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JENSEN: Samsung 500 Blog UPDATED
Written by: Tom Jensen   
04/06/2008
Fort Worth, Tex.
 
Ryan Newman qualified on top for the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. (Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images Photo) ยป More Photos

SPEEDtv.com's Tom Jensen blogs the latest news heading into the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Check back for updates and don't forget to leave your comments below!

Blog Post: Sunday, April 6, 2008 9:40 PM

ROCKET MAN REBOUNDS Ever since his stirring victory in the season-opening Daytona 500, Ryan Newman has had little to cheer about, failing to finish higher than 10th in the subsequent five races. At Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, however, Newman made a furious late-race charge to end the Samsung 500 fourth in his Penske Racing Dodge.

What was especially impressive about Newman’s run is how far the team recovered after missing the setup at the start of the race. “We started ‘off’, I mean really ‘off’. Roy (McCauley, crew chief)) did a good job of adjusting on the car,” said Newman. “We kept working on it and we made some good adjustments to make the car better and better all day. We eventually got a lap down, but when you’re 11th and going a lap down, that’s not too shabby. We’ve got some work to do. We made some adjustments and made the Alltel/Samsung Dodge Charger better and got a top 10 out of it.”

SEASON’S-BEST Mark Martin’s 2008 season hasn’t gotten off to the same kind of electric start his 2007 campaign did, but after a two-race absence, he returned to the wheel of the No. 8 Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevrolet and posted an eighth-place finish in Sunday’s Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. It was Martin’s best finish in five races this season.

Martin was one of the few drivers not complaining about his car. Mostly, though, he was happy that he and crew chief Tony Gibson seemed to get on the same page after some poor runs earlier this year. “We had a great communication day with Tony and I,” said Martin. “It was a tremendous improvement from what we did in Atlanta. I was very disappointed in myself at Atlanta and I feel really good about Tony and I and the Army team and the way we work together. We got the car good, especially for the second half of the race. We were very competitive later on there in the race.”

Martin, as is his wont, blamed himself for the team’s poor showing last month at Atlanta Motor Speedway, a track similar in size and layout to Atlanta. “We’re a lot better. I felt really disappointed after Atlanta,” said Martin. “I felt like I really let the team down. And so I worked hard with Tony and the guys to make sure we communicated better and I did a better job of leading the team. … Here, I tried to help them. They couldn’t help me unless I could help them. We were terrible at Atlanta and I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself and I feel really good about this weekend. It’s incredible you can make that much progress in one race, but I love working with Tony. These guys have got big hearts.”

POINTS Jeff Burton was unable to repeat his 2007 victory in the spring race at Texas Motor Speedway, but his workmanlike sixth-place finish in the Samsung 500 left him with a 59-point lead over his Richard Childress Racing teammate, Kevin Harvick, who finished 11th. With seven of 26 races in the NASCAR Sprint Cup regular season complete, Kyle Busch (-64) is third in points, followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-87), Tony Stewart (-108), Jimmie Johnson (-144), Denny Hamlin (-152) and Ryan Newman (-164). Rounding out the top 12 are Greg Biffle (-164), who lost an engine at Texas and finished 39th, race-winner Carl Edwards (-184), Clint Bowyer (-191) and Kasey Kahne (-191).

Jeff Gordon’s 43rd-place finish dropped him to 14th in points, 37 markers back of Matt Kenseth and 91 in arrears of the top 12.

On the owner points side of the ledger, Scott Riggs, Michael Waltrip, J.J. Yeley, Sam Hornish Jr. and Regan Smith are locked in to start next week’s race at Phoenix, as they occupy positions 31 through 35, respectively, in owner points.

Outside the top 35 now are Jeremy Mayfield (-6 points from 35th place), Dave Blaney (-23), David Reutimann (-38), Dario Franchitti (-49) and Mike Skinner (-132).

Blog Post: Sunday, April 6, 2008 12:40 PM

RACE TIME It’s a beautiful day in Texas, with sunny skies and hot temperatures in the mid-80s, plus a brisk breeze. It should be a perfect day for racing.

Today’s Samsung 500, race No. 7 of 36 on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule, will be 334 laps around the 1.5-mile track. My favorites are pole-sitter Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who is looking for his first points race victory with Hendrick Motorsports; his teammate, Jimmie Johnson; the Roush Fenway Racing Fords of Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle; and the three Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas. As a dark horse, keep an eye on David Ragan, who has been fast all weekend and is much improved this season

Blog Post: Saturday, April 5, 2008 02:40 PM

BACK IN THE SADDLE Fresh off his harrowing high-speed crash during qualifying for the Samsung 500, Michael McDowell was back behind the wheel of the Michael Waltrip No. 00 Toyota on Saturday, claiming only a little soreness.

In one of the most spectacular wrecks in recent memory, McDowell lost control of his car Friday and hit the Turn 1 wall head-on, then proceeded to barrel roll eight times before coming to rest at the bottom of Turn 2, with no injuries more severe than some light bumps and bruises.

“I’m just real thankful that I’m able to run,” McDowell said. “I want to thank everyone at NASCAR for the safety that goes into these new cars and the SAFER barrier. The padding inside the car – everything is obviously pretty good – and everybody back at Michael Waltrip Racing.”

Not only did McDowell survive the high-speed accident, he barely had a scratch on him. “I have a little bit of soreness but not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be,” said the 23-year-old rookie. “I thought maybe the adrenaline had taken over, but I woke up today feeling pretty good.”

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED While rookie Patrick Carpentier has missed half of the first six races of the season, two of his DNQs were due to rainouts, and the other was the result of a blown tire late in his qualifying race at Daytona. Everywhere else, though, Carpentier has been golden, which is even more impressive when you consider the struggles of his fellow open-wheel expatriates.

Carpentier qualified 27th for the Samsung 500, safely racing his Gillett Evernham Motorsports Dodge into the field. “The car is really, really good because to run that lap, I was off throttle,” he said after qualifying on Friday. “I’ve got to thank Dodge because we’ve got some good power. The car is good. We gave our stuff to the other guys and they’re all up front and that’s where I want to be. … I’m still very happy. We’re making the race.”

Blog Post: Friday, April 4, 2008 06:20 PM

BIFF STAYING PUT Richard Childress Racing will add a fourth car next season, with sponsorship from General Mills moving from Petty Enterprises to RCR. Bobby Labonte is widely assumed to be taking the seat in 2009, but earlier this week issued a statement saying he’s not going to talk about his plans for next season until some unspecified point in the future.

One driver who apparently won’t be moving to RCR next year is Roush Fenway Racing’s Greg Biffle, who is a free agent but has no interest in moving to a new team outside the top 35 in NASCAR Sprint Cup owner points.

“I don’t really see that being an alternative for me,” Biffle said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. “One thing a guy’s got to look at is you’re third in points and got a chance to make the Chase (for the NASCAR Sprint Cup) right now, running
fairly well. And to go to a team that has no points and then try and qualify for the Daytona 500, go to Las Vegas and California and try to qualify on time, dodge the rainouts. Like we’ve seen all these teams struggle to get in the top 35, I don’t see that as a smart career move for myself.”

Unless it merges with or acquires another team, RCR’s new No. 33 team next year will begin the season outside the top 35 in NASCAR Sprint Cup owner points, which means the team – and the driver – will have to qualify on speed. And that’s a no go for the Biff.

“Now, is Childress a good organization, they’ve got great cars, great people? Sure, they do have that,” said Biffle. “And you can say the same about Gibbs or any of the other teams. Simply from going to third in the points, or whatever you would be at the end of the season, to not being locked … would that be something that I’d be willing to walk that tightrope on? And, anybody’s got to make that decision.”

ON THE MEND Elliott Sadler, who has been nursing an especially painful back injury for the last week and a half, said Friday that he’s gradually recovering.

“I’m feeling pretty good. I’m about 80-85 percent right now,” said Sadler. “It’s still a little painful to sit down, but definitely a lot better. Just a lot of pain last week. … I had some kind of numbing patches on my back for Sunday just to make sure that I made it through the whole race. But Monday I was very, very sore. I stayed in bed all day just to ice it down pretty much all day. I just worked on the swelling trying to keep it down. Wednesday was really the first day that I actually left the house – started moving around a little bit – started exercising –stretching it out. I’ve never had a S-I joint come out like that. I never had two bulging discs come out like that at the same time. It’s just a very painful thing. I’m just glad it’s all behind me right now.”

Blog Post: Friday, April 4, 2008 02:50 PM

SHRUBTASTIC START A broken rear-end gear last weekend in Martinsville dropped Kyle Busch from first all the way to fifth in points, and unhappy state of affairs for the 22-year-old driver. But Busch, who still leads the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points, is philosophical about what’s going on at Joe Gibbs Racing.

“It's pretty frustrating, but anytime you do have a problem at least it hasn't happened twice,” said Busch. “We've been working on things to try and only make it happen once. In talking to Joe, it's kind of a ‘shame on us’ to have it happen once, but it's a problem when it's twice. Fortunately, we haven't had the same problem twice yet. We just keep making gains on things.”

And Busch took some of the responsibility for the Martinsville malfunction. “Last week it was a combination of things as to why the rear gear broke,” said Busch. “On my behalf, getting caught up there exiting pit road and having to stop, back up, get going and then getting spun out there and also wheel hopping into the corner a couple of times on hard rear braking. Other than that, those put a lot of stress on the rear gear and it ended up just breaking. Fortunately, nothing else happened out of that whole deal. We'll work on stuff and try to make it better.”

TIGHTY WHITEYS Both Yates Racing cars are stark white this weekend, as David Gilliland’s six-race deal with freecreditreport.com has expired and the squad is now looking for sponsor backing for both Gilliland and the team’s second car for Travis Kvapil. Considering how nominal the team’s funding has been this season, its performance has been impressive. Gilliland is 22nd in points and Kvapil 24th after six races.

Some other sponsor news at Texas: Jeff Burton’s Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet is sponsored by Prilosec, the same sponsor Burton had on his car when he won here last season. Patrick Carpentier has picked up an eight-race sponsorship deal from LifeLock, the nation’s leading identity theft protection service. LifeLock, which will be on the No. 10 Dodge next weekend at Phoenix, joins Valvoline, Auto Value/All Pro Bumper-to-Bumper, Charter and Cintas in the Gillett Evernham Motorsports armada of sponsors. Garmin has picked up two races on Elliott Sadler’s Gillett Evernham Dodge, while Hunt Brothers Pizza is doing a two-race deal with Jeremy Mayfield’s Haas-CNC Chevy. And this weekend, Wood Brothers Racing and driver Bill Elliott are carrying the colors of Motorcraft for the first time in 2008.

I’M BAD, I’M NATIONWIDE Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman has had an up-and-down 2008 since his big win in the season opener. One thing he’s not happy about is that Penske Racing isn’t fielding cars for him in more NASCAR Nationwide Series races this season.

“The seat time, no matter what car you’re driving at a certain race track, is very important,” said Newman. “There are two things that I’ve always said that that you learn: the first is the race track and what you learn from it. Race tracks change, characteristics change. For instance, two years ago, they took the bump out of (Turns) 1 and 2. In the Nationwide Series, you get the opportunity to feel that first then you know how to predict things. The combination of the tires - typically the tires are identical, so you have an idea of the tire falloff and what the tires are going to feel like. So there are huge advantages seat-time wise, not just pure racing in getting more experience in being a better race car driver. Getting a taste of a few things make a big difference for your potential Sunday race.”

ON THE EDGE Rookie Regan Smith has gotten a real education already this season, as he’s had to deal with being a go-or-go-home driver who had to qualify on speed. Smith did so last week at Martinsville and managed a season’s-best finish, but he’s now 35th in points, just three markers ahead of Sam Hornish Jr. A bad finish this weekend could knock him out of the top 35 and back into the go-or-go-home field. And with unsold sponsorship inventory remaining on his Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevrolet, his margin for error is razor-thin.

“This week I’ve been able to sleep fine,” said Smith. “You know you’re locked in and you don’t have pressure coming in on Friday to make sure. It’s not even the pressure as much as it is what if something goes wrong? What if I get a flat tire getting out of the pits going up to qualify? What if I miss a shift and break a gear? What if we have a line come loose or something? There are so many variables that could cause you to miss a race and it’s so close that it’s a ton of pressure and we don’t have that now this week. We still need to perform. We still need to qualify well ‘cause qualifying here equates into racing well and we need to come out of here with points and there’s cars that we’ve got to beat and cars that we’re capable of beating that we need to make sure that we do.”

SAMSUNG 500 RESULTS

Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He 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 to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the President of the National Motorsports Press Association. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to
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