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Sprint Cup
CUP: Friday Darlington Notebook
Jeff Gordon hit the hard concrete wall last week at Richmond...
Jeff Gordon crashed hard at Richmond last weekend. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Editor’s note: This notebook will be updated throughout the day, so check back for updates.
JUNIOR UPSET ABOUT RIR — Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Steve Letarte gambled on pit strategy last week at Richmond International Raceway and it backfired on them and the rest of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team. After running well all night, Earnhardt finished 19th, breaking a streak of seven consecutive finishes of 12th or better. Friday morning at Darlington Raceway, Earnhardt said the poor finish gnawed at him.
“As soon as we got done with the race at Richmond, I was anxious to get to the race track and do something good just to get that out of our system,” said Earnhardt, who comes into Saturday night’s Showtime Southern 500 fourth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points. “It was hard to get over what happened last week, it bothered me all week long and just couldn’t wait to get to the race track to do something good to turn it around and feel like we get back on the track we were on. We’re on such a good track there throughout the first part of the year here and that kinda of a deal there just really gets to you. You just want to get to the track and do something to get it back like it was.”
Asked how frustrated he was afterwards, Earnhardt was clear.
“It was high,” he said. “We didn’t finish where we should have. It was really really high. I think that is where it should have been. I think I should have been frustrated. I know Steve was frustrated and the guys were disappointed. It is just the way you are going to feel when you don’t maximize your potential and you don’t do as well as you can. We should have done better; we had an opportunity there; a pretty good opportunity really to do better and we didn’t.”
Earnhardt will have a fresh set of challenges tomorrow night at Darlington, where he has never finished higher than fourth and has an average finish of 15.250. Asked if he expected to run well this week, Earnhardt was surprisingly candid.
“No, not really,” he said. “This place is pretty intimidating and you don’t ever take it for granted that you’re going to run well. I don’t know what my … I don’t even really know what my track record is here. I know I’ve finished ok in a couple of races, but I don’t even know what my track records stands at so we’ll just have to see.”
STEWART-HAMILTON TO TRADE — NASCAR Sprint Cup star Tony Stewart and 2008 Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton are swapping race cars at Watkins Glen International. The Mobil 1 Car Swap will take place June 14 at the famed road course in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Hamilton will take laps in Stewart's No. 14 Chevrolet and Stewart will climb into the cockpit of team Vodafone's McLaren Mercedes MP4-23.
Each will drive the long course at The Glen, which is 3.4 miles through 11 turns. NASCAR uses the 2.4-mile short course, which doesn't include the famed Boot section. The Glen became world-renowned by hosting the United States Grand Prix from 1961-1980 and has been home to NASCAR Sprint Cup races since 1986. This season marks the 50th anniversary of The Glen's inaugural F1 race. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
GORDON’S HIT MAY HELP — Jeff Gordon’s savage crash on the backstretch of Richmond International Raceway last Saturday night may lead to changes at the Virginia short track. Gordon made hard contact with a section of the inside wall that wasn’t protected by a SAFER barrier and escaped with nothing more than a good bell-ringing. Earlier this week, track President Doug Fritz said the facility would study whether or not to add more of the energy-absorbing material around the track.
Gordon said he did know the specific g-force number generated by the crash.
“I’m not (sure what) the threshold is, but, I know we exceeded the threshold,” Gordon said Friday morning at Darlington Raceway. “At the time when I hit the wall, I wasn’t thinking about it. I knew it was a hard hit. I got out, got in the medical center, you know, my head hurt a little bit. Other than that, I was feeling pretty good. I was walking out of the medical center and I happened to see a TV and caught a glance at what happened and I was shocked. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a SAFER barrier there. Then I realized why it hurt so much.”
Richmond was one of the first three tracks to install the SAFER barriers, putting them in after Jerry Nadeau’s near-fatal crash at RIR in spring 2003. Nadeau hit the concrete wall between turns 1 and 2 driver’s-side first during Sprint Cup practice. The resulting head injuries ended his NASCAR career.
“We’ll be able to make improvements there at Richmond,” Gordon said Friday. “Richmond was one of the first tracks that had SAFER barriers, so their efforts have always been there to protect and keep the tracks safe as possible. So, it is just an area that needs to be re-looked at and from what I understand, they will definitely be doing that.”
‘DINGER DOING WELL — One of the biggest surprises of 2011 has been the performance of AJ Allmendinger and the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford. With nine of 26 races down in NASCAR’s regular season, the Los Gatos, Calif., native is an impressive 11th in points. There’s a long way to go on the year, certainly, but Allmendinger right now is holding down one of the two wild-card positions for the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Given that RPM nearly folded late last year, that’s a pleasant surprise for Allmendinger.
“I feel like we’re on the cusp there,” said Allmendinger, who last week finished a season’s-best seventh at Richmond International Raceway. “We’re hanging in there. We’re not doing anything spectacular, but I’m proud of the team because we’re not making a lot of mistakes either. We’re just kind of just hanging around and having decent finishes and running fairly well, but we definitely need to keep getting better to be one of those teams that you consider a top 10 every week contending for the Chase. ... If we can just keep getting better and steadily improve, I feel like with what we’ve already done and being right there on the edge of the top 10, we can have a chance at making the Chase. We just have to be smart and keep getting better as a race team.”
1 MILLION REASONS TO SMILE — Tony Stewart will sport a special rear panel on his car at Darlington encouraging small business owners to enter the 2011 “Official Small Business of NASCAR, Courtesy of Office Depot” sweepstakes. Two small business finalists will have a chance to win $1 million and see their company’s logo featured on Stewart’s No. 14 Chevy or Greg Biffle’s No. 16 3M Ford later this season. Office Depot will also award one $1,000 Office Depot gift card every day during the sweepstakes entry period. Small businesses can enter now through May 28 at www.OfficeDepotRacing.com.
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.
JUNIOR UPSET ABOUT RIR — Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Steve Letarte gambled on pit strategy last week at Richmond International Raceway and it backfired on them and the rest of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team. After running well all night, Earnhardt finished 19th, breaking a streak of seven consecutive finishes of 12th or better. Friday morning at Darlington Raceway, Earnhardt said the poor finish gnawed at him.
“As soon as we got done with the race at Richmond, I was anxious to get to the race track and do something good just to get that out of our system,” said Earnhardt, who comes into Saturday night’s Showtime Southern 500 fourth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points. “It was hard to get over what happened last week, it bothered me all week long and just couldn’t wait to get to the race track to do something good to turn it around and feel like we get back on the track we were on. We’re on such a good track there throughout the first part of the year here and that kinda of a deal there just really gets to you. You just want to get to the track and do something to get it back like it was.”
Asked how frustrated he was afterwards, Earnhardt was clear.
“It was high,” he said. “We didn’t finish where we should have. It was really really high. I think that is where it should have been. I think I should have been frustrated. I know Steve was frustrated and the guys were disappointed. It is just the way you are going to feel when you don’t maximize your potential and you don’t do as well as you can. We should have done better; we had an opportunity there; a pretty good opportunity really to do better and we didn’t.”
Earnhardt will have a fresh set of challenges tomorrow night at Darlington, where he has never finished higher than fourth and has an average finish of 15.250. Asked if he expected to run well this week, Earnhardt was surprisingly candid.
“No, not really,” he said. “This place is pretty intimidating and you don’t ever take it for granted that you’re going to run well. I don’t know what my … I don’t even really know what my track record is here. I know I’ve finished ok in a couple of races, but I don’t even know what my track records stands at so we’ll just have to see.”
STEWART-HAMILTON TO TRADE — NASCAR Sprint Cup star Tony Stewart and 2008 Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton are swapping race cars at Watkins Glen International. The Mobil 1 Car Swap will take place June 14 at the famed road course in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Hamilton will take laps in Stewart's No. 14 Chevrolet and Stewart will climb into the cockpit of team Vodafone's McLaren Mercedes MP4-23.
Each will drive the long course at The Glen, which is 3.4 miles through 11 turns. NASCAR uses the 2.4-mile short course, which doesn't include the famed Boot section. The Glen became world-renowned by hosting the United States Grand Prix from 1961-1980 and has been home to NASCAR Sprint Cup races since 1986. This season marks the 50th anniversary of The Glen's inaugural F1 race. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
GORDON’S HIT MAY HELP — Jeff Gordon’s savage crash on the backstretch of Richmond International Raceway last Saturday night may lead to changes at the Virginia short track. Gordon made hard contact with a section of the inside wall that wasn’t protected by a SAFER barrier and escaped with nothing more than a good bell-ringing. Earlier this week, track President Doug Fritz said the facility would study whether or not to add more of the energy-absorbing material around the track.
Gordon said he did know the specific g-force number generated by the crash.
“I’m not (sure what) the threshold is, but, I know we exceeded the threshold,” Gordon said Friday morning at Darlington Raceway. “At the time when I hit the wall, I wasn’t thinking about it. I knew it was a hard hit. I got out, got in the medical center, you know, my head hurt a little bit. Other than that, I was feeling pretty good. I was walking out of the medical center and I happened to see a TV and caught a glance at what happened and I was shocked. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a SAFER barrier there. Then I realized why it hurt so much.”
Richmond was one of the first three tracks to install the SAFER barriers, putting them in after Jerry Nadeau’s near-fatal crash at RIR in spring 2003. Nadeau hit the concrete wall between turns 1 and 2 driver’s-side first during Sprint Cup practice. The resulting head injuries ended his NASCAR career.
“We’ll be able to make improvements there at Richmond,” Gordon said Friday. “Richmond was one of the first tracks that had SAFER barriers, so their efforts have always been there to protect and keep the tracks safe as possible. So, it is just an area that needs to be re-looked at and from what I understand, they will definitely be doing that.”
‘DINGER DOING WELL — One of the biggest surprises of 2011 has been the performance of AJ Allmendinger and the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford. With nine of 26 races down in NASCAR’s regular season, the Los Gatos, Calif., native is an impressive 11th in points. There’s a long way to go on the year, certainly, but Allmendinger right now is holding down one of the two wild-card positions for the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Given that RPM nearly folded late last year, that’s a pleasant surprise for Allmendinger.
“I feel like we’re on the cusp there,” said Allmendinger, who last week finished a season’s-best seventh at Richmond International Raceway. “We’re hanging in there. We’re not doing anything spectacular, but I’m proud of the team because we’re not making a lot of mistakes either. We’re just kind of just hanging around and having decent finishes and running fairly well, but we definitely need to keep getting better to be one of those teams that you consider a top 10 every week contending for the Chase. ... If we can just keep getting better and steadily improve, I feel like with what we’ve already done and being right there on the edge of the top 10, we can have a chance at making the Chase. We just have to be smart and keep getting better as a race team.”
1 MILLION REASONS TO SMILE — Tony Stewart will sport a special rear panel on his car at Darlington encouraging small business owners to enter the 2011 “Official Small Business of NASCAR, Courtesy of Office Depot” sweepstakes. Two small business finalists will have a chance to win $1 million and see their company’s logo featured on Stewart’s No. 14 Chevy or Greg Biffle’s No. 16 3M Ford later this season. Office Depot will also award one $1,000 Office Depot gift card every day during the sweepstakes entry period. Small businesses can enter now through May 28 at www.OfficeDepotRacing.com.
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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