Rating the AdvoCare 500: 2 Stars **

After a rough-and-tumble night at Bristol Motor Speedway a week ago, the Sprint Cup Series brought back the long green-flag runs more typical of 2012 on Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The relative lack of action earns this race a 2 Star Rating.

Denny Hamlin won the race to put him in prime contention for the championship once the Chase begins in two weeks at Chicagoland Speedway, but Martin Truex Jr. should have won the race. Shockingly, it wasn’t NASCAR’s fault he didn’t win.

Truex Jr. led 40 laps Sunday night and had a substantial lead with five laps to go when Jamie McMurray blew a tire and pounded the frontstretch wall. That sent the leaders to pit road to get four tires because the surface at Atlanta is so rough. Denny Hamlin came from fourth to first on the exchange of pit stops and lined up alongside Truex Jr. to settle the race.

Truex Jr. had trouble getting through the gears so Hamlin and Jeff Gordon checked out in front. Gordon almost had a shot at Hamlin on the final lap, but he got loose, Hamlin won and Truex Jr. finished a disheartening fourth place.

Truex Jr. still clinched a spot in the Chase, but instead of the papers being full of stories that say Truex Jr. is a serious contender for the championship, he is left as an afterthought that happens to be in the Chase but probably won’t be much of a championship threat.

This loss is a tough won for Truex Jr. and the #56 team because they have come extremely close to several wins this year and have come up empty every time. Truex Jr. has six top-fives, 14 top-10s and should’ve won the spring Kansas race if not for a late caution.

A win might have been even more beneficial than the three bonus points he would’ve received once the Chase standings are set. Sometimes a breakthrough win can open the floodgates for several more wins in the near future. It’s amazing sometimes how difficult it is to break into Victory Lane but then seems relatively easy to return after that first win.

For example, Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports had gone 16 races without a win before Johnson won the Southern 500 in May at Darlington Raceway. Since then, Johnson has won three more races (including the All-Star Race) and Hendrick Motorsports has won seven races.

Truex Jr. hasn’t won since Dover in June 2007, a span of 192 races. That streak certainly weighs on him, and Sunday night’s fourth-place finish was devastating. However, if he can get that win during the Chase, he could go on a roll and really be a factor in the championship at the end of the season.

Sunday’s race might not have been the most exciting race in the world, but next week’s race at Richmond International Raceway could be thrilling. Seven drivers are in wild card contention, but the only way most of them can make the Chase is to win the race. That could make for a memorable short track race.

The final regular-season week of the season is always a fun one, and all the ingredients are in place for another wild race to send us to the Chase. We’ve been waiting for this race seemingly the entire season, and hopefully it satisfies our hopes.

In any case, have a wonderful week, everybody.

Rating the Pure Michigan 400: 4 Stars ****

For the second week in a row, the dominant Sprint Cup Series car at the end of the race had a problem that prevented it from driving into Victory Lane. But bad luck for one driver usually means a more exciting finish. The final race of the season at Michigan International Speedway gets a 4 Star Rating.

This week Kyle Busch gave Jimmie Johnson his bad luck as Johnson's engine blew up while leading with only five laps from the checkered flag. That left Greg Biffle and Brad Keselowski to battle for the win. Keselowski made the final couple of laps interesting, but he couldn’t catch Biffle, who got his second win of the season.

That finish comes after Keselowski spun Busch on the final lap last week at Watkins Glen.

Biffle is now back on top of the points standings and could be much more of a factor in the Chase than many people think. Unfortunately for him, Roush-Fenway Racing cars still haven’t shown enough consistency to challenge for a title.

Regardless, Biffle threw down a challenge in his Victory Lane interview.

“We’re going to make a run at the title,” he said. “I know they don’t talk about us a lot, but they will when we get to (Las) Vegas.”

Of course, the championship celebration is held in Las Vegas at the end of the season.

Along from Johnson’s problem, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon also had engine problems. All three of those teams run Hendrick Motorsports engines.  

But besides those issues and Biffle’s win, the race had a lot of action on the track compared to a lot of Michigan races and a lot of races in 2012.

Mark Martin, Kurt Busch, Regan Smith and Joey Logano all spent time up against the wall. The pit road wall speared Martin’s car as he slid down pit road following a spin caused by Bobby Labonte and Juan Pablo Montoya in Turn 4. It was an ugly looking wreck, but Martin and everyone on pit road was OK.

Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon also had engine problems that ended their day early.

Sunday’s race also had a lot of good racing that didn’t involve wrecks or mechanical problems. The cars can’t yet go four- and five-wide throughout the race the way they did before the track was repaved for this season, but the tighter groove made for tighter racing.

The middle of the field went three-wide on almost every single restart and barely made it through turns 1 and 2.

The cars looked like they were almost on railroad tracks during the first race in June at Michigan, but that was much less of the case this time around. The cars were more unstable and drivers could race much closer to each other than in June.

Hopefully that continues in future years and Michigan could crank out more entertaining races than boring races. At this point it has potential, and that’s more than could be said for several big, wide tracks with relatively new pavement.

Next week the Sprint Cup Series visits the revamped Bristol Motor Speedway for what could be a return of the bullring that made the track so popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Track owner Bruton Smith ordered the top groove of the track to be shaved down after the spring race to create a tighter racing groove. Either way, it is going to be an intriguing weekend.

The potential for explosive tempers at short tracks usually receives a lot of hype that rarely plays out, but this could be a weekend where the postrace show is nearly as interesting as the race.

We’ll see. Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the FedEx 400: 2 Stars **

The Dominator dominated Dover on Sunday to simply reinforce the fact that Jimmie Johnson and the #48 team are hands down the best there is in this era of NASCAR racing. However, dominating performances rarely make for exciting races, and Sunday was no different. The first Dover race of the season gets a 2 Star Rating.

Johnson did have one challenger at Dover: his teammate in the #24 car. Jeff Gordon led 60 laps throughout the first half of the race, but then his team remembered this is 2012 and didn’t get all of the lugnuts tight on the left rear tire during a pit stop on lap 251.

That forced Gordon to try and play a different strategy to recover and still challenge for the win, but he was only able to get back to 13^th by the time the checkered flag flew.

Gordon did move up one spot to 21^st in the points standings and is one point behind Juan Pablo Montoya for a spot in the top 20. But, that is certainly not where the driver with the most laps led should be in the points standings after 13 races.

This could have been a race that jumpstarted Gordon’s climb back into Chase contention, but now the pressure to be perfect the rest of the regular season continues to mount. It’s going to take quite an effort from Gordon and the #24 team to make the Chase this year.

As for Johnson, Sunday’s win added another stat to prove he is one of the all-time great NASCAR drivers. He has now won at Dover, which many drivers consider one of the toughest on the schedule, seven times. That ties him with Richard Petty and Bobby Allison for the most wins at the Monster Mile.

This was Johnson’s 57^th career win and his second of the season (third if you include the All-Star Race). Maybe it’s coincidence, but ever since Johnson won the Southern 500 at Darlington to get the 200^th victory for Hendrick Motorsports, the entire organization has taken its performance to another level.

Perhaps there was pressure to win #200. That type of pressure obviously affects athletes in other sports when they approach a major milestone, but it is a little more surprising for it to affect an entire racing organization.

Either way, Hendrick Motorsports is once again on quite a roll. That could make for a long summer for the rest of the garage. Right now Roush-Fenway Racing has the top two spots in the points standings and is most likely the biggest threat to stop another Hendrick championship this season, but they have a lot of work ahead of them.

Oh, by the way, there was a wreck in Sunday’s race and it still didn’t get more than a 2 Star Rating. Sure, it was the biggest wreck of the season, but most of the cars involved were start-and-parkers. The wreck just parked them all at the same time.

Besides that wreck on lap 9, the remainder of the race was as clean as the rest of the season. The racing will get better at some point, but it is unlikely to get significantly better anytime soon. The upcoming tracks don’t usually produce thrilling racing, and there is little reason to think it will be any different this summer.

That said, these races are still a vital part of the schedule. June has always been a crucial month in the NASCAR season. The tracks, including Dover, challenge equipment more than most, and it is a time for teams to sharpen their setups as the Race to the Chase approaches.

Now it’s on to the first 400-mile race in the history of Pocono Raceway. I don’t see how shortening this race by 100 miles will make it any more exciting, but we’ll see. The only difference might be that fewer cars drop out because of mechanical issues.

Have a great week, everybody, and brace yourselves for what might be another summer dominated by Hendrick Motorsports. It sure is shaping up that way.

Rating the Coca-Cola 600: 1 Star *

A long race that finished a long day of racing Sunday ended with Kasey Kahne in Victory Lane for the first time as a Hendrick Motorsports driver. Unfortunately, the longest race of the day was also the most boring, and the Coke 600 gets a 1Star Rating.

Besides a freak problem like the tire situation at the Brickyard a few years ago, Sunday night’s race had all of the elements of a snoozer. It was a long race dominated by just a few drivers, there wasn’t much side-by-side racing and debris cautions plagued the race throughout the night.

The Coca-Cola 600 is billed as an endurance event, and that is certainly how this year’s edition played out. The drivers struggled to merely get to the end of the race and didn’t have much time to wage a real battle near the front of the field.

Plus, one of the few intriguing battles of the night was cut short by a debris caution on lap 318 as Kahne, Greg Biffle and Denny Hamlin raced hard for the lead among lapped cars.

After that, Kahne dominated the remainder of a race that had no drama.

Now, before we overreact and say NASCAR is horrible, the cars are horrible, the drivers are horrible and everybody should be fired because it wasn’t an exciting race, we still need to realize that not every race is going to be exciting.

Sure, it would have been a real shot in the arm to have a tense, exciting race for the Memorial day weekend special in Charlotte, which is one of the most prestigious races on the schedule. But that wasn’t the case. Fans will get over it and more on. At some point this season there will be a thrilling 5 Star race and everyone will say NASCAR is the best thing going.

For the first time in a long, long time, the Indianapolis 500 was the better race Sunday. IndyCar had a record number of lead changes in a race that was as close as open-wheel racing gets to NASCAR’s restrictor-plate style racing.

Anyway, congratulations to Kahne and the #5 team. Kahne has run well all season, but he is finally starting to register the finishes to match the way he’s run during the race. Don’t look now, but he’s 15^th in the points standings with one win. That puts him just seven points behind Ryan Newman for the final wild-card spot in the Chase.

Speaking of overreactions, many people crossed Kahne of the list of Chase candidates early in the season when he was just a few spot away from falling out of the top 35 in points. My what a difference two months make.

We probably should have seen this coming. Brad Keselowski taught everyone last year that drivers can make comebacks with the new points system. Shoot, Keselowski was 24^th in the points standings at this time last year.

With that backdrop, Jeff Gordon still has a real chance to make the Chase. With a good couple of months, Gordon could be at least fighting for one of the wild-card spots by the time NASCAR visits the Brickyard in August.

Now it’s time for the first northern swing of the season. It’s starting to get hot across the country, so the sport will leave the South for the next month until it comes back to Kentucky Speedway for the last weekend in June.

The Monster Mile at Dover is next week. Although that track can tear up racecars as much as any on the circuit, the way this season has gone we could be in for another mundane race, especially if one team hits the setup perfectly and runs away from the field. They might not be caught until Pocono the following week.

For now, have a great Memorial Day and honor those who have served and are currently serving our country.

Why Rick Hendrick’s ride on the #48 after the All-Star Race was so special

After Jimmie Johnson completed some impressive burnouts following his win in the All-Star Race Saturday night, he had team owner Rick Hendrick hop up on the door and ride along for a victory lap on the frontstretch at Charlotte Motor Speedway to let fans solute possibly the greatest car owner in the history of NASCAR.

The move harkened back to days long gone by when pit crews would ride on top of a winning car as it drove to Victory Lane, and it was an awesome solute to arguably the best team owner in the history of the sport.

Yes, Hendrick Motorsports still has 68 wins to go before it catches Petty Enterprises for the most wins all time, but that number could be in reach in the next five to seven years.

In any case, Hendrick’s victory ride on the frontstretch after Saturday night’s race was a fitting tribute to a great man and a team that just won its 200^th race the week before in the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

All of the leaders involved in both the Southern 500 win and the All-Star Race win are going to go down in history as legends of the sport.

Hendrick will be compared to the Petty and Wood Brothers Racing organizations, crew chief Chad Knaus will be compared to Petty’s crew chief Dale Inman and Johnson will be considered at least one of the 10 best drivers in the history of the sport.

Although it is easy to hate the #48 team and Hendrick Motorsports for all of their success, please still appreciate it. They have put together arguably the best run any team has ever had in NASCAR history.

Everybody loves to think about how great the Pettys were, how great Earnhardt was and how much success Jeff Gordon had in the first half of his career. But, people also tend to forget how much they hated those drivers and teams for their success when it was happening.

Instead of waiting until the success is over, why don’t we properly appreciate the success while it happens.

It might seem impossible right now, but there will be a time when Johnson no longer consistently wins race. There also might be a time when Hendrick Motorsports no longer competes for wins week in and week out. Ask somebody in the 60’s and 70’s if Petty and the Wood Brothers would be struggling just to remain in the sport, and they likely would’ve have said you are absolutely crazy.

Sports have a way of evening out successes and failures. A great team doesn’t stay great forever. Some teams have longer runs on top than others, but success is certainly not eternal, especially in NASCAR.

Go ahead and wish for some other team to rise up and challenge for race wins and championships. But the eventually everybody will get tired of that team too and start to wish for the next team to arrive on the scene.

That is fine, but fans might be left always hoping for the next big thing and never enjoy what they see on the track in the present.

The Hall of Fame is great, but make sure to recognize Hall of Fame achievements when they happen. Hendrick Motorsports, Jimmie Johnson and the #48 team are in the midst of Hall of Fame achievements. It would be a shame to miss them.

Rating the All-Star Race: 4 Stars ****

NASCAR’s all-star’s fired up for an intense 90 laps Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway in what might have been the best race of the season. That said, Jimmie Johnson once again to the drama out of the end and ran away to grab his third all-star win. Still, the All-Star Race gets a 4 Star Rating.

Fans have waited pretty much all season for a race where the drivers really got after it and raced hard for every spot. Boy, we certainly had that Saturday night. This race had by far more three-wide racing and hold-your-breath moments than there has been in any race this season outside Daytona and Talladega.

This race might have been considered for a five-star rating, but Johnson took any drama out of the finish.

Plus, the All-Star Race also showed that NASCAR can have a good race without wrecks. All of the complaints about the lack of wrecks had begun to get a little ridiculous. Hopefully people understand after watching this race that we don’t have to have cautions for a good race.

Sure, the segments meant the drivers had to race hard only 20 laps at a time, but they also weren’t content to ride around all night. The drivers certainly were up on the chip a little more Saturday night than for a normal race, but there can be full 500-mile races that have more green-flag action than what we’ve seen lately.

A couple of additional factors may have played into why this was such a good race.

First, the race was at Charlotte Motor Speedway, which is an excellent track for NASCAR racing. Drivers can race side by side, but the track is also narrow enough that it creates very tight situations. The high side in Turns 1 and 2 creates a great run down the backstretch, but a car on the low side in Turns 3 and 4 can hang on and actually come out of the turn with the lead. Having those options is critical to a good race.

Second, NASCAR shortened the side skirts on the sides of the cars to take away some downforce. That is a factor that will take a few more races to determine how much it affects the cars, but early indications are it helped take some of the stability out of the cars to allow for more movement throughout the field.

The format changes by adding a segment also worked out very well. Even though the winners of each segment dropped to the back until the end, the other 17 or 18 cars raced plenty hard to fill the action. Plus, Johnson might have very well kicked butt all night if he had stayed up front.

Anyway, congratulations to Johnson and the #48 team. Although many people can’t stand their success, Johnson is the Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt or Jeff Gordon of this era. He and Hendrick Motorsports are putting up historic numbers that will become the standard for future generations.

Hopefully the All-Star Race is a sign of things to come. It has been a quiet start to the season, but the last couple of weeks have been better.

Now once we get through this week, one of the best racing weekends of the entire year is upon us. Almost every big-time racing series has a great race on Memorial Day weekend.

So stock up on some good food and have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Southern 500: 4 Stars ****

The Sprint Cup Series visited one of the sport’s most historic tracks Saturday night for a long, tough race that had a historic win and the first postrace scuffle of the season. A Southern 500 that had a touch of everything gets a 4 Star Rating.

First, massive congratulations are due for Jimmie Johnson, the #48 team and team owner Rick Hendrick for getting Hendrick Motorsports’ 200^th victory at one of NASCAR’s crown jewel events.

Although many people love to hate Hendrick teams because they win all the time, they should at least greatly respect this accomplishment. The 200-win number is similar to the all-time homerun record in baseball. It is a milestone that is reached less than once a generation.

Petty Enterprises is the only other organization to reach 200 wins. It has 268, which Hendrick could possibly reach in the next five or six years.

Johnson also moved past Rusty Wallace for eighth on the all-time driver wins list. Again, like him or not, Johnson is right at the top of any list about greatest NASCAR drivers, and he showed why again Saturday at Darlington.

Lately, a late caution has caused several lead changes and somebody different to show up at the front late in the race. Tony Stewart certainly tried to make a run at Johnson during the final two runs, but Johnson drove flawlessly the last half of the race to maintain his lead and take the win.

This was a vintage Johnson performance. There is little reason to think he won’t continue to have strong runs and once again be a popular pick to win the championship come Chase time.

The Southern 500 is always one of the longest races of the year, but once again the field put together long green-flag runs. The first caution for non-existent debris didn’t come until lap 172 after Johnson had started to stretch his lead.

After the initial caution, the yellow flag became popular in the second half of the race and we got our second consecutive green-white-checkered finish.

However, the most interesting incident of the evening happened after the checkered flag. Kurt Busch supposedly nearly hit some of Ryan Newman’s pit crew members, and after the race Newman’s gas man headed over to Busch’s #51 car to take care of business.

The big guy never quite made it to Busch, but both sides exchanged shoves and heated comments. Whether or not the incident results in penalties for anybody, this is a situation Busch couldn’t afford.

After losing his ride in the #22 car after a profanity-laced tirade against ESPN reporter Jerry Punch, Busch had to be on his best behavior this season to help him score another top-notch ride and save his career.

He drove the wheels off of the #51 car (literally, unfortunately) and had the car inside the top 10 late in the race. That proves the guy has talent. Several drivers have driven what is now the #51 car in recent years, including rising star Brad Keseloski, and none of them consistently had that car in the top half of the field.

Busch could’ve used those types of performances to prove that he deserves another fully funded car to compete for a championship. But his temper will make that extremely difficult. With drivers such as Trevor Bayne who have squeaky-clean reputations sitting on the sidelines, it is tough to imagine a company wanting Busch to represent them ahead of a driver such as Bayne.

In any case, the Cup teams get to head home for the next two weeks and enjoy the rest of the month racing at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The All-Star race comes up next and then it’s on to the longest race of the year with the Coca-Cola 600. May is a great month of racing, and there is plenty left to enjoy.

Have a great All-Star week, everybody.

Chad Knaus’ suspension again delayed, but why doesn’t Jimmie Johnson still have his 25 points?

Hendrick Motorsports got the expected answer from a three-person appeals board Tuesday over its appeal of NASCAR’s penalties on the #48 team from Daytona: The penalties won’t be changed.

NASCAR had penalized the team 25 driver and owner points, fined crew chief Chad Knaus $100,000, and suspended Knaus and car chief Ron Malec for illegal C-posts on the back of the #48 car that were found during the opening inspection for Speedweeks.

Owner Rick Hendrick then filed an appeal that was finally shot down Tuesday.
But that’s not all. Hendrick has one more option, and he will use it. He will file an appeal of the appeal one level higher with the final judge on this case, John Middlebrook.

Although the next appeal doesn’t appear to be any more successful than this last one, Knaus and Malec will both still be at Bristol Motor Speedway this coming weekend. They won’t officially serve their suspensions until the horse has been beaten, buried, exhumed and buried again.

However, there is one part of the penalty that has already been enforced: the 25 points. Sure, it is easy to reverse that on the standings sheet if the next appeal is successful, but it doesn’t make sense to take away Jimmie Johnson’s points when Knaus hasn’t paid his fine or served his suspension.

Let’s say the #48 team crashed early at Bristol this week and was on the bubble of the top 35 in points that guarantee a car a spot in the race. Those 25 points could potentially make a huge difference in whether or not the team had a guaranteed spot in two weeks at Martinsville, which is when the top 35 rule goes into effect for this year’s points standings.

If the appeal isn’t heard by the April 1 race at Martinsville, Johnson could be outside the top 35 in points. But, if the appeal is later overturned, Johnson could’ve been cheated out of a spot in the Martinsville race because of points he never should’ve been docked until the final appeal was heard.

That means Johnson could miss a race because only part of the penalties were enforced after Daytona. If Knaus and Malec aren’t required to sit out races immediately following NASCAR’s announcement of the penalties, Johnson shouldn’t officially lose those 25 points until all of the appeals have been heard.

Johnson would currently be tied for 13th in the standings without the penalties, but instead he sits 23rd.

Penalties similar to this situation could also really mess up the Chase if NASCAR penalizes a team near the cutoff race in September at Richmond. If a team misses the Chase by less than 25 points but then has the appeal overturned after the Chase starts, would they be given back a Chase spot and somebody else kicked out?

There have been controversies in NASCAR before, but imagine how large this one would be.

Even though these are very hypothetical situations that are unlikely to happen this time, crazy things happen in NASCAR and one day this one could jump up and bite NASCAR pretty hard.

NASCAR buries crew chief Chad Knaus and #48 team with major penalties

Jimmie Johnson, his crew chief Chad Knaus and the #48 team could not have started off the 2012 Sprint Cup Series season much worse.

Johnson wrecked in the Budweiser Shootout, wrecked on lap 2 of the Daytona 500 and now Knaus is staring down the barrel of a six-race suspension.

NASCAR announced penalties Wednesday for the #48 team that stemmed from a technical violation on the first day of Speedweeks Feb. 17 with the “C-posts” that run down the sides of the rear window. NASCAR officials determined the sheetmetal on those posts to be too rounded and had the team replace them, with the threat of additional penalties once Speedweeks finished.

NASCAR lived up to that threat and delivered penalties that include a six-race suspension for Knaus and the #48 team car chief Ron Malec, as well as probation until the May 9. The sanctioning body also fined Knaus $100,000 and docked the team 25 owner and driver points.

That means Johnson will head to the race at Phoenix International Raceway with -23 points after he finished 42nd in the Daytona 500, a full 70 points behind points leader Matt Kenseth. That’s no small hill to climb, even for the #48 team.

Johnson is now nearly two full races out of the points lead and he has only run two laps in the entire season. The #48 team is going to have to be patient and methodically work its way back to the front. This is not the type of hole a team can dig out of quickly.

However, Knaus and Malec will likely still be with the team this week in Phoenix. Hendrick Motorsports is going to appeal the ruling, and it could take weeks before their appeal is heard. In the meantime, Knaus and Malec will continue to lead the #48 team at the racetrack.

Don’t overlook the penalties to Malec. He is a very intelligent crew member and an integral part of that team. That penalty might be where NASCAR really stuck it to the #48 team.

Overall, the severity of these penalties were suprising. NASCAR found the violation before the cars ever hit the racetrack, so Johnson never had an unfair advantage in racing conditions. Still, NASCAR has precedent for this type of reaction.

Officials found problems with the front bumpers of Johnson’s and teammate Jeff Gordon’s cars during initial inspection for the 2007 race at the road course in Sonoma. Both Knaus and Gordon’s crew chief at the time, Steve Letarte, were suspended for the next six races, fined $100,000 and the teams were docked 100 points, although the points system was different in 2007 than it is now.

People will debate long and hard about whether the penalties for the #48 team were too harsh, too lenient or just right, and often that simply depends on how much people root for a particular driver.

It will be interesting to see the decision on the appeal. Knaus did win an appeal in 2005 to dodge a two-race suspension for the roof being too low on the #48 car. That said, appeals are rarely overturned and Hendrick Motorsports will likely have to dig deeper in its drawer of talented crew members to fill the void.

Although this is a horrible start to the season, do not dismiss Johnson from the championship picture. He has come back from some major points deficits before to win the championship, and sometimes setbacks push a great team to perform even better.

For example, Johnson won the 2006 Daytona 500 after Knaus was kicked out of Speedweeks and won the championship after overcoming a 165-point deficit with just seven races remaining.

These penalties won’t destroy the #48 team, but it does need something positive to happen this week at Phoenix. At this point keeping the car in one piece might be good enough.

Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus penalized after Daytona 500

NASCAR announced Wednesday that five-time Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson and his crew chief Chad Knaus have been penalized as a result of rules infractions found on Feb. 17 during opening day inspection for the Daytona 500.
Knaus and car chief Ron Malec have been suspended for the next six NASCAR Sprint Cup races and placed on NASCAR probation until May 9th. Knaus has also been fined $100,000.
Johnson and car owner Jeff Gordon have been penalized with the loss of 25 driver and 25 owner points, respectively.

Wow. What a blow to the No. 48 team. Nobody was sure how bad the penalties would be, or even if they would come. But boy did they.
If five-time is going to become six-time he's going to be in a deep hole. With the 25-point penalty and his 42nd place finish in the Daytona 500, Johnson sits at -23 points, or 70 points behind points-leader Matt Kenseth.

On a more immediate note, Johnson and company sit 32 points behind the Wood Brothers No. 21 car in owner points. That's a 12 place finish if the Wood Brothers don't enter the No. 21 at Phoenix.

This is Johnson we're talking about though. If anyone can make up such a big deficit by the fifth week of the season it's him. Not like it would matter if he couldn't though, he'd make the races based on speed and even if that failed, he's got a past champions provisional to fall back on.

As far as Knaus goes, his prior infractions obviously led to the six-race suspension and long probation. Rick Hendrick and company are appealing the penalties so Knaus will be at Phoenix.

This should be fun to watch. Remember, the last time Knaus and crew were suspended, Johnson went on to win the Daytona 500 and later, the Sprint Cup Championship.

I think the penalties are fair, if you agree that the No. 48 crew needed to be penalized. But I'm not 100 percent sure I agree they should have. Hendrick claims the car that got penalized was the same one Johnson drove at all four restrictor plate races last season.

What do you guys think? Was the penalty too big, too small or just right?

#48 team’s rule infraction par for the course at Speedweeks

The 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season was less than 24 hours old and NASCAR officials already had a controversy on their hands.

Jimmie Johnson and his #48 Hendrick Motorsports team showed up at Daytona International Speedway with pieces of the car that didn’t quite fit with NASCAR regulations.

The Lowe’s Chevrolet had a “C post” on the car that NASCAR deemed to be outside of the rules, and it would’ve given the car an aerodynamic advantage.

The C post is the piece of metal that runs across the top of the passenger window down to the trunk lid. NASCAR said the C post on Johnson’s car was rounded too much.

The team had to change the C posts on the car and NASCAR will likely announce any penalties in the days following the Daytona 500.

However, this type of issue should not be a shocking development during Speedweeks.

Sure, this gives fans who don’t like Johnson, Knaus or the entire #48 team another chance to shout from the mountaintops that the team is full of cheaters. However, plenty of seasons start with some sort of controversy.

The #48 team had a similar situation happen in 2006, and NASCAR sent crew chief Chad Knaus home for the rest of Speedweeks. It didn't matter, though. Johnson still went on to win the Daytona 500.

Michael Waltrip Racing also got busted for having rocket fuel in its cars during the team’s first Speedweeks in 2007.

More often than not, one story quickly dominates headlines during Speedweeks, and Johnson’s issue is just this year’s version.

While it’s nice to say anyone who works on the edges of the rule book should have it thrown at them when they go too far, but pushing the envelope is a crew chief’s job.

Some of the best crew chiefs in the history in the sport occasionally go too far in their innovations.

For example, Ray Evernham built a car for Jeff Gordon in the 1997 Winston all-star race that absolutely dominated the event at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The car didn’t officially break any rules, but NASCAR told Evernham he couldn’t run that car again.

Does that mean Evernham cheated for that race? No, he was just the most innovative, and best, crew chief of his time.

Chad Knaus is the same way. NASCAR and team officials said the #48 car likely would’ve passed inspection and fit the templates. The problem was the areas between the template points that NASCAR said was the problem.

Generally, these types of issues happen during Speedweeks because teams have an entire offseason to optimize their Daytona 500 car.

A new season is also the first time teams work with the current year’s rules and car models. Even though NASCAR mandates nearly every part of a car these days, there is always going to be a breaking in period at the beginning of the season.

If something like the #48 team’s issue comes up in a few weeks there might be a more severe reaction, but Speedweeks is similar to the first round of golf for a year. The teams have to work out some the kinks.

However, these issues give people plenty to talk about during Speedweeks, and they usually set the stage for quite an interesting year.

If the first day was any indication, there will be plenty of topics to debate throughout this season.

Ironically, knee surgery should make Kasey Kahne a favorite to win Daytona

Kasey Kahne was set to have one of the best years of his career in 2012 as he moved to Hendrick Motorsports to drive the #5 car, but then he underwent outpatient knee surgery last week to repair a torn meniscus.

Now he is almost certain to have the best season ever. He will probably contend for the championship and his odds of winning the Daytona 500 dramatically improved.

Most people might consider it a problem to have knee surgery (no matter how “minor”) just one week before the season starts. But, this is NASCAR we’re talking about.

For whatever reason, NASCAR drivers tend to turn into superstars when they have injuries to their legs.

Denny Hamlin underwent surgery to repair the ACL in his left knee in March 2010. He won at Martinsville with the injury just two days before the surgery and then went on to win seven more races and nearly win the championship.

Brad Keselowski became superhuman in 2011 after he broke his ankle in a testing accident in August. He won the next week at Pocono Raceway and finished the season fifth in the points standings with three wins.

Following those examples, Kahne has to be the favorite to win Saturday’s Budweiser Shootout or the Daytona 500 on Feb. 26.

To fuel the fire even more, this isn’t the first time Kahne has had to race after a knee surgery. Kahne has had four knee surgeries in the last 15 months, including last April before the spring race at Richmond.

He finished third in that race.

Maybe a leg injury for a NASCAR driver is similar to Tommy John surgery for a baseball pitcher. When a pitcher gets his elbow fixed he usually comes back throwing harder than he did before the surgery. It looks like NASCAR drivers drive faster than before their injury.

Obviously, it is likely just coincidence that all of these drivers have great races following leg injuries, or maybe an extra bit of competitive drive comes out in a driver when he is hobbled by a medical problem.

Granted, drivers don’t run up and down a field or court all day, but navigating a race track at 180-plus mph for 500 miles is no picnic.

Combine Kahne’s knee operation with the facts that Hendrick Motorsports is the dominant team in NASCAR and has won 10 Sprint Cup Series championships, and Daytona International Speedway might as well engrave Kahne’s name in the Harley J. Earl Trophy and put it in Victory Lane.

Even if there is some crazy reason NASCAR drivers run well (pardon the pun) after leg injuries, it would be even more remarkable if Kahne won at Daytona because circumstances determine a finishing position at restrictor-plate tracks as much or more so than the quality of car.

Also, regardless of the knee situation Kahne should have a very good season. He is in the prime of his career and in the best equipment he’s ever driven.

But, if Kahne wins during Speedweeks maybe some young drivers will want to spring for a knee surgery to help them race better.

Nah, we kid because we care.

Great championship battle reaches climax

Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart have battled as close as any two drivers can battle during the Chase, and that could make Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway a memorable one.



Sure, the final race of the year is always a big one. The champion is crowned, several drivers are in their last race with their current teams and it is the last time we’ll see racing again until February.

But often people tend to forget the final race of the season at least as quickly as other races, if not more so.

The fun of the offseason kicks in quickly as the final drivers find their ride for the next year and any other news that tends to drop out of the NASCAR sky. For example, Hendrick Motorsports switched three of its crew chiefs just two days after Jimmie Johnson won his fifth title in a row.

However, this year’s final race could be one that is remembered right along with the 1992 race at Atlanta where Alan Kulwicki won the championship and the 2004 race at Homestead where Kurt Busch survived a tire falling off to still win the closest Chase battle ever.

Good races with intriguing storylines, no matter where they fall on the schedule, have a longer life in a race fan’s mind than another bland championship coronation in the Nationwide Series this year and the not-so-close finishes in five of the first seven years of the Chase.

Yes, other drivers have been mathematically in contention at Homestead, but Stewart had a 52-point lead heading into the last race of his 2005 championship season, and Johnson had a lead of at least 63 points in his first four championship seasons.

Even last year’s race felt like a formality before Johnson raised the trophy after Denny Hamlin wrecked early in the race and effectively ended any chance he had of maintaining the 15-point lead he had entering the race.

But not this year. Edwards and Stewart have both been the two best drivers the last two weeks, and they have been able to put on a show where for once it is OK to forget about the rest of the field. The way these two guys are running, it would probably be an entertaining race if they were the only two cars on the track.



Hopefully the championship contenders qualify close to each other and run up at the front of the field for the balance of the race. This has the chance to be one of the most intense battles the sport has seen in years.

But, that doesn’t mean there will be fender-rubbing and fights after the race. Fans would probably get a kick out of that type of situation, but this race will more likely be a clean, close race that will keep fans chewing on their fingernails until the final laps.

These are two aggressive drivers, and they have as much incentive as any to give everything they have to win Sunday’s race. That’s not to say they haven’t been giving their all. Their battle two-thirds of the way through the race at Phoenix was fantastic.

If they race like that again this week, maybe everyone will remember the final race of the season.

Ford engines are new leaders in NASCAR

After years of domination by Chevrolet teams, the Ford group has come back with the best start to its season since all five Roush cars made the Chase in 2005.

The Ford camp made this abundantly clear during the past two weeks at Charlotte Motor Speedway where Fords led a combined 319 of the 502 laps run in the All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600.

Plus, the teams that have dominated the past five years or so had troubles of their own Sunday night. Two favorites to win the Coca-Cola 600, Jamie McMurray and Jimmie Johnson, blew engines.

While they were both driving Chevrolets, they aren’t on the same team and have different engines. McMurray had an Earnhardt-Childress engine under the hood while Jimmie Johnson had a Hendrick engine.

It might not be terribly surprising the Fords have finally come back to the front of the field on tracks where horsepower and aerodynamics are important, but it is surprising to see the failures from the Chevrolets.

The Earnhardt-Childress engines won nine races last season, including all four of the restrictor-plate races, and all of those wins came on tracks that were at least one mile in length.

Hendrick engines also won nine races last season, with Johnson bringing home six of those wins.

The #48 car has been the gold standard in the Sprint Cup Series nearly since it was formed in 2002. The Lowe’s Chevrolet simply never breaks down, but it did Sunday night.

Are we seeing a changing of the guard? Possibly. The #48 team doesn’t always have a great first half of the season, and it likely will be in contention for the championship late into the Chase, if not all the way to Homestead again, but an engine problem combined with the resurgence of Roush-Fenway Racing has the path to a sixth championship a bit more cluttered.

The other aspect to this issue is the Ford engines. The FR9 engine has been in development for several years, and it just started running full time last season. However, the teams running the new engine are reaping the benefits in 2011.

NASCAR recently took an engine from each manufacturer and found they all make similar power. So, where does the Fords’ advantage come from? Maybe it has to do with more than raw horsepower. One feature of the new Ford engine was that it had a lower center of gravity and ran cooler than the old engine.

These factors help with the overall setup of the car just as much as the power to move the car forward. It’s great to have a fast car down the straightaways, but it doesn’t do much good if the car won’t turn in the corners.

So, the teams can use a lower center of gravity to help the car turn in the corners and a lower water temperature allows the team to run more tape on the grill, which gives the car more downforce.

Maybe it’s not so much the Fords all of a sudden have more power than everybody else; maybe they just have the ability to use that power more effectively.

In any case, the Fords are as strong right now as they have been in a long time, and they could hold this advantage for a while as other teams adjust to try and keep up.

500 miles at night usually brings good, solid racing

A 500-mile race like the one coming up at Texas on Saturday night is an endurance test, even today with all of the fancy engine and cooling technology on the cars, and this type of race is also nice because people don’t have to panic and be up on the chip at the very beginning of the race.

So to begin the first of the season that hasn't been run on Sunday afternoon, it’s time to shine the cars up and go racing under the lights.

The daylight portion of the first half of the season is over, and NASCAR will turn on the lights Saturday night to begin a stretch of the schedule where six of the next eight races are at night.

For the first time in several years, every race up to April has been at the 1 p.m. local time start since Phoenix moved into the second spot on the schedule and Fontana took the final March weekend.

As come the night races, so does the second stretch of the season. Yes, we had an off week in the second weekend of March, but that was still in the middle of the early season.

We are now getting close to the point where the season is no longer considered new and it is time to hit the long grind that is the summer stretch. If the All-Star Race is included, there isn’t another weekend after Easter without Cup racing until the weekend of July 24.

This weekend is also the second 1.5-mile speedway of the season. The Fords were incredibly strong at the other mile-and-a-half track of the season, Las Vegas, and Carl Edwards won the race, and Greg Biffle certainly could have if he hadn’t had problems in the pits.

If the Ford power shows itself again this weekend, and it looks like it will, as David Ragan was fastest in practice Thursday, this could really be a dogfight into the summer among the Chevrolets of Richard Childress Racing and Hendrick Motorsports and the Fords of Roush Fenway Racing.

The Joe Gibbs Racing camp has struggled with engine issues early this season, but once those get worked out the Gibbs cars will be fighting for wins, as well, and they have in several races already.

So sit back and enjoy the first Saturday night race of the season. It should be a show. These 500-mile races at tracks such as Texas, Atlanta and Charlotte always seem to bring out some of the best racing, a large part of which is because of the length of the race.

People love to say they want the drivers to drive like crazy from the start of the race, but a large part of a race is also about the flow that develops in green-flag runs, similar to the pace of a baseball game.

Don’t worry, there will be plenty of cautions throughout the night and at night’s end everyone will be on their feet cheering or yelling at the TV, but the journey there is important and it’s part of the fun.

Hendrick shuffles crew chiefs and teams for 2011

Just days after winning his 10th championship, Rick Hendrick has swapped the crew chiefs for 75 percent of his organization and switched which teams will work in the same shop together for the 2011 season.

Steve Letarte will move from Jeff Gordon’s #24 team to lead Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the #88 team. Earnhardt Jr.’s former crew chief Lance McGrew will take the position with Mark Martin’s #5 team previously held by Alan Gustafson, who will call the shots for Gordon in 2011.

The only team left intact this offseason is the championship winning #48 team with Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus. However, it is still unclear whether the old #48 pit crew will return to pit Johnson’s car in 2011 or if it will remain with the #24 group. Also, the #48 team will be affected by the changes because it will no longer be able to work side-by-side with the #24 team. Instead, the often dysfunctional #88 team will move in alongside.

Obviously, Hendrick wants to make Earnhardt Jr. as competitive as possible, but is he risking the overall success of his organization to do so? The #48 and #24 teams have both finished in the top 10 in the final standings in eight out of the last nine seasons, or every year but one of Johnson’s career.

The main issue at hand is the performance of the #88 team. If Earnhardt Jr. had made the Chase and Martin came nowhere close, I don’t think we would have seen these changes. Overall, as with most changes, there are pros and cons to the move.

First, if Earnhardt Jr. isn’t successful in 2011, he’s never going to be successful at Hendrick Motorsports. Hendrick promised in 2010 to give the #88 team all of the resources necessary to put a competitive car on the track, yet Earnhardt Jr. was rarely in contention at any race. So, now Hendrick has gone to the edge. He broke up the dynasty that was the 24/48 shop. The success out of that shop has been unmatched in the sport for a decade, but now it may finally come to an end.

For those who love to hate Johnson and Gordon, 2011 might be the year those two slip. Knaus and Johnson will still be right at the top of the standings in 2011, but they will also be carrying the weight of the #88 team, even though Letarte and Knaus will still be able to work together. I guess we’ll finally find out whether it’s the driver or the car that hasn’t been able to make the #88 team go.

Overall, the crew chief change will probably work out well for Gordon, because Gustafson knows what he is doing on top of a pit box. That guy is good. However, the other two moves might not work out quite as well.

If Letarte hasn’t been able to win with Gordon in almost two years, why would he suddenly find Victory Lane with Earnhardt Jr.? But, the most confusing move in all of this is the thought of McGrew working with Martin. I just don’t see those two personalities meshing very well. McGrew is a tough guy who was brought in to bring some discipline to the #88 team and get away from the family/buddy team Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Eury Jr. had assembled.

Martin is a professional in every sense of the word, and he doesn’t need a hard-nosed guy to lead his team. At this point, Martin also knows what he needs out of a car better than almost any driver in the field, and a technical guy on the pit box can work with him to dial it in. McGrew is not that type of guy. He is there to motivate people, something Martin does not need.

Maybe these changes won’t noticeably affect the performance of the Hendrick cars, but the door is now open for the Hendrick dynasty to come to an end. NASCAR has hurt itself in the past decade by making short-sighted changes; maybe Hendrick just made such a change.

Kasey Kahne Makes his Move

With a surprising, and early, move to begin the 2010 Silly Season, Kasey Kahne has signed with Hendrick Motorsports to drive the #5 car in 2012. That’s right, 2012. Two years away.

That leaves Kahne, and Budweiser, without a ride for 2011 at the moment, not that Kahne should have a tough time finding a ride for next season. A few different scenarios could play out here.

Kahne could move to Stewart-Haas Racing for next season since that is a satellite program of Hendrick Motorsports anyway. Or, the ever-possible move of JR Motorsports to the Cup level could happen next year.

Think about this, Danica Patrick signed a two-year deal to drive the #7 car in the Nationwide series, leaving her with the option to move up to the Cup series in 2012. One of the questions that has cropped up with Kahne making this move is what Budweiser will do. In all likelihood, it will not stay at Richard Petty Motorsports. This is just another blow to an organization that has, for the most part, struggled since Kahne won six races for what was then Evernham Motorsports in 2006.

The way thing are shaping up, no matter what Kahne does next season, JR Motorsports would become a Sprint Cup team with Patrick in 2012, taking the GoDaddy.com sponsorship from Hendrick’s #5 car. That would leave Budweiser with the opportunity to hop on the #5 car with Kahne in 2012.

So, if Kahne goes to Stewart-Haas in 2011, Budweiser would likely follow and then move to Hendrick in 2012. If JR Motorsports becomes a Cup team in 2011, Kahne could go there and essentially trade sponsorships with the #5 car when Patrick moves up the following season.

All of this is speculation at this point, but Kahne will be fine. He just signed a contract with the best team in NASCAR. Maybe this shows just how much better Hendrick Motorsports is than everybody else in the garage if a driver is willing to wait basically two years before having the chance to actually drive one of its cars.

As for Kahne moving, the surprise isn’t that he will be leaving RPM at the end of the season. That was expected, especially with the terrible start to the season that has him sitting 26th in the points standings. The surprise is the fact that he signed with the best team in racing, even when they didn’t have a spot open for him. Kahne is a top-tier driver and, although through very long-range planning, has cemented himself as a title contender for the next decade.

However, not that he was on the path to a title this season anyway, this does kind of put the nail in the coffin for his 2010 title hopes, and probably 2011 as well. But, once he gets in the #5 car, Kahne could be a real title threat for many years.

So, welcome to Silly Season. Remember when driver movement wasn’t discussed until, at the earliest, August or September? It’s April, and we just had a deal go down for something that can’t even happen for two years.

Many people expected this to be a big free agent offseason with two big names in Kahne and Kevin Harvick in the final year of their respective contracts, but a move this early is a shock to the system.

Strap down your driver/team charts, folks, because this Silly Season could, and already has been, huge and could play a big part in aligning the power structure in NASCAR for the next several years.