issues about getting back into a Busch Series car,” said Stewart. “If they [Joe Gibbs Racing] worried about me getting hurt, they wouldn't let me get out of bed in the morning and they wouldn't let me drive to the shop. I can get hurt worse driving to the shop than I can getting into the racecar. If you look at how many races I've run and how many injuries in 27 years, it's a pretty good percentage. I have crashed more passenger cars than I have had injuries in racecars.”
Looking Toward the Future….Because Today Isn’t That Bright
With 14 races remaining until the Race to the Chase is set to begin there are several drivers vying for that coveted Nextel Cup Championship and there are several more competing to get inside the top 10 or within 400 points of the leader.
Since the introduction of the Chase it’s been proven that while not impossible, ala Matt Kenseth last season, it’s very difficult to dig out of a rather large hole midway through the season and make it into the post-season.
Having said that there is already a growing list of drivers that, while they haven’t publicly conceded, are already looking toward next season, many of whom were predicted to compete for the title all season long.
Each of the past two seasons Jeremy Mayfield has quietly raced his way into the Chase but in 2006 he has just been plain quiet.
Currently 34th in points Mayfield’s best finish of the season thus far is a 13th place finish at Talladega.
The driver of the No. 19 Dodge Dealers Dodge has nine finishes outside the top 20 already and has not looked to improve for much of the season.
After finishing 10th and ninth in the Chase respectively one has to wonder if Mayfield’s string of luck has run out and his performances of 2006 are what he is really capable of.
There’s no doubting that Hendrick Motor Sports has been the most dominant team in NASCAR this season. Jimmy Johnson already has three wins and is the perennial favorite to win the title, Jeff Gordon has run solid all season and is among the top 10 in points and even Kyle Busch has a win under his belt and is inside the top 10 in points.
But the fourth member of the stable, Brian Vickers, has been consistently poor all season.
After losing another three positions in the point standing last weekend Vickers dropped to 27th and currently has just four top 10 finishes all season.
Still looking for his first Nextel Cup win, Vickers has been grossly disappointing both this season and throughout his short career after the former Busch Series Champion signed to drive the No. 25 GMAC Chevy.
With so much success being shared among his teammates it’s hard not to put most of the blame on the driver and less on his equipment.
When Kurt Busch signed with Penske Racing to replace Rusty Wallace in the legendary No. 2 Miller Light Dodge few were sure how it would go but even fewer thought he would be sitting in 19th place at this point of the season.
Despite winning in Bristol earlier this year Busch can’t seem to get a handle on the Charger, though he wouldn’t be alone in that respect, and when he does he suffers the type of bad luck that can take a driver right out of contention for the Chase.
Busch is a proven champion and he has worked hard just to maintain a position inside the top 20 let alone top 10 but as he and Penske iron out the kinks of a new driver with a new race team they are watching the chance to win a second championship drive on by.
By now most everyone around NASCAR is aware of the monumental collapse of the once championship contending Robert Yates race team.
While it was somewhat of a surprise to see Dale Jarrett leave the company in favor of Toyota what is even more surprising is the current 17th position in points that Elliot Sadler is currently stuck in.
Sadler has just two top 10 finishes all season and has really not been a factor in the majority of races thus far.
The new Fusion model Ford designed is working wonders for most others driving it and Sadler has gone on record as saying he enjoys the new model.
So with no blame on the equipment the blame for what looks like Sadler’s third straight year without making the Chase has to fall squarely on his shoulders.
There have been a lot of surprising falls from grace this season but the most surprising has to be the struggles of Ryan Newman.
After qualifying for the Chase last year, earning eight Budweiser poles and winning at New Hampshire Newman has struggled at almost every event he’s raced this season.
After losing another three positions last weekend Newman has dropped to 22nd in points and has nine finishes of 16th or worse, including 38th and 43rd place finishes.
Through his struggles, however, much of the problem can’t be construed as Newman’s fault. He drives for a race team that switched from the Intrepid to the Charger then back to the Intrepid then back to the Charger inside a year-and-a-half time span. With three top 10 finishes in a row prior to the Coca-Cola 600 it appeared as the driver of the No. 12 Alltel Dodge had a fighting chance to bounce back but his disappointing 35th place finish at Lowe’s Motor Speedway almost all but ended any hopes of making the Chase.
Random Thoughts
After finally catching my breath last Sunday night I couldn’t help but think the smaller, 13-gallon fuel cell NASCAR decided to run at the Coca-Cola 600 played a huge role in making the race one of, if not the most, exciting event of the season. I for one wouldn’t mind if they brought it back for future 600-mile races.
You know, when Reed Sorensen isn’t crashing into anything that moves, or doesn’t move for that matter, he’s actually having a strong rookie season.
Either someone forgot to tell Dale Jarrett there were still 599 laps left after his crash on lap one of the Coca-Cola 600 or he just wanted to get as far away from the entire race team as possible…seriously though can you blame him?
NASCAR fined Kyle Busch $10,000, deducted 25 points from his season and put him on probation for the remainder of the year….did I miss the part where he took out a shotgun from inside his fire suit and tried to blow Casey Mears away…because I thought all he did was fling a HANS device at the No. 42 car….and it missed for Pete sake…give me a break!!!!!
They call it a monster for a reason and this Sunday all 43 drivers in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup circuit will be reminded once again exactly why Dover International Speedway is not only one of the most demanding tracks on the schedule but one of the most difficult to navigate as well.
With summer’s unofficial start coming last week look for the action on the track to heat up in record levels as well with just 14 races remaining until the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup is set to begin.
When it comes to Dover it’s all about experience and know-how and even drivers that have been racing at Dover for years can sometimes get eaten up by the famed Monster Mile.
Jeff Burton has managed to leave Dover in one piece more often than not throughout his career, finishing inside the top 10 eight different times.
With the stellar season he and Richard Childress Racing are having look for Burton to qualify well and compete for the lead much of the afternoon.
Burton, currently eighth in points with eight top 10 finishes already to his credit, is in the midst of one of his best seasons of his career and will be looking for his first Nextel Cup win since the fall race in Phoenix of 2001.
Last year’s winner, Greg Biffle, is finally in the middle of the stretch of strong runs he and crew chief Doug Richert have been looking for since Daytona.
Biffle has finished inside the top 10 in three of his last four races and will look to finally break into the top 10 in points with a strong run on Sunday.
Biffle has finished inside the top 15 in four straight races at Dover and with Tony Stewart’s injury likely to set him back in the point standings as well as Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch’s continued downfalls look for the driver of the No. 16 National Guard Ford to take advantage of the opportunity to get back inside the top 10 in points for the first time since ending the season in second place last year.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has made it abundantly clear his poor season of one year ago was nothing but a chip in the armor and that he is back and better than ever in 2006.
Earnhardt, who already has a short track win at Richmond to his credit this year, is currently fifth in points and has been Mark Martin-like consistent all season.
What should make the other drivers competing for the championship worried is the fact that Earnhardt and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. have consistently made poor cars strong contenders by the end of several races this season, including their win at Richmond. With that entire team tuned in look for Earnhardt to drive a car with a great set up from the get go and compete for his second win this year.
When it comes to Dover logic tells you that experience and veteran instincts reign supreme but then again rookie sensation Denny Hamlin has been breaking logic all season long with strong run after strong run.
When Joe Gibbs signed the 26-year old Virginia native he never could have imagined the No. 11 FedEx car had the slightest of shots to make NASCAR’s version of the playoffs but with 14 races until the Chase Hamlin is sitting in 12th place.
Hamlin has already proven the tough short tracks on the schedule don’t intimidate or overpower him after finishing inside the top 15 at Bristol and earning a second place finish at Richmond.
If Hamlin can qualify well and drive in clean air for much of Sunday’s race look for the sure to be Rookie of the Year to compete for his first points race victory.
Prediction: If ever there was a sport where momentum from week to week plays an vital role in an athlete’s success it would have to be NASCAR.
And by that estimation no driver has more momentum heading into Dover than Carl Edwards.
After earning five top 10 finishes in his last six races Edwards has gained almost 10 positions in the point standings and will look to follow his teammate Greg Biffle into the top 10 in points with a strong run on Sunday.
Edwards, who finished third in the Coca-Cola 600 last week and first in the Busch Series race, has worked through the famed sophomore jinx most drivers in his position suffer and is back to his winning ways of one year ago.
Look for Edwards to get out in front early and dominate Sunday afternoon en route to his first win of 2006.
Stewart to Start…Rudd to Finish
After crashing into the wall hard in last weekend’s Busch race Tony Stewart was hoping for an uneventful day behind the wheel of his Nextel Cup car in the hopes of not re-injuring his sore shoulder and for 32 laps he did just that.
But on lap 33 another hard smack against the wall not only sent Stewart to the pits but to the hospital for the second night in a row…this time to learn he broke his shoulder blade.
After a thorough evaluation by the doctors on staff at Joe Gibbs Racing the team has decided that Stewart can physically drive the No. 20 Home Depot car it’s just a matter of how much pain the two-time series champion is willing to sustain.
Nextel Cup veteran Ricky Rudd will both practice and qualify the No. 20 car before Stewart climbs in to begin the race until the first caution, where Rudd will take over for the remainder of the event.
The demanding, both physically and mentally, 400 miles Dover offers is less than ideal for a driver with an injury as Stewart has, a fact that went into the decision to have Rudd step in.
When you're healthy it's a long 400-mile race, yet alone when you're dealing with an injury,” Stewart said. “I guess if you were going to have a weekend where you had to have it, this is not a good weekend to have it.”
While he is likely to drop in the point standings for the second straight week, last week he dropped from second to fourth, Stewart’s injury is hardly enough to remove him form the championship picture all together.
Back in 2002, the year he won his first championship, Stewart was forced to use a replacement driver in Darlington after sustaining an injury in a previous race.
Prior to that in 1999 then Joe Gibbs driver Bobby Labonte suffered the exact same injury as Stewart when he crashed hard in the wall at Darlington only to go on and race the remainder of the season.
If it's anything like we saw with Bobby, there isn't much you can do for it,” said Joe Gibbs Vice President Jimmy Makar. “It's more of a pain threshold type of thing. As long he can withstand the pain or we can give him some local medicines to deaden that area of his back, he'll be ok to drive.”
Though Stewart and team are ready to concede somewhat of a hit in the point standings they still have the outside hope that Rudd will deliver yet another strong performance at Dover, a track he has had much success at during his illustrious career.
In 55 starts at the monster mile Rudd as four wins, 14 top five finishes and 26 top 10 finishes to his credit.
As far as the Busch Series in concerned, the injury won’t prevent Smoke from getting back into the No. 33 Old Spice Chevy.
Trust me, I don't have any issues about getting back into a Busch Series car,” said Stewart. “If they [Joe Gibbs Racing] worried about me getting hurt, they wouldn't let me get out of bed in the morning and they wouldn't let me drive to the shop. I can get hurt worse driving to the shop than I can getting into the racecar. If you look at how many races I've run and how many injuries in 27 years, it's a pretty good percentage. I have crashed more passenger cars than I have had injuries in racecars.”
Looking Toward the Future….Because Today Isn’t That Bright
With 14 races remaining until the Race to the Chase is set to begin there are several drivers vying for that coveted Nextel Cup Championship and there are several more competing to get inside the top 10 or within 400 points of the leader.
Since the introduction of the Chase it’s been proven that while not impossible, ala Matt Kenseth last season, it’s very difficult to dig out of a rather large hole midway through the season and make it into the post-season.
Having said that there is already a growing list of drivers that, while they haven’t publicly conceded, are already looking toward next season, many of whom were predicted to compete for the title all season long.
Each of the past two seasons Jeremy Mayfield has quietly raced his way into the Chase but in 2006 he has just been plain quiet.
Currently 34th in points Mayfield’s best finish of the season thus far is a 13th place finish at Talladega.
The driver of the No. 19 Dodge Dealers Dodge has nine finishes outside the top 20 already and has not looked to improve for much of the season.
After finishing 10th and ninth in the Chase respectively one has to wonder if Mayfield’s string of luck has run out and his performances of 2006 are what he is really capable of.
There’s no doubting that Hendrick Motor Sports has been the most dominant team in NASCAR this season. Jimmy Johnson already has three wins and is the perennial favorite to win the title, Jeff Gordon has run solid all season and is among the top 10 in points and even Kyle Busch has a win under his belt and is inside the top 10 in points.
But the fourth member of the stable, Brian Vickers, has been consistently poor all season.
After losing another three positions in the point standing last weekend Vickers dropped to 27th and currently has just four top 10 finishes all season.
Still looking for his first Nextel Cup win, Vickers has been grossly disappointing both this season and throughout his short career after the former Busch Series Champion signed to drive the No. 25 GMAC Chevy.
With so much success being shared among his teammates it’s hard not to put most of the blame on the driver and less on his equipment.
When Kurt Busch signed with Penske Racing to replace Rusty Wallace in the legendary No. 2 Miller Light Dodge few were sure how it would go but even fewer thought he would be sitting in 19th place at this point of the season.
Despite winning in Bristol earlier this year Busch can’t seem to get a handle on the Charger, though he wouldn’t be alone in that respect, and when he does he suffers the type of bad luck that can take a driver right out of contention for the Chase.
Busch is a proven champion and he has worked hard just to maintain a position inside the top 20 let alone top 10 but as he and Penske iron out the kinks of a new driver with a new race team they are watching the chance to win a second championship drive on by.
By now most everyone around NASCAR is aware of the monumental collapse of the once championship contending Robert Yates race team.
While it was somewhat of a surprise to see Dale Jarrett leave the company in favor of Toyota what is even more surprising is the current 17th position in points that Elliot Sadler is currently stuck in.
Sadler has just two top 10 finishes all season and has really not been a factor in the majority of races thus far.
The new Fusion model Ford designed is working wonders for most others driving it and Sadler has gone on record as saying he enjoys the new model.
So with no blame on the equipment the blame for what looks like Sadler’s third straight year without making the Chase has to fall squarely on his shoulders.
There have been a lot of surprising falls from grace this season but the most surprising has to be the struggles of Ryan Newman.
After qualifying for the Chase last year, earning eight Budweiser poles and winning at New Hampshire Newman has struggled at almost every event he’s raced this season.
After losing another three positions last weekend Newman has dropped to 22nd in points and has nine finishes of 16th or worse, including 38th and 43rd place finishes.
Through his struggles, however, much of the problem can’t be construed as Newman’s fault. He drives for a race team that switched from the Intrepid to the Charger then back to the Intrepid then back to the Charger inside a year-and-a-half time span. With three top 10 finishes in a row prior to the Coca-Cola 600 it appeared as the driver of the No. 12 Alltel Dodge had a fighting chance to bounce back but his disappointing 35th place finish at Lowe’s Motor Speedway almost all but ended any hopes of making the Chase.
Random Thoughts
After finally catching my breath last Sunday night I couldn’t help but think the smaller, 13-gallon fuel cell NASCAR decided to run at the Coca-Cola 600 played a huge role in making the race one of, if not the most, exciting event of the season. I for one wouldn’t mind if they brought it back for future 600-mile races.
You know, when Reed Sorensen isn’t crashing into anything that moves, or doesn’t move for that matter, he’s actually having a strong rookie season.
Either someone forgot to tell Dale Jarrett there were still 599 laps left after his crash on lap one of the Coca-Cola 600 or he just wanted to get as far away from the entire race team as possible…seriously though can you blame him?
NASCAR fined Kyle Busch $10,000, deducted 25 points from his season and put him on probation for the remainder of the year….did I miss the part where he took out a shotgun from inside his fire suit and tried to blow Casey Mears away…because I thought all he did was fling a HANS device at the No. 42 car….and it missed for Pete sake…give me a break!!!!!
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