Nascar News and Winners
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Staying out puts Junior back in Chase contention
After the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, no one disputed the fact that crew chief Tony Eury Jr. used brilliant pit strategy to steal a top-10 for Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The problem is that Earnhardt knows he won't make the Chase for the Nextel Cup by relying on track position every week.
"I'd like to have a better car [so] we don't have to make those kinds of calls," said Earnhardt, who finished sixth after spending just 18 laps in the top 10. "We need to do better and get better cars. We took a risk in the end and it paid off. We were really lucky."
Eury kept his driver on the track when the caution flew on Lap 141, and Earnhardt, who was running 28th before the yellow, restarted in second position.
Earnhardt's Chevrolet drove significantly better in the clean air, and he lost just four spots over the final 14-lap run despite being on old tires.
"I was glad that the car was somewhat drivable for him there on the last deal," Eury said. "... I never would have dreamed that we would have run as bad as we did [Sunday]."
The top-10 snaps a two-race slump for Earnhardt, who staggered into Indianapolis after scoring back-to-back last-place finishes at Loudon and Pocono. The consecutive 43rd-place finishes dropped him from third to 11th in the points, but his sixth at the Brickyard moved him back into the top 10, 34 points ahead of 11th-place Kasey Kahne.
"When we say our prayers [Sunday night], we will thank the Lord for this one because we really got lucky," Earnhardt said. "We can't make the Chase with 30th-place racecars."
Earnhardt benefited from the problems experienced by Kahne and Jeff Gordon, who are both fighting for a playoff spot. Kahne, a heavy favorite to win the Brickyard, crashed late and wound up 36th. He dropped four spots to 11th in points.
Gordon had track bar problems early and never made it back to the top 10. Greg Biffle, another bubble driver, crashed on the final lap and finished 33rd. He remained 12th in the standings.
"As far as points, Junior really lucked out there big time at the end with the strategy there at the end," Gordon said. "It really paid off for him. He was horrible all day."
Earnhardt now heads to Watkins Glen, where he has excelled. So his playoff hopes are pinned on the crucial 2-mile races at Michigan and Fontana later this summer.
Earnhardt has traditionally struggled on 2-mile tracks, but he raced to a third-place finish at Michigan in August.
That takes a lot of pressure off Eury.
"I got that [Michigan struggles] pretty much turned around," Eury said. "The biggest thing is Watkins Glen, make sure you don't wheel hop in the corner. I think all the rest of them, we really [do not have] any worries."
2006-08-09 15:34:30
Surprisingly, Johnson keeps lead in standings
Jimmie Johnson was prepared to lose the Nextel Cup points lead for the first time since late April with four laps left in Sunday's race at Chicagoland Speedway.
Then all heck broke loose.
Matt Kenseth, who was leading the race and poised to take the points lead, was spun out by eventual race winner Jeff Gordon and fell back to eighth.
Kenseth ran out of gas before the green-white-checkered finish to fall further back. He then was involved in a last-lap accident with David Stremme and wound up 21st.
That left Johnson, who finished sixth, with a 48-point lead over Kenseth instead of being 35 to 40 points behind the 2003 Cup champion.
"So what looked like a day when maybe we were going to lose the points lead turned into a day when we stretched it out," Johnson said. "We're all in championship mode.
"I hate to see that happen to Matt. Fortunately, it's not in the Chase. I don't even know what happened. It's just part of racing."
Kenseth wasn't the only driver that lost ground late.
Tony Stewart, who was running fourth, ran out of gas because the race was extended past 400 miles and fell two spots in the points to seventh after a 32nd-place finish.
Kasey Kahne, who struggled most of the day, dropped a spot to fifth after finishing 23rd.
There also were some gains. Dale Earnhardt Jr. strengthened his position in third with a solid fifth-place finish. Jeff Burton finished second to move up three spots to fourth.
Gordon moved up two spots to 10th.
Kurt Busch stayed at 13th, but closed the points gap on the top 10 with his fifth consecutive top-10 finish. He never had more than three top-10s in a row last season.
"We just didn't have enough to challenge for the win," said Busch, the 2004 Cup champion. "We could pass cars, but track position was more important.
"We used some good pit strategy to get us in the top 10 and once we got there we managed to stay. ... We're just hoping to keep the momentum going."
Like Busch, Johnson had a car that could pass but never get in position for the lead.
"We had a car that was capable of running in the top 10 all day long, the top five if it worked out right," he said. "We finished kind of where we deserved to finish.
"We're still working hard to make things better. I'm happy to see the 24 [Gordon] run as strong as he did."
He's even happier that Gordon's late move helped keep him in the points lead.
"If bad days are [like Sunday when] we can finish in the top 10," he said, "we're doing what we need to do."
2006-08-09 15:25:45
Indy could influence Chase
Separate last-lap crashes involving Kasey Kahne and Greg Biffle in Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard did more than bend up a couple of fast cars.
They put serious dents in both drivers' chances at the Chase for the Nextel Cup.
While the cars can be repaired to run again, Kahne's 36th-place and Biffle's 33rd-place finishes may be more than either driver will be able to overcome with five races remaining before the Chase.
Both drivers started up front and fully expected to make gains with good finishes. Instead, they came away frustrated from Indianapolis with golden opportunities lost.
Kahne gave up four positions in the standings, dropping to 37 points behind Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the 10th and final spot in the Chase. Biffle, who had hopes of moving back into the top 10, is now 12th, 122 points behind Junior.
The beneficiaries of Kahne and Biffle's misfortune Sunday were Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Earnhardt -- all of whom had to consider themselves lucky to not be in the same situation, after each had their own troubles.
"It's unfortunate we're dwindling out of the Chase hunt, but that's the way it goes," Biffle said.
"I haven't seen the points, but I imagine it puts us in it pretty deep," Kahne said. "We've been trying hard, but we haven't had the best of breaks in probably the last two months."
After taking four tires on the final round of pit stops, Biffle restarted 12th. Unfortunately, while the cars of Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick were able to pick their way to the front, a frustrated Biffle was mired in the pack.
"Track position [Sunday] was way more important than tires, and we decided to put four tires on instead of keeping track position," Biffle said. "It cost us, obviously. Just cost us our finish."
On the final lap, he ended up in a no-win situation -- behind a spinning Robby Gordon with nowhere to go.
"I don't know what happened," Biffle said. "I saw the No. 7 spinning out and he hit me. There was nothing I could do about it."
Kahne seemed to have a car worthy of winning Sunday's race early on, as he battled Jeff Burton for the lead. But in the middle of the race, Kahne began sliding back.
"We have a chance to win every race after practice and you get in the race and you can't do anything," Kahne said. "That's just the way our cars have been lately. We haven't figured it out.
"It makes you mad. You want to race good."
Instead, Kahne found himself going hood-first into the wall when the racing got rough.
"I was trying to get in a battle with all those guys for position, sixth, seventh, eighth," Kahne said. "I had to block [Carl] Edwards and come back to Stewart. Trying to pass Stewart I got loose and then I just tried staying off Tony, I guess I ran into the wall.
"It hurt. It still hurts, but that's racing. I can't believe it happened. We battled that car, battled the tires, battled everything all day trying to get a top-10 and didn't make it back."
Gordon, Stewart and Earnhardt somehow made it back, as each picked up one precious position in the standings despite their own misfortune.
Gordon was down as many as three laps to the leader after replacing a broken sway bar bolt before the race was 20 laps old. Finally getting back on the lead lap after the Lap 87 caution, the four-time Brickyard winner wound up a happy 16th, moving up one place in the standings to eighth.
"That was one hard-fought 16th," he said. "To have a car as good as ours and not be able to race up front for the lead and for those top positions is pretty frustrating. I guess we should just be fortunate we got back on the lead lap."
Stewart dropped as far back as 36th after making an extra pit stop to tighten loose lugnuts. He avoided the aftermath of Kahne's accident to finish eighth, putting him ninth in the points.
"I think we passed 60 cars or more [Sunday], so I'm pretty happy with it," he said. "We went to the back and battled our way back into the top 10.
"This is not how we wanted this day to go, by any means, but to have us get back into the top 10, it was an awesome day for us."
Earnhardt's sixth-place finish was easily the most amazing of the three. Mired deep in the pack all day and seemingly little hope of a decent finish, the No. 8 team decided to stay out when the leaders pitted on Lap 143. When the green flag came out again with 13 laps to go, Earnhardt was second behind Kyle Busch.
Track position paid off, as Earnhardt was able to hang on for sixth and put himself back into 10th place in the standings.
"We took a chance and made it work and we just got lucky," Junior said. "We're thanking the Lord tonight."
2006-08-09 15:04:56
