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Sprint Cup
CUP: Sadler’s Dream Day/Notebook
Elliott Sadler’s Friday was a great one.
Elliott Sadler (Left), driver of the #19 Stanley Ford, talks with Todd Parrott (Right) on the grid after qualifying for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)
SADLER’S MAGIC MOMENTS — After a season that has been miserable on almost every level, Elliott Sadler had a dream Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. In one day, he was announced as the full-time driver of the No. 2 Kevin Harvick Inc. NASCAR Nationwide Chevrolet for 2011, won the pole for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race and finished fifth in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race. As days go, they don’t get much better.
“Today has been a good day to be an Elliott Sadler kind of guy today,” Sadler said, somewhat redundantly. “It has been neat. I am glad my wife and my kid are here. It has been awesome.”
Considering the upheaval Sadler has endured this year at the financially troubled Richard Petty Motorsports, Friday was about as good a day as Sadler could have hoped for. And it happened for him on the right weekend, at least in terms of his sponsor.
“It is special to me because Stanley has been a big supporter of mine the last couple of years,” said Sadler. “They have over 300 people coming in for Sunday’s race and it is their biggest weekend of the year, so for me to be able to give them a pole is special to me.”
LABONTE HAPPY WITH NEW HOME — Like Elliott Sadler, Bobby Labonte has endured a dismal 2010 season but appears to have better days ahead. Labonte, the 2000 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion, is 31st in points right now, with a best finish of 16th this year, a season in which he’s driven for four different teams. On Sunday, Labonte will drive big brother Terry’s No. 10 Chevrolet, but what he’s really excited about is driving Tad Geschickter and Brad Daugherty’s No. 47 JTG-Racing Toyota next season. According to Labonte, it didn’t take much to persuade him to take that seat.
“Tad and Brad came to my motorhome in Chicago and they told me that Marcos (Ambrose) was leaving and they asked me if I would be interested in driving their car next year,” Labonte said. “About five seconds later I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ Then I said, ‘Hold on a second, let me think about it. Yeah, okay, I think it’s still fine.’ So really I was overwhelmed and thrilled that they asked me to drive their car and especially to get a contract signed and sealed by August, which the past couple years hasn’t been like that.”
BRAD THE BOSS — As if being a full-time driver in both the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series wasn’t enough to keep him busy, Brad Keselowski is about to add another job to his resume: NASCAR team owner. With Penske Racing shutting down one of its Sprint Cup teams, Keselowski hopes to hire some of those employees to run a two-truck team in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Dodge has spun off its truck business, which now carries the Ram Truck name, and Keselowski will run Rams next season. Parker Kligerman likely will be one of the drivers.
“I’m trying really hard,” said Keselowski. “Not just for myself, but for Dodge and for Ram. It would be a great program to have. This whole deal is about depth. Obviously the contraction to two (Penske) Cup teams and there’s personnel, it would be great to find a spot for them. Things of that nature are of interest. Some kind of program for getting the depth back that would be lost by having that third team. Hopefully, I can help out Penske Racing if it all lines up. At the same time, have some fun and win some races as car owner, maybe build a brand.”
IT’S THE RACING, STUPID — Tony Stewart does not suffer fools gladly, and he frequently says the motorsports media over-thinks what goes on on the race track. He reiterated that belief on Friday. Asked if racers had finally figured out how to race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Stewart said there was nothing to figure out.
“That's the thing everybody has asked since day one,” Stewart said. “It's not a hard concept to understand. It's just a 10-race season, basically. You race in that first 26 weeks to get yourself in there and then it's a short 10-week season. So it's not like people had to learn how to do this. Everybody in this garage area raced somewhere else before they got here; and raced for championships no matter whether it's 10 races long or 120 races long like the World of Outlaws. So, they all know how to do it but it's just a matter of doing the job for those 10 weeks.”
RPM REVVED UP — Reports of the demise of Richard Petty Motorsports appear to have been exaggerated, at least for the time being. RPM has its cars for Phoenix next week, and all four RPM drivers qualified in the top 13 for NASCAR’s AAA Texas 500, with Elliott Sadler on pole, AJ Allmendinger 10th, Paul Menard 12th and Aric Almirola 13th.
Allmendinger said he left some speed on the table in qualifying. “The car is better than the driver right now,” Allmendinger said. “I am really frustrated with myself. I can’t get the speed out of it that I want. I feel like the car is pretty decent but the driver is just not getting it right now. I am really struggling.”
CLEVER TREVOR SHINES — Trevor Bayne has been impressive so far in his first NASCAR Sprint Cup weekend. The 19-year-old youngster is piloting the famed No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford Fusion, his inaugural outing in NASCAR’s top division, qualifying a respectable 28th for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 after running 16th in the opening round of practice Friday.
“That was extremely nerve wracking. I was sweating bullets,” Bayne said after qualifying on speed Friday. “I am really happy that we qualified on time and now we can focus on the race because I was a nervous wreck. That is the most nervous I have been in a race car in a long, long time. I was trying to do a good job of walking that line of pushing it to qualify but also not crossing that line and doing something stupid. It is good to be in. Now we can all sort of take a deep breath and get ready for Sunday.”
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 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.
“Today has been a good day to be an Elliott Sadler kind of guy today,” Sadler said, somewhat redundantly. “It has been neat. I am glad my wife and my kid are here. It has been awesome.”
Considering the upheaval Sadler has endured this year at the financially troubled Richard Petty Motorsports, Friday was about as good a day as Sadler could have hoped for. And it happened for him on the right weekend, at least in terms of his sponsor.
“It is special to me because Stanley has been a big supporter of mine the last couple of years,” said Sadler. “They have over 300 people coming in for Sunday’s race and it is their biggest weekend of the year, so for me to be able to give them a pole is special to me.”
LABONTE HAPPY WITH NEW HOME — Like Elliott Sadler, Bobby Labonte has endured a dismal 2010 season but appears to have better days ahead. Labonte, the 2000 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion, is 31st in points right now, with a best finish of 16th this year, a season in which he’s driven for four different teams. On Sunday, Labonte will drive big brother Terry’s No. 10 Chevrolet, but what he’s really excited about is driving Tad Geschickter and Brad Daugherty’s No. 47 JTG-Racing Toyota next season. According to Labonte, it didn’t take much to persuade him to take that seat.
“Tad and Brad came to my motorhome in Chicago and they told me that Marcos (Ambrose) was leaving and they asked me if I would be interested in driving their car next year,” Labonte said. “About five seconds later I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ Then I said, ‘Hold on a second, let me think about it. Yeah, okay, I think it’s still fine.’ So really I was overwhelmed and thrilled that they asked me to drive their car and especially to get a contract signed and sealed by August, which the past couple years hasn’t been like that.”
BRAD THE BOSS — As if being a full-time driver in both the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series wasn’t enough to keep him busy, Brad Keselowski is about to add another job to his resume: NASCAR team owner. With Penske Racing shutting down one of its Sprint Cup teams, Keselowski hopes to hire some of those employees to run a two-truck team in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Dodge has spun off its truck business, which now carries the Ram Truck name, and Keselowski will run Rams next season. Parker Kligerman likely will be one of the drivers.
“I’m trying really hard,” said Keselowski. “Not just for myself, but for Dodge and for Ram. It would be a great program to have. This whole deal is about depth. Obviously the contraction to two (Penske) Cup teams and there’s personnel, it would be great to find a spot for them. Things of that nature are of interest. Some kind of program for getting the depth back that would be lost by having that third team. Hopefully, I can help out Penske Racing if it all lines up. At the same time, have some fun and win some races as car owner, maybe build a brand.”
IT’S THE RACING, STUPID — Tony Stewart does not suffer fools gladly, and he frequently says the motorsports media over-thinks what goes on on the race track. He reiterated that belief on Friday. Asked if racers had finally figured out how to race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Stewart said there was nothing to figure out.
“That's the thing everybody has asked since day one,” Stewart said. “It's not a hard concept to understand. It's just a 10-race season, basically. You race in that first 26 weeks to get yourself in there and then it's a short 10-week season. So it's not like people had to learn how to do this. Everybody in this garage area raced somewhere else before they got here; and raced for championships no matter whether it's 10 races long or 120 races long like the World of Outlaws. So, they all know how to do it but it's just a matter of doing the job for those 10 weeks.”
RPM REVVED UP — Reports of the demise of Richard Petty Motorsports appear to have been exaggerated, at least for the time being. RPM has its cars for Phoenix next week, and all four RPM drivers qualified in the top 13 for NASCAR’s AAA Texas 500, with Elliott Sadler on pole, AJ Allmendinger 10th, Paul Menard 12th and Aric Almirola 13th.
Allmendinger said he left some speed on the table in qualifying. “The car is better than the driver right now,” Allmendinger said. “I am really frustrated with myself. I can’t get the speed out of it that I want. I feel like the car is pretty decent but the driver is just not getting it right now. I am really struggling.”
CLEVER TREVOR SHINES — Trevor Bayne has been impressive so far in his first NASCAR Sprint Cup weekend. The 19-year-old youngster is piloting the famed No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford Fusion, his inaugural outing in NASCAR’s top division, qualifying a respectable 28th for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 after running 16th in the opening round of practice Friday.
“That was extremely nerve wracking. I was sweating bullets,” Bayne said after qualifying on speed Friday. “I am really happy that we qualified on time and now we can focus on the race because I was a nervous wreck. That is the most nervous I have been in a race car in a long, long time. I was trying to do a good job of walking that line of pushing it to qualify but also not crossing that line and doing something stupid. It is good to be in. Now we can all sort of take a deep breath and get ready for Sunday.”
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 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.
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