Who knows just what we’ll see Saturday night at Darlington. Since the track was repaved (that’s Jeff Burton in the photo at right, lending a hand to the resurfacing effort), tales of 200 mph cars hurtling around the 1.366-mile track were common.
Darlington’s homepage lists times for the second practice session. It also provides this little nugget of info: Ward Burton set the qualifying record there in 1996 at a speed of 173.797 mph.
]]>Yesterday, we gave Yates their due. How about another guy flying under the radar? Clint Bowyer.
Even when the guy wins he can’t get a headline.
]]>About a month ago, I made reference to the turnaround that was needed at Yates Racing; it was just a comparative note, a sentence that looked at the fortunes of Petty Enterprises compared with that of Yates.
When Doug Yates took over his father’s operation this season, there was a lot of work ahead of him. Yates Racing had never really been the same since 2006, when it lost both drivers – Dale Jarrett and Elliott Sadler – within a matter of months.
]]>The Sprint Cup’s night swing is fully underway; the next three events will all be under the lights.
This stretch of four races, from Richmond last Saturday to Lowe’s on Memorial Day weekend, constitutes the longest streak of night races on the schedule. There are clusters in other places — Daytona and Chicagoland along with Bristol, California and Richmond in the fall — but none reaches an entire month, as May’s schedule does. (That’s Phoenix pictured at right.)
]]>A lot of people got raw deals at Richmond on Saturday night; only a handful benefited: Clint Bowyer, first of all, for unexpectedly winning. Kyle Busch, secondly, for taking the points lead from Jeff Burton.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a win taken from him, certainly, and he said as much afterward, the an-ger and disappointment easy to see. So did Denny Hamlin, who led a track-record 381 laps before succumbing to a cut tire.
]]>Live from Richmond’s media center… OK, so it doesn’t have the ring of Brent Musberger’s “you’re looking live” line; then again, I fancy myself more tolerable than Brent Musberger.
It’s a warm day here, just as it is back in NoVa. We’ll going to be keeping an eye on the radar here; the National Weather Service is calling for a sunny afternoon (high of 85) but a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms tonight. Yesterday, I overheard someone mention a 60 percent chance, so we’ll take any sort of lowering of such expectations.
]]>RICHMOND - We ought to be winding down Cup practice here soon. It’s been going on for a while, enough time for me to watch a bit, grab some food, check a few Web sites and go back and check out practice again.
One thing you may not realize: Track activities are ongoing. Nationwide practice was well underway when I arrived here this morning around 10 a.m. After a brief break, Cup practice began in earnest have been happening ever since.
]]>Some notes from the business side of racing…
Taking a quick glance through the Fortune 100, several of them have some sort of involvement with NASCAR: Allstate, Best Buy, Caterpillar, Citi, Coca Cola, Comcast, Dupont, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, Ford, General Motors, Home Depot, Lowes, 3M, Marathon Oil, Motorola, Pepsi, Sunoco, Sprint Nextel, Target and UPS. There could be others; those are just the ones off the top of my head.
]]>I admit that I whiffed on the prediction that Dale Earnhardt Jr. would come up with his first win at Talladega. There’s nothing disputable about it; I called a win, he didn’t (he finished 10th), and there’s really nothing more to be said.
Now, Earnhardt comes to the site of his last win, two years ago at Richmond. There’s every reason to think he could win this weekend too:
A little about my Sunday, spent sequestered in the press box at Nationals Park: There was no race broadcast available, since all the TVs were tuned to the Cubs-Nationals game.
So I spent most of the afternoon dividing my attention between the race — thanks to Yahoo’s RaceFlash — as well as the Nats game and, at times, checking in on the NFL Draft. The former two were much more important, since I’d have to write stories about them.
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