ALL-STAR: Friday Notebook

Sprint Cup

ALL-STAR: Friday Notebook

The pressure is on for NASCAR’s top drivers ...

Tom Jensen | Posted May 20, 2011 Concord, NC

Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Burger King Chevrolet, walks in the garage area during practice for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 20, 2011 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo: Getty Images)

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LIFE BEGINS AT 40 — Tony Stewart, who is arguably the hardest-working driver in NASCAR given that he owns race teams, race tracks, myriad small businesses and still drives full time, celebrated his 40th birthday on Friday. During his media availability at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Stewart said he still enjoys living the dream.

“I’ve had three cakes during the week, but I’ve been sensible about it and had three small pieces,” said Stewart, who shows no signs of slowing down. “It is just another day. Everybody goes, ‘Well, it is too bad you have to be at the race track on your birthday.’ And I’m kind of looking at it the opposite way, this is what I have grown up loving. I love what I do. I love being with the people that I am around and most of my friends are in the garage area so I can’t think of a better place to spend my birthday.”

ONE-WAY STREET — With Kimi Raikkonen the latest in a long line of ex-Formula 1 racers to try his hand at NASCAR, five-time defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson was asked Friday if the exodus might ever change directions, with NASCAR drivers joining the open-wheel ranks.

“I think that when you look at how many seats are available in F1, there are so few,” said Johnson. “It’s the top division of open wheel racing and there are so many young drivers and talented open-wheel drivers that are fighting for those. ... I just don’t think it’s possible for an established Cup driver to go that direction based on those terms. The other direction, Cup drivers last a long time. There’s the Truck Series, Nationwide, and there are more opportunities, more seats. They’re not so concerned about age. So, there are just more opportunities.”

THE TENSION MOUNTS — There are no moral victories in the Sprint All-Star Race, no good top fives or nice points nights. There’s one driver who walks away with $1 million, and 20 other guys who go home as losers, many of whom will have wrecked race cars. With that mind, the pressure is very high for tomorrow night’s race, which will be televised live on SPEED, starting at 7 p.m. ET.

“I think the pressure is more tension than it is anything just because you’ve got to put it all on the line every lap,” said Kevin Harvick, a past winner of the event here at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Not that we don’t put it all on the line every lap, but you’ve got to put it on the line and take chances and put yourself in a position that you probably don’t want to be in at some point during the All-Star race. I would agree that there is definitely tension and it’s just tense and you know you don’t have a lot of time to make something happen.”

“You can be a lot more aggressive,” added Kyle Busch, who like Harvick is one of the favorites for tomorrow night. “That probably may be the reason why I’ve gotten myself in trouble a little bit is just trying to push it as hard as you can push it to try to win the race. You get yourself on somebody’s inside and get spun out or spin out or on their outside or try to make a move and get squeezed in the wall or what have you.”

Matt Kenseth, one of three drivers to win two Sprint Cup races this season, said Saturday night should be business as usual for him.

“They’re gonna race all out to try to win that race,” Kenseth said of his fellow drivers. “You take maybe a little bit more risk out here or there’s a little less penalty if something happens to you because there are no points involved and it’s a shorter race. All of these races are big races and you want to try and win every week.”

Mark Martin, a two-time All-Star winner, said he will be on the edge tomorrow night. “I’m pushing it right to the limit of what I think I have the skills to hang onto all this,” he said. “You can be somewhat more aggressive with your strategies or risky with a move that might work but might not work. It might yield you a pass or it might cost you five spots or you might get one so you’re going to try it now, which you wouldn’t try, you know. You can do some things like that.

WINNING STYLE — Scoring an upset victory at Darlington Raceway has given Regan Smith and the Furniture Row Racing team a huge boost of confidence that has translated at the track, according to the driver.

“When we got to Dover last week, everybody is being congratulated and talking to people throughout the garage and everything but when practice started, there was a different feel to our team,” said Smith. “It was more of a feeling … I don’t want to say it was like ‘Hey, we belong here.’ It was just a confident swagger and it seemed like the changes went quicker. It seems like things that took 20 minutes in the past took 15 minutes and everything flowed better so there was ... there was just more of an air of confidence about the guys.”

Like Smith himself, many of the crew members had never won a NASCAR Sprint Cup race before.

“There are a couple of them that have been to Victory Lane with other teams, in different circumstances,” said Smith. “But it was most of us first experience and that same confidence that I gained as a driver, I can see that same confidence within them as a team, which was really cool to see happen.”

JUNIOR’S ACHIEVEMENT? — As of right now, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not in the field for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, but there’s a strong possibility that could change by the drop of the green flag at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday night.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. could be voted in to the 2011 Sprint All-Star Race by the fans. (Photo: Getty Images)

The top two finishers in the Sprint Showdown preliminary will advance to the big race, as will the winner of the Sprint Fan Vote, which allows fans to decide which eligible driver will compete in Saturday’s NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race. Fans have helped set a voting record this season, with more than 1.9 million votes cast since March 23. Voting remains open until 5 p.m. Saturday.

According to Sprint, the top five fan vote drivers — in alphabetical order — are: A.J. Allmendinger, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Bobby Labonte, Joey Logano and Brian Vickers.

PAISLEY PREPPED — Country music star Brad Paisley will be at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday, where he will appear live on SPEED’s NASCAR RaceDay at 5 p.m. Paisley will be at the speedway for the first public screening of the video for his newest single, “Old Alabama,” which debut on the track’s 80- by 200-foot HD video screen, the largest in the world. The video features NASCAR’s Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon and Rick Hendrick and country music group Alabama.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.

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Tom Jensen

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