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Sprint Cup
CUP: Friday Dover Notebook
Tony Stewart leads the Sprint Cup points standings...
Tony Stewart (Right), driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet, stands in the garage with crew chief Darian Grubb (Left) during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)
SMOKE SIGNALS — Tony Stewart may be leading the NASCAR Sprint Cup points standings on the basis of consecutive race victories, but he said it’s just business as usual this year, his third as co-owner/driver for Stewart-Haas Racing.
Stewart will be one of the favorites to win again in Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway.
Asked about juggling his various roles, Stewart said, “This isn’t a new topic. We’ve been doing this for our third year now. We’re not doing anything different. ... You surround yourself with good people and that’s something we learned from Joe Gibbs a long time ago. If you surround yourself with the right people and let them do their jobs then it should work out fine.”
Stewart, of course, was winless until the Chase, which opened with Stewart victories at Chicagoland and New Hampshire. Asked about his sudden improvement, he told a reporter, “You’re going to tell the story so you tell me whether we came out of nowhere. ... you’re telling me something everybody already knows. We already know that part of it.”
Asked if that meant the story was old news, Stewart said, “Yeah. We’ve been answering that and talking about that for three straight weeks now. We weren’t good until Atlanta.”
Stewart had a rough start to his weekend, running 41st in Happy Hour, two positions ahead of teammate Ryan Newman, and 25th in the first session, when Newman was 28th.
KESELOWSKI COMING ON — Without question, Brad Keselowski's performance over the last two months has been especially eye opening. One secret to the sudden success of the No. 2 Penske Racing “Blue Deuce” has been the ability of Keselowski and crew chief Paul Wolfe to salvage strong finishes on what began as bad days.
Even Keselowski admitted he doesn’t always know how they do it.
“Sometimes, I know the answer to that, sometimes I don’t,” said Keselowski, who was sixth-fast in the opening round of practice for the AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway and 22nd in Happy Hour.
“For us, the key is not losing our cool,” he said. Obviously, you have to have really smart people who figure it out. It’s very difficult. It seems like that’s the difference in our team — at the start of the year, we weren’t able to figure it out. At this point, we are. I just think that it’s people working together, the chemistry that you build throughout the year and whether you’re able to have that or not. We have that.”
TENSE TIMES — With a new points formula this and a close championship battle, the tension among the teams in the Chase for the Sprint Cup is high. And one barometer of that tension is the brevity of answers drivers supplied during Friday media availability sessions at Dover International Speedway.
Asked to talk about his prospects for the weekend, second-place points man Kevin Harvick said, “You don’t do anything any different than you would any other week. Just another race track that you try to do the same things that you do every week.”
Queried about his confidence level after a somewhat slow start to his Chase, Kurt Busch said, “We’re two thumbs up. We’re right in the mix. It’s a long 10 weeks. You just have to stay upbeat about it no matter where you finish each week.”
One driver everyone has been looking at is five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson, who is mired in 10th place in points. “It’s been business as usual,” said Johnson. “... It’s the same stuff. We’re working as hard as we can to bring the best setup to the race track, our best cars and feel very good about this weekend’s race.”
HAMLIN LOOKING AHEAD — For Denny Hamlin, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is, his disappointing NASCAR Sprint Cup regular season has carried over to the Chase for the Sprint Cup, where he is in the 12th and final spot with two of 10 races in the books.
The good news? Already essentially out of title contention, Hamlin, crew chief Mike Ford and the rest of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team have no pressure now.
“We definitely are in a position now to where we can kind of relax and have some fun and try to win some races from here on out,” said Hamlin Friday at Dover International Speedway. “That’s the important, No. 1 priority for us right now is to kind of get back on track before the year is over.”
Asked if he had the speed to dominate and win right now, Hamlin was candid, perhaps unusually so.
“Not right now, I don’t think so as far as like going out and dominating any given week,” he said. “I would say it’s not likely, but it can happen if we hit a setup.”
Hamlin, who was 24th in both of Friday’s practice sessions for Sunday’s AAA 400, did allow as how he sees better times ahead.
“No, we’re not where we need to be by any means at this point, but I see things in the future getting better,” he said. “And, when I say future, I say in the next three to four weeks I see us being top-five contenders. And once you get there then that leads to race wins. For us, that’s our focus right now is to get from where I feel like we’re at between 10th to 15th to a top-five every week car like we were last year.”
NO BULL NO MORE — Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates has hired former Red Bull Technical Director John Probst to serve in the same capacity at EGR, where he will oversee all engineering for the organization’s NASCAR operation. Probst will work closely with the team’s competition director Steve Hmiel.
“As a race team owner, you owe it to your team, partners and the fans to bring in good people whenever you have the opportunity,” said team majority owner Chip Ganassi in a statement released Friday. “So when John became available we jumped at the opportunity to bring him on board. We think he will be a great addition to this team.”
TWEET THIS — Jeff Gordon is now one of the grizzled veterans of NASCAR, but he’s recently become a huge convert to social media, now regularly Tweeting under the handle @JeffGordonWeb.
“From being a race car driver and connecting with the fans in a whole new way is important for me personally,” Gordon said. “It’s important for sponsors and it’s important for the philanthropy work we’re doing as well. It’s amazing the loyal fan following that we have. What I love about social media is being able to have that connection and really seeing the loyalty that our fans have. You see the positives and the negatives and you see the passion that they have.”
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.
Stewart will be one of the favorites to win again in Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway.
Asked about juggling his various roles, Stewart said, “This isn’t a new topic. We’ve been doing this for our third year now. We’re not doing anything different. ... You surround yourself with good people and that’s something we learned from Joe Gibbs a long time ago. If you surround yourself with the right people and let them do their jobs then it should work out fine.”
Stewart, of course, was winless until the Chase, which opened with Stewart victories at Chicagoland and New Hampshire. Asked about his sudden improvement, he told a reporter, “You’re going to tell the story so you tell me whether we came out of nowhere. ... you’re telling me something everybody already knows. We already know that part of it.”
Asked if that meant the story was old news, Stewart said, “Yeah. We’ve been answering that and talking about that for three straight weeks now. We weren’t good until Atlanta.”
Stewart had a rough start to his weekend, running 41st in Happy Hour, two positions ahead of teammate Ryan Newman, and 25th in the first session, when Newman was 28th.
KESELOWSKI COMING ON — Without question, Brad Keselowski's performance over the last two months has been especially eye opening. One secret to the sudden success of the No. 2 Penske Racing “Blue Deuce” has been the ability of Keselowski and crew chief Paul Wolfe to salvage strong finishes on what began as bad days.
Even Keselowski admitted he doesn’t always know how they do it.
“Sometimes, I know the answer to that, sometimes I don’t,” said Keselowski, who was sixth-fast in the opening round of practice for the AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway and 22nd in Happy Hour.
“For us, the key is not losing our cool,” he said. Obviously, you have to have really smart people who figure it out. It’s very difficult. It seems like that’s the difference in our team — at the start of the year, we weren’t able to figure it out. At this point, we are. I just think that it’s people working together, the chemistry that you build throughout the year and whether you’re able to have that or not. We have that.”
TENSE TIMES — With a new points formula this and a close championship battle, the tension among the teams in the Chase for the Sprint Cup is high. And one barometer of that tension is the brevity of answers drivers supplied during Friday media availability sessions at Dover International Speedway.
Asked to talk about his prospects for the weekend, second-place points man Kevin Harvick said, “You don’t do anything any different than you would any other week. Just another race track that you try to do the same things that you do every week.”
Queried about his confidence level after a somewhat slow start to his Chase, Kurt Busch said, “We’re two thumbs up. We’re right in the mix. It’s a long 10 weeks. You just have to stay upbeat about it no matter where you finish each week.”
One driver everyone has been looking at is five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson, who is mired in 10th place in points. “It’s been business as usual,” said Johnson. “... It’s the same stuff. We’re working as hard as we can to bring the best setup to the race track, our best cars and feel very good about this weekend’s race.”
HAMLIN LOOKING AHEAD — For Denny Hamlin, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is, his disappointing NASCAR Sprint Cup regular season has carried over to the Chase for the Sprint Cup, where he is in the 12th and final spot with two of 10 races in the books.
The good news? Already essentially out of title contention, Hamlin, crew chief Mike Ford and the rest of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team have no pressure now.
“We definitely are in a position now to where we can kind of relax and have some fun and try to win some races from here on out,” said Hamlin Friday at Dover International Speedway. “That’s the important, No. 1 priority for us right now is to kind of get back on track before the year is over.”
Asked if he had the speed to dominate and win right now, Hamlin was candid, perhaps unusually so.
“Not right now, I don’t think so as far as like going out and dominating any given week,” he said. “I would say it’s not likely, but it can happen if we hit a setup.”
Hamlin, who was 24th in both of Friday’s practice sessions for Sunday’s AAA 400, did allow as how he sees better times ahead.
“No, we’re not where we need to be by any means at this point, but I see things in the future getting better,” he said. “And, when I say future, I say in the next three to four weeks I see us being top-five contenders. And once you get there then that leads to race wins. For us, that’s our focus right now is to get from where I feel like we’re at between 10th to 15th to a top-five every week car like we were last year.”
NO BULL NO MORE — Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates has hired former Red Bull Technical Director John Probst to serve in the same capacity at EGR, where he will oversee all engineering for the organization’s NASCAR operation. Probst will work closely with the team’s competition director Steve Hmiel.
“As a race team owner, you owe it to your team, partners and the fans to bring in good people whenever you have the opportunity,” said team majority owner Chip Ganassi in a statement released Friday. “So when John became available we jumped at the opportunity to bring him on board. We think he will be a great addition to this team.”
TWEET THIS — Jeff Gordon is now one of the grizzled veterans of NASCAR, but he’s recently become a huge convert to social media, now regularly Tweeting under the handle @JeffGordonWeb.
“From being a race car driver and connecting with the fans in a whole new way is important for me personally,” Gordon said. “It’s important for sponsors and it’s important for the philanthropy work we’re doing as well. It’s amazing the loyal fan following that we have. What I love about social media is being able to have that connection and really seeing the loyalty that our fans have. You see the positives and the negatives and you see the passion that they have.”
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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