ALL-STAR: Letting It All Hang Out

Sprint Cup

ALL-STAR: Letting It All Hang Out

SPEED will televise the Sprint All-Star Race live on May 22 at 7 p.m. ET...

Tom Jensen | Posted May 17, 2010 Charlotte, NC

J.D. Gibbs is team president at Joe Gibbs Racing. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

One of the defining characteristics of the Sprint All-Star Race is that it carries $1 million to win, but not any points. Thus, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to teams if they finish second or 21st under the lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The whole point is win at all costs.

From a practical standpoint, that means drivers are willing to take risks on the track that they wouldn’t in a points race. By the same token, crew chiefs are willing to push engines and chassis setups to limits far beyond what they will in the May 30 Coca-Cola 600, a race that carries points but is four times as long at the All-Star race.

SPEED will televise all the action trackside during the All-Star race, beginning Saturday at 7 p.m. ET. Expect to see some fireworks, some great racing and some fun, too.

“It’s a special event from our standpoint,” said J.D. Gibbs, the president of Joe Gibbs Racing, the team that has won five of the last seven NASCAR Sprint Cup races. “When you take the points away, it becomes all about that finish. So you’ll bring cars that are maxed out, motors that are maxed out that wouldn’t last normal race. The drivers are all kind of amped up.”

And that makes for a special night of racing, unlike any other on the NASCAR calendar.

“I think it’s just kind of a fun event,” said Gibbs. “From a fan standpoint, if you’re a new fan, or if you want to bring a friend to a race to kind of get their feet wet, that’s the one to bring them to. It’s short, sweet, a lot of stuff going on, a lot of things around the race. NASCAR does a good job of playing it up so it’s a big deal.”

The drivers definitely get after it, too.

Kasey Kahne celebrates his win in the 2008 Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“If you are three-wide in the middle in a points race, you kind of realize that somebody is going to lose at this and you might back out,” said 2008 All-Star winner Kasey Kahne. “In the All-Star race, I think there is a mentality if you are in that three-wide situation that you might just go ahead and try it and see what happens. I think that is where it changes and I think everybody out there feels the same way. Still, the only way you are going to win is to finish, so you can’t just crash, but you don’t have to worry about points.”

Matt Kenseth, who won his first Sprint Cup race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, agreed with Kahne’s take on it.

“The consequences aren’t the same if you race in the All-Star as opposed to the (Coca-Cola) 600,” said Kenseth, who won the 600 as a rookie in 2000. “With it being such a short race and 10 laps at the end, everyone is going to go for it. You are going to put your car in places, if the opportunity arises, that maybe you wouldn’t in a 600-mile race. You probably won’t be going three wide off of Turn 4 in the 600 unless it was the last four or five laps. Every lap in the All-Star race is like the final few laps of the 600, and everyone is going for it.”

And the best part of the Sprint All-Star race? It’s fun, plain and simple.

“I just enjoy it because I think it is neat that they make it so fan-friendly,” said Kahne. “At the end of the day, you are going for a lot of money and it is fun. It just makes it a really cool event.”

Oh yeah, there’s a lot of money up for grabs, too. That gets everyone smiling.

“It’s a pretty good chunk of change,” said Gibbs. And the way his cars have been running lately, it’s a pretty good bet the JGR squad will be fighting for that $1 million to the bitter end.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEEDtv.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series All-Star Week • The Stars Come Out. The Gloves Come Off. • Saturday, May 22nd at 7 pm ET

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

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