NASCAR chairman France has concerns about Big 3’s economic situations.
November 10, 2008
NASCAR chairman Brian France said Sunday he’s not certain the Big Three automakers will be able to continue their involvement in NASCAR as they battle to stay viable during the current economic crisis.
Should funding of race teams suffer because of the nation’s credit crunch, France is confident NASCAR will remain a viable, healthy sport.
“We’re also not going to live or die if one manufacturer or another has a pullback or pullout,” France said before Sunday’s race at Phoenix International Raceway. “I hope it doesn’t happen. We’re working like mad to make sure it doesn’t happen, but the sport is on very solid ground that transcends one manufacturer or another.”
U.S. auto sales have plummeted this year, and Chrysler, Ford and General Motors are crumbling amid the crisis. The three Detroit manufacturers — along with recent addition Toyota — are the cornerstones of NASCAR and France acknowledged they “play a very important role in lots of ways with supporting teams, the branding and heritage.”
But GM and Ford revealed multibillion-dollar losses last week for the third quarter of 2008, and GM warned it could run out of cash in 2009. It also suspended acquisition talks with Chrysler.
France said he and president Mike Helton have visited the CEOs or high-ranking executives with all four of NASCAR’s manufacturers and all were in unison that NASCAR continues to be an effective marketing tool.
“I’ve been told directly by each of companies having challenging times that one of the things that works best for them is NASCAR,” France said. “Each went out of their way to tell me that while there are pullbacks and cuts to meet these challenges, the last thing would be to abandon something that works so well.”
France also said NASCAR executives have been working behind-the-scenes to help ailing teams search for sponsorship, and they’ve participated in the merger discussions many teams feel are necessary to stay in business. Several teams have taken on outside investors over the past few years, and Chip Ganassi Racing is currently in merger talks with a handful of teams stuck in the current credit crisis.
The credit crisis has made sponsorship increasingly difficult to come by, and many teams have warned they are in danger of collapse if funding isn’t found.
“We understand what teams are underfunded and face the biggest risk and are working with them to find a sponsor, a partner,” France said.
But NASCAR is not in a position to sustain its teams, which operate as independent organizations.
“Can we establish lines of credit? They’re individual businesses, there’s literally hundreds of them that could be affected depending on how far they’d go,” France said. “We’re not talking about 20-25 traditional sports teams where some halo credit line could be established for them. That’s not practical.
“We understand team owners are in dire straits, but the entire country is in dire straits in one form or another … I wish we could have a safety net for everyone in our industry, but it’s not practical.”
NASCAR is continuously looking at moneysaving measures — a new idea floating through the garage is the elimination of testing, which could save teams a minimum of $1 million per car. But it may not be enough to keep everyone in business, despite France’s confidence that NASCAR will be able to fill its 43-car fields next season and that the sport can weather the downturn.
“These aren’t our first tough economic times, we’ve been in business 60 years,” he said. “We’ve seen the energy crisis of 1972, and 9/11 wasn’t that long ago. So we’re not going to change our business model because we’re in tough economic times, but it doesn’t mean we won’t be more aggressive and taking out costs for team owners.”
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Johnson closes in on third straight Cup title with win in Phoenix.
November 10, 2008
They popped the champagne in Victory Lane and celebrated as if Jimmie Johnson just won another championship.
Almost. But not quite there.
Johnson moved inches closer to his record-tying third consecutive NASCAR title Sunday, trouncing the field at Phoenix International Raceway to deliver a knockout punch to Carl Edwards’ championship hopes.
Johnson needs to finish only 36th or better next week in the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway to join Cale Yarborough (1976-78) as the only drivers in NASCAR history to win three titles in a row.
“He’s doing something pretty special,” said 2004 champion Kurt Busch, who finished second. “It’s just tough to beat.”
Impossible, actually.
Johnson came into Phoenix on the ropes — reeling, almost — after a sub-par 15th-place finish last week at Texas allowed Edwards to take a sizable bite out of the points lead. Johnson rebounded to win the pole at Phoenix, but struggled through Saturday’s final practice to send his stress-level through the roof.
As Chad Knaus worked late into the night on a new setup and strategy, Johnson harassed him with phone calls that didn’t stop until the crew chief ordered the driver to leave him alone.
“The first thing, the garage opens at 8:01, and he calls me right away,” Knaus said. “I was like, ‘Dude, leave me alone. I need to go to work.’ I told him to go back to sleep, you’re bothering me.”‘
Whatever changes they made worked, as Johnson led a race-high 217 of the 313 laps to stretch his lead in the standings from 106 points to an almost insurmountable 141.
“This is what I’ve worked my whole life for,” Johnson said. “We’ve got a great points lead. We’ll go down to Homestead and try to wrap this baby up.”
The win was his third in a row at Phoenix, and had Edwards on the edge of conceding after his own fourth-place finish.
“If he would have some terrible luck in Homestead, we still have a chance,” Edwards said. “We did the best we could, but it’s too big of a spread right now. It’s possible. Not probable, but possible.”
No, it’s not. Not with the way Johnson is running.
Johnson has made a mockery of Chase for the Championship format, reeling off 14 wins in the 49 races since NASCAR adopted the format in 2004. He contended for the title in 2004 and 2005, only to come up just short both seasons.
He’s on the verge of joining Yarborough, David Pearson, Lee Petty and Darrel Waltrip as a three-time champion. Jeff Gordon, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, has four titles and Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty won a NASCAR-record seven.
Johnson has done it in dominating fashion. He has finished in the top 10 in seven Chase races and his lowest finish was the 15th last week at Texas.
But he still had a sizable lead over Edwards, and could have clinched Sunday. So his throng of friends of hometown El Cajon, Calif., made the trip to Phoenix and crowded his pit box to watch him tick off the laps. When he passed Jamie McMurray on a late restart, his friends — which included professional baseball players Brian and Marcus Giles — pumped their fists in celebration.
Johnson started from the pole but gave way to McMurray on the first lap. He didn’t take the lead until Lap 81, but was never challenged from there.
McMurray briefly moved out front again after a round of late pit stops, but Johnson blew past him in Turn 2 off a restart and was hardly challenged again. Busch made a brief run at him in the closing laps, but graciously settled for second and praised Johnson for his skillful late pass.
“I was third and the way that he went high, went low, and he was in the lead before you could snap your fingers,” Busch said. “It was unbelievable to watch that type of display, and it’s something pretty special.”
McMurray was third, followed by Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton and David Ragan.
With the win, cash-strapped General Motors wrapped up its 32nd NASCAR manufacturer’s championship.
Hookscenter.com wire report.
2008 NASCAR Chase heats up as Sprint Cup heads to Phoenix.
November 8, 2008
The heat may be on Jimmie Johnson from both the Arizona sky over Phoenix International Raceway this weekend and Carl Edwards’ furious pursuit in the Chase championship. But the two-time series champion is playing it cool, as usual.
Despite Edwards taking a 77-point bite out of the Chase lead last weekend in Texas, Johnson remains confident he can add to his 106-point advantage in Phoenix and take another step closer to a third consecutive title.
“My goal is to outrun those guys,” Johnson said of Edwards and third-place Greg Biffle, who is 143 out and trying to remain in the title hunt. “My goal’s to win the race, try to lead the most laps, gain points on those guys so that we go to Homestead with as many points as we can. That’s truthfully the goal. I hope it works that way. No telling it will. But that’s what we’re working on.”
Johnson has won the past two Sprint Cup races at the one-mile desert track, including last April’s visit when he dominated on his way to his first victory of 2008. He has completed every lap in the 10 races he’s run at PIR and finished outside the top seven only twice.
That past success is enough to give Johnson an added shot of confidence heading into the penultimate race of the season.
“Phoenix has always been one of our better tracks,” Johnson said. “Hopefully we’ll continue that this weekend and gain some ground on the others.”
Edwards hopes to have a say in that quest and continue his torrid streak, which has seen the Roush Fenway Racing driver take the past two series races.
But despite slicing the lead down to 106, Edwards still has a monumental hill to climb. No driver in NASCAR history has overcome the deficit Edwards faces with two races to go, and since the Chase debuted in 2004, the points leader at that spot on the schedule has yet to cough up the title.
But Edwards remains undaunted by history and plans to approach Sunday’s race with the same strategy he has had all season.
“We’ve got nothing to lose,” Edwards said. “We can just go out and be aggressive and take chances. I can race as hard as I want. I mean, it’s cool.”
Less than a week ago, the consensus was that Johnson had the three-peat wrapped up. But Edwards’ charge has changed the landscape, and although it’s still a huge amount of points to make up in two weeks, the door is definitely still open for a title run at Phoenix and the finale in Homestead.
“Those are two great racetracks for us,” said Edwards. “Phoenix is one of the most fun tracks we go to. … I think we’re in a good spot right now.”
“What I’ve learned, and I’m still learning, is how to compete the best I can. The bottom line, you know, at the end of all of it is, generally, keep your head up and keep going as hard as you can, and you’ll get whatever you deserve.”
Drivers who fare well at the tricky Phoenix oval deserve everything they earn. It’s one of the more challenging tracks on the schedule, with 19 different winners since the series first visited in 1988.
PIR features a tough backstretch dogleg and that can be a test for even the most seasoned driver.
“The track itself is pretty unique with a complex shape — so it makes for great racing,” Edwards said.
Clint Bowyer welcomes the somewhat odd layout and looks forward to racing in both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races this weekend.
“I like tracks that are different,” Bowyer said. “Turns 1 and 2 are short and tight, and Turns 3 and 4 are more sweeping and open. There’s no perfect setup. You have to compromise on one end to be good in the other and vice versa. It’s a lot of fun to go through that process. It’s kind of like setting the car up for Richmond.”
“At Richmond, you have the big dogleg on the front straightaway, and the backstretch is really straight. You run out of room off of Turn 2, and you have all the room in the world off Turn 4, so again, it’s two different setups, so you have to compromise. I love Phoenix. It’s a good race track for us.”
Biffle also enjoys tackling a track that offers a change of pace.
“The track is very technical, and it’s almost like an oval road course because of the different corners and dogleg on the backstretch,” he said.
“Phoenix really challenges the driver, and those are the tracks that are the most fun.”
Hookscenter.com wire report (Pistone).
Johnson on pole for Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix.
November 8, 2008
Jimmie Johnson moved a step closer to a third consecutive NASCAR title by winning the pole for the Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Speedway on Friday.
Johnson, the defending race winner, turned a lap of 134.725 mph in his Chevrolet to earn the top starting spot on Sunday. If he gains 57 more points than Carl Edwards, Johnson would only need to start the season finale to become the first driver since Cale Yarborough (1976-78) to win three straight titles.
“That’s really the bottom line is we need to be 162 up leaving here, then all I have to do is go down there and start,” Johnson said. “Am I planning on that being the case? No. Carl’s car has been so strong. My goal is to outrun him. I don’t want this margin to shrink anymore.”
Edwards, who had the fastest car in Friday’s final practice session, qualified 15th because he said the engine in his Ford bogged down on the back straight during his lap. Winner of the last two races, Edwards has chopped away at Johnson’s lead and trails him by just 106 points with two events to go.
“I really like this track,” said Edwards, who has five top-10 finishes at Phoenix in eight career starts. “We’ve been very fast here in the past. It’s a really fun race and I feel good about it.”
Jamie McMurray qualified second in a Roush Fenway Racing Ford and was followed by Kurt Busch in a Dodge for Penske Racing and David Reutimann in a Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fifth and was followed by Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin. Paul Menard and Mark Martin rounded out the top 10.
Only 44 cars attempted to qualify, so Joe Nemechek was the only driver failing to make the field.
The attention now turns to Sunday, where Johnson will try to pull the title out of Edwards’ reach.
He used this track to put the closing touches on his first two titles, finishing fourth in 2006 to take a healthy lead into Homestead. A year ago, he won — his fourth consecutive win of the season — to deflate teammate Gordon’s title hopes.
“This is one of our better tracks,” he said. “I think history shows that Homestead’s been better — has been better for the Roush guys — so I want to leave here without using any points. If I get to 56 points and end up 162 ahead, right on. I mean that’s the ultimate goal. But the goal is to outrun (Edwards), wherever that is.”
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway - News and Notes.
November 5, 2008
Pablo pushed, Gilliland parked
Juan Pablo Montoya was again contending for a top 10 finish, and like a week earlier in Atlanta got knocked out of the race. This time, it didn’t seem like an accident.
Montoya’s No. 42 Dodge was damaged beyond repair when he slammed into the wall after David Gilliland plowed into the rear end of Montoya’s car on Lap 264 of the 334-lap race — the caution that got Gordon back on the lead lap.
“It’s very simple. I bumped him earlier when he almost put me in the wall,” said Montoya, who was running 10th at the time of the crash. “Then he just came out of the corner and just wrecked me. It’s just frustrating.”
Gilliland insisted that the accident occurred when he “misjudged” trying to let Montoya get by him out of the second turn onto the backstretch.
“It’s a shame that it happened. I hate that Juan’s got a tore-up race car,” Gilliland said. “My spotter said I was clear and I slid up in front of him and he ran in the back of me and then going down into Turns 1 and 2 it was the same thing. Then I went up the track to let him go and just kind of misjudged my run coming down back across the track. I was gonna let him go.”
NASCAR apparently thought otherwise, though, parking Gilliland’s car for the rest of the race.
During the ensuring caution, Gilliland was in his pit stall and it was initially announced that he had incurred a five-lap penalty for aggressive driving. But that was amended and the No. 38 Ford was done for the day.
Gilliland finished 42nd, and Montoya 43rd.
At Atlanta, Montoya was clipped on pit road during a late caution period. The Colombian got back on the track, only to be taken out in a five-car crash with 22 laps to go and finished 40th.
Sweeps and repeats
Edwards’ victory in the Dickies 500 made him the first driver to sweep both Cup races at Texas in the same year, following his victory in April.
It also made for a clean sweep in all three NASCAR series at Texas in 2008. Kyle Busch won both Nationwide events at Texas, and Ron Hornaday Jr. won both NASCAR Truck races.
The win by Edwards, the first three-time Cup winner at Texas, also extended another interesting streak.
Since Texas received a fall race three years ago, the Dickies 500 winner has always been the same driver that won the previous week at Atlanta, another 1½-mile track owned by Bruton Smith. Edwards has now pulled off the Atlanta-Texas two-step twice, this first coming in 2005. The others who did it were Tony Stewart (2006) and Jimmie Johnson (2007).
Next year, the two races won’t be back-to-back. The date of Atlanta’s race is now before the 10-race Cup chase.
Smallest crowd still a big one
The estimated crowd of 171,000 was the smallest for the 16 Sprint Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway.
Despite the empty seats, there are only three other NASCAR tracks that could even accommodate a crowd that large: Indianapolis, Daytona and Charlotte.
“It may not be the largest crowd we have ever had here, but I couldn’t be prouder of it,” track president Eddie Gossage said. “Considering the state of the economy, we had a tremendous crowd and all the credit goes to the loyalty and support of our NASCAR fans.”
The crowd was down about 12,500 from the fall race last November, and about 19,000 down from April.
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Sprint Cup drivers say wait to make changes to Chase format.
November 5, 2008
Jimmie Johnson’s run toward an almost certain third consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup title has prompted many ideas on how to change the Chase for the championship to make it more competitive.
Some would like to see the 12 drivers in the 10-race Chase have a completely separate points structure that would keep one or two bad finishes from knocking them out of title contention. Others insist that each of the eligible drivers be given a “mulligan,” allowing them to throw out their worst Chase finish.
Still others believe moving the “wild card” Talladega race out of the Chase would make it more fair — and possibly more competitive.
But should the domination of Johnson and his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team be a catalyst for change in the 5-year-old playoff format?
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been in the Chase three times and has yet to remain in contention to the end. With two races remaining, he is well out of the title picture in 11th.
Even so, Earnhardt said it’s just too soon to contemplate changes.
“How do we understand what to change and how to make it better if we can’t watch it and look at it for seven years or eight years and see how it’s working and really get a good look at how it is working and not working?” Earnhardt said. “How can we really know what to change and make the right change?
“We shouldn’t keep changing and changing until we stumble on the right spot and the right options and the right ways to have things.”
Earnhardt said the current economic meltdown is another reason to take a wait-and-see approach.
“We’ve got to make sure we’re doing all the right things to keep the sport healthy and get through the tough times that we’re going to have in the next year,” he said. “I think we leave the things as they are.”
Jeff Burton, fourth in the Chase and virtually out of contention, noted that it’s simply human nature for people to want to make changes when the current rules don’t work for them.
“I just think we have to be careful,” he said. “Every time we have a point championship that’s not as compelling as one of the greatest, I think we have to caution against making changes.
“This (year’s) World Series was just won in five games. … Not every championship is going to be a five-point swing or a five-point difference, it’s just not.”
The postseason format was introduced in 2004 after Matt Kenseth turned the 2003 season into a ho-hum affair with a championship won by less-than-scintillating consistency — 25 top-10s in 36 races.
Kenseth had just one win that year. But he was so far ahead by the end of the season that he won the title by 90 points over Johnson despite finishing last in the season-finale at Homestead.
Brian France, who became chairman and CEO of NASCAR in September 2003, decided something needed to be done to compete with the NFL, college football and the baseball playoffs at the end of the Cup season.
The Chase — dividing the schedule into a regular season and a postseason — was his answer.
“Ultimately, the Chase for the Sprint Cup has been successful,” NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said. “We had three different winners in five years and it’s fair to say the best team has won each year.
“The Chase puts more emphasis on winning, and just being consistent is no longer a winning formula. If Jimmie Johnson does win a third consecutive championship, then he should be celebrated for making history and beating the best stock car drivers in the world.”
Current runner-up Carl Edwards has made things a little more interesting by winning two straight races to cut Johnson’s lead to 106 points heading into Sunday’s race at Phoenix. He doesn’t see a need for change, either.
“I’ve seen Super Bowls that were blowouts by 40 points and I’ve seen Super Bowls like last year that went down right to the end and was a real close game,” Edwards said. “That’s just part of professional sports. Sometimes there are going to be teams or a guy that gets on a roll and is going to pull away. It gets that way in anything.”
Edwards said whatever the format, he wants to see the best driver and team win.
“I think that over the last five or six years, the 48 has been the best team, and I think no matter what system you throw at them lately, they’re going to figure out how to win it,” he said. “I think everybody wishes there could be a three-wide finish, almost a tie for the win, every week. But it’s just not realistic.”
Johnson said he and his team have worked hard to be out front and they are proud of what they have already accomplished.
“If I were sitting … where Carl is, and I don’t think Carl is saying these things, but I would be looking at myself and what went on with the team,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t be thinking now we need a mulligan in this series, or we need this or that to try and make it even. We all show up for the 10 races, and the points were there, and you go earn it. That’s what you do.”
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Gordon’s second place at fall Chase race in Texas felt like a win.
November 4, 2008
Jeff Gordon started on the pole at Texas and led the first 15 laps. Then he lost the handling on the No. 24 car and eventually fell a lap down.
“Typical Texas, we just started losing the handle on it as the sun went down,” Gordon said. “Lost that track position on one run where we got real loose.”
Gordon got back on the lead lap when he was the beneficiary of a caution on Lap 264 of the 334-lap NASCAR Sprint Cup Dickies 500 and worked his way back to a second-place finish behind Carl Edwards.
“You can’t apologize for finishing second on a day like today,” Gordon said. “That was like a win.”
But Texas is still one of the two active tracks where Gordon, the four-time Sprint Cup champion with 81 race victories, has never won. The 1½-mile high-banked track is also where Gordon has his only two last-place finishes in 543 career races, including April.
Gordon has only two more chances to avoid his first winless season since he was a rookie driver in 1993.
The next races are at Phoenix, where Gordon didn’t win until 2006, and Homestead, the other track where he still hasn’t won a Cup race.
“We’re not going to give up, that’s for sure,” Gordon said. “Just like going for the pole (at Texas), we’re doing everything we possibly can.”
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Woman accidently shot at Texas Motor Speedway during Dickies 500.
November 4, 2008
A NASCAR fan in her recreational vehicle at Texas Motor Speedway was wounded by a stray bullet after someone apparently fired a gun into the air, police said.
A bullet suddenly pierced through the motor home’s roof Sunday morning before the Dickies 500 race, hitting a woman in the right arm, relatives said.
“She immediately (screamed), ‘I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot.’ She took off running out the door,” her son-in-law Bobby Cook told Dallas-Fort Worth television station KTVT.
The 62-year-old woman, whose name was not released by authorities, was taken to a nearby hospital with a “significant wound” and was listed in stable condition, police Lt. Paul Henderson said Monday.
The bullet is believed to be a rifle round and appears to have been fired from a long distance because it penetrated the roof at a slight angle, Henderson said.
He said he did not have information on whether investigators had any suspects.
Some 40,000 fans in about 10,000 to 10,500 recreational vehicles camped at Texas Motor Speedway for the weekend’s races, said TMS spokesman Mike Zizzo, who declined to comment on the shooting.
The speedway does not release attendance figures for any races at its nearly 160,000-seat track.
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Pistone says hold your horses, 2008 Chase is far from over.
November 3, 2008
Hand the fat lady a ham sandwich and tell her to take a seat because the race for the Sprint Cup championship suddenly is up for grabs.
Make no mistake; it is still Jimmie Johnson’s title to lose. But the late season surge by Carl Edwards has brought some spice to a title race that most everyone believed was pretty much over.
For the second consecutive race, Johnson suffered early race problems and fell back to the rear of the field.
But unlike his miraculous recovery last week in Atlanta, Johnson could only muster a 15th-place finish Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. Coupled with Edwards’ eighth win of the year that cost Johnson 77 points in the standings and chopped the lead to only 106 with two races to go.
“We messed up,” said an uncharacteristically frustrated Johnson. “We just didn’t have it. That got us behind and we could never recover.”
“I’m more frustrated in the fact we didn’t do the job we needed to today than the fact that I lost points. I mean, if I lose five or 10, 20 points at a time to those guys because they win and I finish fourth or fifth, I can handle that. But to go out there and not perform, get caught a lap down, stuck a lap down all day, that’s the part I’m frustrated with.”
While many felt Johnson was on cruise control coming into Texas with the largest lead in the history of the Chase after seven races, the two-time series champ wasn’t counting on anything.
“Man, there’s been a race the whole time,” he said. “You just never know what’s going to happen. There’s still 400 miles at Homestead and 300 at Phoenix. A lot can happen. Even at 183 points over Carl, I wasn’t comfortable. I think it’s 161 points you can get in a weekend. If I stuffed it in the fence the first run, I finish 43rd, they’re right there. It’s a race of 20 or 30 points at that point. “Now that comfort margins even closed up more. So it’s still a race.”
Despite the hiccups of the last two weeks, Johnson still has a massive lead in terms of past Chases and it will still take a mammoth effort by Edwards to come away with the title.
That’s at least a little solace for Johnson –- but not much.
“There are two races left,” he said. “I have known all along we were going to have to fight every week for this thing. We had a nice big points lead and we still have a great points lead, but in racing anything can happen and usually does. Today didn’t go our way; it went the way the No. 99 needed, the No. 16 (Greg Biffle) and those guys. We will go Phoenix, one of our great tracks and do it again next week.”
Edwards certainly wants to do it again next week and get his third consecutive win to keep the kind of streak Johnson put together in last year’s Chase alive.
He’s also in the thick of the Nationwide Series championship race and after closing ground on Clint Bowyer’s lead over the weekend, has his sights set on not one but two titles this season.
“Really it’s just fun at this point,” Edwards said. “We’ve got nothing to lose. We can just go out and be aggressive and take chances. I can race as hard as I want. I mean, it’s cool. You know, yesterday we picked up a bunch of points on Clint. Not a bunch, but a few. Today we picked up a lot of points on Jimmie. It’s neat. You know it’s fun.
“I’ve been part of championship efforts, even back racing in dirt cars and stuff. It’s wild. I watched the Formula One race today. That was a spectacular, spectacular drama there. I just hope that we can get this thing close enough to make it that much fun at Homestead in both series. That would be cool.”
Which is the best way to describe Edwards.
Despite the world trying to hand Johnson the title, Edwards has done his best to stay focused while keeping things in perspective, all the while maintaining a never say die attitude.
“I didn’t read much this week,” Edwards said of the many stories claiming Johnson’s third consecutive title was imminent. “I spent most of my week in the woods in Missouri hunting. I think that’s been good for me.
“What I’ve learned, and I’m still learning, is how to compete the best I can. The bottom line at the end of all of it is generally keep your head up and keep going as hard as you can and you’ll get whatever you deserve.”
“I hope we keep making it exciting. I hope the next two races are real exciting.”
If Edwards has anything to say about it, the fat lady can get back in the buffet line for another couple of weeks.
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Carl Edwards wins the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
November 2, 2008
Carl Edwards won for the second consecutive week, squeezing a victory out of his last tank of gas. And this time Jimmie Johnson ran out of magic.
The combination of the win by Edwards and a 15th-place finish by Johnson in Sunday’s Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway moved the race winner within 106 points of NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Johnson with just two races remaining.
Although Edwards dominated most of the race, leading 199 of the first 264 laps on the 1½-mile oval, it was a daring call by crew chief Bob Osborne that got Edwards this win after several other drivers used two-tire strategies to get ahead of him near the finish.
“I thought Bob made a mistake on the four-tire change,” Edwards said. “But Bob came up with a way to win that thing anyway.”
Osborne breathed a sigh of relief after seeing his driver chop 77 points off Johnson’s lead.
“We were very close, very close,” the crew chief said.
But Edwards, who inherited the lead when Greg Biffle pitted with 13 laps remaining, beat runner-up Jeff Gordon by more than eight seconds — most of the front straightaway — and still had enough gas left to do a couple of victory doughnuts.
Even before he got out of his car, Edwards, who began the day a daunting 183 points behind Johnson in the Chase for the Championship, asked Osborne on the radio: “Hey, where did Jimmie Johnson finish?”
The answer certainly pleased Edwards, who is hoping to keep Johnson from winning a record-tying third Cup title in a row.
A week earlier at Atlanta, Edwards won but was stunned to find out that Johnson had made a late charge to finish second and maintain most of his points margin. Edwards called Johnson “magic.”
But this time it was Edwards who pulled off the big finish, winning for the eighth time this season and the 15th time in his career.
Edwards, who also won here in April, had leads of up to a quarter of a lap at times, but fell to seventh when Osborne chose to put on four tires on Lap 265 of the 334-lap event.
But, as the laps wound down and the cars ahead of Edwards’ No. 99 Ford began pitting for two tires and gas, Osborne told Edwards to stay on the track.
Still, it was guesswork to the end, with Osborne first telling his driver to conserve fuel because he was going to be a half-lap short, then saying he was four laps short. In the end, he went the final 103.5 miles on his last fill-up.
“I knew by default he wasn’t too sure about it,” Edwards said. “I’m glad it worked out. Unreal.”
Johnson, who won this race a year ago, started seventh Sunday but quickly found himself in trouble, struggling with the handling on his No. 48 Chevrolet and sliding back through the field.
Edwards put him a lap down on Lap 96 as Johnson slipped all the way to 33rd after a pit stop on Lap 113. At that point, with Edwards leading, Johnson was only 64 points ahead. But his team kept making adjustments and Johnson was able to regain some of his lost ground, although he never got back on the lead lap.
“Not the day we wanted,” Johnson said. “It’s frustrating.”
Asked about Edwards gambling on running the final 69 laps without pitting, Johnson said, “I don’t know all the details yet. But, from where I’m sitting, they had a good chance to make up points on us, they didn’t have to win the race.
“I feel that they knew they were going to make it,” he added. “When they started that last run, I really expected the 99 to fly through the pack and end up in the lead in a short period of time. It just took them a long time to get going, I thought, ‘Well, maybe his car isn’t working right. But, I believe in the end they were saving fuel, they were playing that card and if it worked, great, if not, they still were going to gain a bunch of points on us.”
Told what his lead is now, with races at Phoenix and Homestead remaining, Johnson said, “It’s still far from over. We’ve got to fight hard, and continue to fight hard. We go to a great track for us next week.”
Biffle, who finished fifth, also kept his hopes alive in the Chase, remaining third as he came from 185 points behind Johnson to 143 back.
Fourth-place Jeff Burton, who began the day 218 points behind, finished 13th and gained only six points, virtually eliminating him from contention.
Jamie McMurray, who led late in the race before having to pit, wound up third, followed by Clint Bowyer, Biffle and Kyle Busch.
Hookscenter.com wire report.