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Kenseth hands Roush his sixth win at Calif.
Montoya posts second consecutive DNF after crash
By Mike Harris, The Associated Press
February 25, 2007
10:54 AM EST
FONTANA, Calif. -- Matt Kenseth took control in the closing laps Saturday night at California Speedway, driving off with his fourth NASCAR Busch Series victory in 12 tries on the 2-mile oval.
Casey Mears grabbed second place 12 laps from the end and gave a big effort to try to catch Kenseth, but the Roush Fenway Racing driver wouldn't let Mears get close enough for a serious challenge, driving across the finish line about five lengths ahead.
"It was really a lot of fun,'' said Kenseth, who earned his 22nd Busch victory in his 200th series start. "I owe a lot of this to my former teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Burton. I learned a lot about these tracks from them. And I'm real excited to get this team back where they belong.''
Kenseth, giving Jack Roush his first win since he sold half his team to Fenway Sports Group earlier this month, took the lead with a pass of Burton, now driving for Richard Childress Racing, on Lap 129.
The 2003 Cup champion and winner of last February's Cup race here led the rest of the way. He wound up leading a race-high 48 of the 150 laps.
"I burnt my tires off pretty good just getting to the front,'' said Mears, who moved from Chip Ganassi Racing to Hendrick Motorsports during the winter. "After that, I didn't have much left. But I'm real happy with the effort by our whole team.''
Kenseth's first three Busch wins were in Robbie Reiser's car, but this one gives Roush his sixth victory in the past seven Busch races at California, including three wins by Greg Biffle, one by Carl Edwards, one by Martin and Saturday night's triumph by Kenseth.
"We just really like these big, fast racetracks and this one has been real good to us,'' Roush said, grinning.
Kyle Busch finished third, followed by Edwards, Biffle and Daytona winner Kevin Harvick, who made up a lap after a blown tire in the early going. Burton slipped to seventh at the finish.
Dave Blaney gave Toyota its first Busch Series pole, but wound up 10th in the race.
As usual, the Busch race was dominated by Nextel Cup regulars, with drivers who will run in Sunday's Auto Club 500 finishing in 15 of the top 16 positions. Only Regan Smith, who will run part-time in Cup this season, was able to break into that group, finishing ninth.
Juan Montoya's continuing stock car apprenticeship took a hit when he became the innocent victim in a hard crash on Lap 87.
Jason Leffler was attempting to pass Kenny Wallace in a three-wide maneuver and appeared to move up the track too soon, making contact with Wallace. Leffler's car then turned abruptly toward the outside wall and hit it hard, collecting Montoya who was racing at the top of the banking.
Sam Hornish Jr., like Montoya a former Indianapolis 500 winner making the transition to NASCAR, also crashed out late in the race.
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
timhoughton wrote:no particular reason, every racin' fan likes to argueI do NOT like to argue.
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
Kenseth puts Daytona behind him with win
By Mike Harris, The Associated Press
February 25, 2007
11:34 PM EST
FONTANA, Calif. -- With crew chief Robbie Reiser back home in North Carolina on a NASCAR-enforced absence from the racetrack, Matt Kenseth and the rest of his No. 17 team just tried to remember the lessons he has taught them over the years.
Kenseth drove the Roush Fenway Racing Ford to the front and his veteran crew gave him a series of sparkling pit stops, including a very fast one Sunday near the end of the Auto Club 500 that put the 2003 NASCAR champion into the lead for good.
"It's a special win,'' an emotional Kenseth said after bouncing back from a disappointing Daytona 500 with his second victory of the weekend and second Nextel Cup win at California Speedway. "It's not without Robbie though. He spent the week at home while we were at Daytona building this car. Robbie built this team.''
Kenseth, who got caught up in the last-lap melee the previous week at the Daytona 500 and wound up 27th after starting that lap in third, stayed away from trouble this time and took the lead with the fast stop during a caution 23 laps from the finish.
The victory, his 15th in Cup, came with engineer Chip Bolin sitting in for Reiser, who was sent home for four races after the team was caught cheating at the beginning of Daytona's Speedweeks. And it came less than 24 hours after Kenseth won the Busch Series race on the same 2-mile oval.
A year ago, it was Jimmie Johnson whose team overcame the loss of crew chief Chad Knaus to get off to a strong start on the way to a championship.
"Those guys didn't let some bad luck stop them or slow them down,'' Kenseth said. "Everybody on this team knows what Robbie would expect them to do, whether he is here or not.''
Kevin Harvick, who swept the Busch and Cup races at Daytona, came out of the final pit stop in second and was making up ground on Kenseth until rookie David Reutimann and former series champion Bobby Labonte crashed on Lap 243 of the 250-lap event.
NASCAR red-flagged the race to give safety officials time to clean up the debris from the wreck. Once the cars were restarted, Harvick found he had a deflating left front tire and had to pit. He wound up 17th, the last car on the lead lap.
It was a relief to Kenseth when Harvick no longer loomed in his mirrors.
"I thought I was going to have a problem because I really thought the No. 29 [Harvick] was going to run me down,'' he said. "Then, he had his problem and Jeff [Gordon] moved up to second and I thought he might run me down. But we got a real good restart and, after that, we were OK.
"It's really nice to get some of our points back from the Daytona deal,'' added Kenseth, referring to the 50 points he and the team were docked in the cheating incident.
"It's a shame,'' Harvick said about the flat tire. "I don't know if we could have won it, but running with the leader and having a chance to win is what it's all about.''
Three-time California winner Gordon, the only other multiple Cup race winner here, jumped past Jeff Burton into second on the restart with four laps to go, but couldn't get close enough to challenge Kenseth the rest of the way. Kenseth won by about six car-lengths.
Defending Cup champion Johnson, who finished 39th at Daytona, also bounced back with a third-place finish Sunday, followed by Burton, Mark Martin, Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch.
Johnson's Chevrolet was in the lead, with Kenseth's Ford close behind, when debris on the backstretch brought out a caution flag on Lap 226 -- the first yellow flag since the track went green on Lap 126.
All the leaders pitted on the next lap and Johnson agonized through a slow stop, falling all the way to fifth.
"That's all I had,'' Johnson said. "We had a bad pit stop and we just ran out of time.''
Gordon said he was just lucky to finish second.
"If Kevin hadn't had that flat tire, we would have probably finished third or fourth,'' he said. "It's crazy the way things happen. Last week, he wins the Daytona 500 and, this week, he has that flat tire. It's too bad.''
Martin, who lost to Harvick at Daytona by the length of a hood, had another good race and put himself and his new team, Ginn Racing -- formerly MB2 Motorsports -- into the series points lead. It's the first time leading the points for the team, now in its 11th year.
It also was a good day for Brian Vickers, who gave Team Red Bull its first top-10 finish in the first race the new Toyota team has been able to qualify for.
The race was the debut for unleaded fuel in NASCAR's premier series. Several entries blew engines, including DEI teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr. and Evernham Motorsports' Kasey Kahne, but the teams said they would need to examine the engines closely to determine if the fuel had anything to do with the problems.
"We were happy to bring the car home with that new unleaded fuel and now we're all anxious to see what the inside of that engine looks like,'' Gordon said.
bigsmooth wrote: martin is driving a chevy...and is doing so much better than he did with roush and ford......who made his engine medic......HENDRICK!!I know, I know- and its KILLING ME
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
New-look track at Vegas, same ol' result for Johnson
By Jenna Fryer, The Associated Press
March 11, 2007
11:57 PM EDT
LAS VEGAS -- New track configuration, same old results for Jimmie Johnson.
The defending series champion beat teammate Jeff Gordon on Sunday to win his third consecutive Nextel Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Only this one came under extremely different conditions on a reconfigured race track that gave everyone fits.
This track was a different challenge for us, no doubt about it," said Johnson, who led Gordon across the finish line for a 1-2 finish that gave Hendrick Motorsports its 150th NASCAR victory.
Johnson suffered a pit-road penalty and a slight bounce off the wall, but otherwise had few problems navigating his way around the track that was under intense scrutiny all weekend because of changes owner Bruton Smith made to the 1.5-mile speedway.
The changes included an increase in the banking from 12 degrees to 20, and a curved pit lane unlike anything the drivers had seen before. Because the new surface produced such fast speeds, Goodyear had to bring a very hard left-side tire that was capable of withstanding the loads.
It created a perfect storm of slick asphalt, little grip and a garage full of grumbling drivers.
"I felt like I was on ice from lap one until the last one," said Gordon, the four-time series champion. "There is no reason for us to show up at racetracks and be at a white-knuckle experience for an entire weekend."
That sentiment was echoed over and over as drivers climbed from their cars.
"It was out of control pretty much all day," Clint Bowyer said.
"It was the poorest race I've ever been in. It wasn't fun to drive," David Stremme said.
"You couldn't run side-by-side. When you got alongside of somebody, you were scared to death you were going to wreck," Matt Kenseth said.
The race was marred by nine cautions, most of them products of the new configuration and tough tire. David Ragan spun on the opening lap, and Casey Mears, Robby Gordon and Ward Burton were in a three-car accident 10 laps in.
Joe Nemechek and Dave Blaney wrecked eight laps after that.
"There's just no grip at all," said Mears, who blamed Robby Gordon for the accident. "Everybody is having a hard time getting a hold of their cars."
Johnson understood Goodyear's choice of tire based on the short timeframe the company had between the January test that revealed the high speeds to when a choice of tire had to be selected.
But he called on the company to figure out a way to work more with the teams in the future.
"When we go to new surfaces, we need to be on the conservative side and we need to be able to test it," Johnson said. "To show up and not test what you are going to race is where all of the frustration comes from. I do understand that Goodyear wants to build a strong, safe tire. And not everybody is going to agree with going to a hard tire. But if we have a chance to test it, we'll find a way to be comfortable."
Johnson led 89 of the 267 laps en route to the win, but it came at Gordon's expense.
Gordon dominated by leading 111 laps, and appeared poised to tie Dale Earnhardt for sixth place on the career list with 76 victories. But Gordon thought he had a flat left-rear tire following a late round of pit stops, and gave up the lead with 32 laps to go when Jeff Burton passed him.
Johnson got by both of them five laps later and held on after a final restart with 11 to go. He credited it to the final pit stop, when crew chief Chad Knaus made a tire pressure adjustment that balanced out the damage he received from brushing the wall.
"Over the long haul I really don't think I had the speed to run with either of the Jeffs -- Jeff Gordon or Jeff Burton," he said. "But at the end when we came in and put right side tires on ... I had that edge that I could lean on and really push hard to get by Gordon and Burton and then hold off them at the end."
Gordon was disappointed with the finish.
"I thought we had this won here," Gordon said. "We just got beat. We keep bringing cars like this, we'll win some."
Denny Hamlin finished third and was followed by Kenseth, Mark Martin and Carl Edwards.
Martin is still on top of the point standings, up six on Gordon. Martin, who has never won a Nextel Cup title, is planning to run only 23 races this season and is expected to sit out of the race at Bristol later this month.
"The plans haven't changed -- yet," Martin said. "Let's just worry about that later. I was happy with the run. I'm happy with the team and happy with what I laid out. We don't need to be talking about that right now."
Tony Stewart, the most vocal critic of the track and the tires, finished seventh. He was followed by Ryan Newman, Las Vegas native Kyle Busch and Jamie McMurray.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. wound up a disappointing 11th after a mental error cost him a top-five finish. He was in fifth when Kasey Kahne's wreck brought out the final caution, and didn't notice that pit road was closed when he mistakenly followed Jeff Burton down it.
"I followed the 31 in ... the pit road was closed and I didn't see, or wasn't looking, I didn't even think if it was closed or open," Earnhardt said. "You're not thinking about that. But we had a good car and I was real proud of that. But I'm sad for my team because we should have finished fifth or sixth."
The penalty dropped him to 13th on the restart. He picked up two spots in the finishing order and 12 in the points; he's now 28th overall.
Even without the mistake, Earnhardt wouldn't have challenged the Hendrick tandem of Johnson and Gordon, who had the field covered for most of the race.
But it was Johnson who wound up in Victory Lane, even after a tire rolled loose on pit road earlier in the race. The penalty dropped Johnson to 25th, but he wasted little time moving back to the front.
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
(note: I didn't use the "h" word )JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
- By LU Armchair coach