Earnhardt really IS close to victory -- and the stats prove it

Cool-Down Lap: Earnhardt really IS close to victory -- and the stats prove it

April 29, 2012: Commentary

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

RICHMOND, Va. -- One of these days -- and that day may come very soon -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. will win a Sprint Cup race and put an end to what several writers have facetiously called NASCAR's "long national nightmare."

Earnhardt last tasted victory in the Cup series on June 15, 2008 at Michigan, not quite halfway through the first year of a lucrative contract with Hendrick Motorsports.

Since that race, Earnhardt has changed crew chiefs twice, a testament to his struggles to master the new racecar NASCAR introduced in 2007 and incorporated into the series full-time in 2008. He finished 25th in the final standings in 2009 and 21st in 2010.

When owner Rick Hendrick's bold reshuffling of personnel after the 2010 season matched Earnhardt with Steve Letarte, Jeff Gordon's former crew chief, Earnhardt's performance improved. In 2011, he qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup for the first time since 2008 and ended the season seventh in the standings.

Earnhardt's performance this year has put to rest any notion that last year's success with Letarte was merely the sort of honeymoon that sometimes accompanies a crew chief change. Yes, Earnhardt's winless streak grew to 138 races Saturday night at Richmond, but consider the rest of the story.

Since his last victory in 2008, Earnhardt has finished second seven times and third four times. Two of those runner-up finishes have come this year, most recently on Saturday night. Likewise, Earnhardt has fashioned two of his third-place runs this season, giving him four top-three finishes in nine races this year.

In seven of nine races, he has finished in the top 10. As a measure of his consistency this season, Earnhardt's WORST finish this season is a 15th at Bristol. In the third race of the season, at Las Vegas, Earnhardt led more laps (70) than he had all last year (52).

Saturday night's runner-up finish propelled Earnhardt to second in the Cup standings, five points behind series leader Greg Biffle.

All the numbers argue that Earnhardt is every bit as close to a breakthrough win as he believes he is.

A newfound maturity behind the wheel is part of the equation. When Hendrick announced the pairing with Letarte, one of Earnhardt's first reactions was that he would have to tone down his language on the radio -- because Letarte's wife and children would be listening.

As a consequence, the invective that permeated Earnhardt's radio chatter with cousin Tony Eury Jr., who served as crew chief until mid-2009, has all but disappeared.

"I've always been uncensored, (but) I think I've gotten a lot better since working with Steve," Earnhardt said Friday before opening practice at Richmond. "Obviously, Steve is not family, and there are things you can say to your family, and you won't say those things to other people."

Instead of cussing his car, Earnhardt has learned to choose his words more carefully, and the quality of his feedback has improved.

"He's definitely made me more accountable . . . for the words I choose to use and how I choose to describe the car to him," Earnhardt said of his crew chief. "He's not going to put up with me verbally abusing him or the equipment. I wouldn't expect anything less than him being a professional as well."

The performance on the racetrack is a litmus test of just how proficient the driver/crew chief collaboration has become.

When Rick Hendrick hired Earnhardt in 2008, his stated goal was to win races and championships. Those who scoffed at the notion and insisted that Earnhardt was merely a cash cow with a gift for moving merchandise from his fleet of trackside trailers are about to stop laughing.

Earnhardt will win a race this season, sooner rather than later, and he'll likely win more than one. Hendrick will get his coveted 200th Cup win, and Earnhardt may be the one to deliver it.

That achievement would pale in comparison, however, to an 11th Cup title for the organization. Given the consistency of Earnhardt's performance this year, seats at the head table for the Sprint Cup awards banquet aren't out of the question for the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet and his crew chief.

ITAL/The opinions expressed are solely those of the author/ITAL

Kyle Busch capitalizes on late caution for Richmond win

Kyle Busch capitalizes on late caution for Richmond win

April 28, 2012 (EDITORS: Writethru/results)

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

RICHMOND, Va. -- Pulling away from Dale Earnhardt Jr. after a restart with eight laps left in Saturday night's Capital City 400 at Richmond International Raceway, Kyle Busch streaked to his fourth straight victory in the spring race at the .75-mile track.

The win was Busch's first of the season and the 24th of his career, tying him with his brother, 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Kurt Busch, for 26th all-time.

Tony Stewart, the race leader before the fifth and final caution for debris in Turn 2, lost ground on the restart and finished third. Denny Hamlin ran fourth, followed by Kasey Kahne.

The race turned on the last caution, which Stewart said was called because of a plastic water bottle in Turn 2. Stewart was strong on long runs but uncharacteristically slow off the mark on restarts, and Busch took full advantage.

The first step was beating Stewart off pit road during the final four-tire stop on Lap 388 of 400 and gaining control of the restart.

"I don't know where that last caution came from, but it was our saving grace," Busch said in Victory Lane. "It was a gift. We came down pit road and (crew chief) Dave Rogers and the guys went to work and gave us a great pit stop, got me out front.

"(That) gave me the lead so I could restart the race how I wanted to. That was the win right there."

As he approached the finish line, Busch radioed to his crew: "What up, boys -- we're back!"

It was a stellar weekend for the race winner, who won Friday night's Nationwide Series event as a car owner, with brother Kurt behind the wheel of the Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota.

Earnhardt, who took over second in the standings -- five points behind series leader and 18th-place finish Greg Biffle -- experienced brake problems for much of the race, but used the late restart to improve his position after Stewart fell back.

"We had some brake problems all race long," Earnhardt explained. "I had a great restart, and I ran really great for one lap, and the pedal went back to the floor. I just had to pump it up all the way down the straightaway and I didn't have any front brakes getting into the corner, so I couldn't get in real hard.

"It would just get loose locking the rears up. So even with the brakes working, I think the No. 18 (Busch) was just a little bit better than us all night."

Slow pit stops cost Stewart track position on more than one occasion, but it was the final caution that proved the undoing of the defending Cup champion, who has three Richmond victories but none since 2002.

"When the caution is for a plastic bottle on the backstretch, it's hard to feel good about losing that one," said Stewart, who led Busch by more than a second when the yellow flag waved. "And we gave it away on pit road. So we did everything we could to throw it away; it got taken away from us.

"That's the best car I've had at Richmond in a long time. So I'm really proud of that and (crew chief) Steve Addington, and I'm proud of our guys. But we've got some work to do on pit stops right now. I don't know what their malfunction was but I'm pretty ticked off about it tonight."

A caution for Jeff Burton's crash into the Turn 3 wall on Lap 311 interrupted a cycle of green-flag pit stops and scrambled the running order.

Jimmie Johnson, who came to pit road when the caution flew, was penalized for a tire violation on his pit stop -- after one of his crewmen rolled a tire unattended toward the pit wall -- and had to restart on Lap 319 from the tail end of the field.

That same restart proved disastrous for Edwards, who was black-flagged for jumping the start after he put the power down, in NASCAR's judgment, before reaching the double red restart lines on the outside wall.

Forced to serve a pass-through penalty, Edwards dropped to 15th, 17 seconds behind Stewart. On lap 372, Stewart put Edwards a lap down and pulled away from Busch in second place to a lead of nearly two seconds.

Johnson rallied to finish sixth, but Edwards, who led a race-high 210 laps, had to settle for 10th, after getting back on the lead lap as the free-pass car under the last caution.

Notebook: Busch brother act has careers back on track

Notebook: Busch brother act has careers back on track

April 29, 2012

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

RICHMOND, Va. -- At the end of the 2011 season, brothers Kurt and Kyle Busch both had mountains to climb, and doubtless they drew strength from each other as they began the ascent together.

Driving relentlessly for two heart-stopping laps at the end of Friday night's Virginia 529 College Savings 250 at Richmond International Raceway, Kurt Busch held off charging Denny Hamlin in a milestone victory for the driver and his car owner, Kyle Busch.

The win was the first for Kyle Busch Motorsports, which made its entry into the NASCAR Nationwide Series this season with one car, the No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota, shared by the two brothers.

The collaboration has brought Kurt and Kyle closer together. In previous years, with Kyle running extensive schedules in all three of NASCAR's top series, their lives had less chance to intersect, even at the racetrack.

As Kurt and Kyle recover from missteps that waylaid their careers last season, they have begun the journey together.

Last November, in a fit of pique, Kyle wrecked Camping World Truck Series title contender Ron Hornaday Jr. under caution at Texas. Kyle was parked for the rest of the weekend, but the consequences were more far-reaching than that.

At the behest of his sponsor, M&M's, and Sprint Cup employer, Joe Gibbs Racing, Kyle is embargoed from racing trucks, even though he owns his own NCWTS team, and even though his cash flow would be demonstrably better if he were behind the wheel.

Kyle no longer drives the No. 18 Gibbs Toyota in the Nationwide Series -- the car in which he won 38 of his series-record 51 races. To maintain his Nationwide presence, Kyle expanded his own team to that series and hired his brother as co-driver.

Kurt's career needed a boost, too. After one of the seemingly omnipresent amateur cameras caught his rant against TV pit reporter Jerry Punch in the garage during the season finale at Homestead, Kurt parted with Penske Racing by mutual agreement at the end of the 2011 season, giving up a Chase-worthy ride in the No. 22 Dodge.

But there was an upside to the adversity. The brothers had a chance to work together for the first time in their respective careers, and on Friday night, their collaboration bore fruit.

After the race, Kyle leaned into the car and spoke emotionally to his brother. They hugged -- more than once.

"He just couldn't believe that we got this car to victory lane," Kurt said. "You could just feel his hand trembling (thinking), 'I'm an owner -- I don't know what to think,' but he knows he could have drove this car today as well . . .

"It's an interesting family feeling right now, because I've raced for guys like (Roger) Penske, guys like (Jack) Roush. A guy named Busch owns this racecar, and it's a little bit different feel."

PASTRANA SHOWS PROMISE IN NATIONWIDE DEBUT

X-Games superstar Travis Pastrana made his belated Nationwide debut in Friday night's race, and the driver of the No. 99 Toyota showed fans at Richmond that he was a quick study when it came to driving stock cars at the national level.

For much of the night, Pastrana stayed on the lead lap, running in the top 20, until a pit road speeding penalty on a green-flag stop late in the race dropped him to 22nd at the finish.

"The result wasn't what we wanted, but to be perfectly honest, I felt pretty good out there," Pastrana said after the race. "We weren't a top-10 car, but for a while we were closing in on what could have been a top 15 before I messed up the pits.  

"I felt really good. We passed (Brad) Keselowski at one point and I was like, 'That's awesome . . . ' To go around and keep moving forward there was really cool."

ALLMENDINGER, SHELL/PENNZOIL PAY IT FORWARD

When AJ Allmendinger was a 16-year-old go-kart driver, IndyCar star Paul Tracy gave his career a boost. Now Allmendinger is doing the same thing for another young driver.

Allmendinger has inaugurated a karting scholarship that got a boost of its own when his Sprint Cup sponsor at Penske Racing, Shell/Pennzoil, opted to support the program. On Friday at Richmond, Allmendinger introduced 13-year-old Florida driver Kyle Kirkwood as the first recipient of the scholarship.

"Paul Tracy had a karting team when I was 16 or 17 years old, trying to figure out what I was going to do," Allmendinger said. "At that point, it was amazing to me to have such a superstar in the CART Series wanting me to be a part of his race team.

"That was something that I took to heart and knew that it was something that, once I got to the right time in my life, I wanted to do the same thing. To me, karting is the most pure form of racing there is, whether you're six, seven years old or on up through the ranks or somebody like me that's still trying to relive my old glory days and still race go-karts.

"That's something that was always important to me. That's why I wanted to start the karting scholarship. I wanted to do this the last couple of years, and I felt like this was the right time."

Allmendinger's crew digs into complex engine issues

Allmendinger's crew digs into complex engine issues

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

April 27, 2012

RICHMOND, Va. -- It was a freakish, quirky part failure, but it ruined AJ Allmendinger's winning chances last Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

Allmendinger started on the pole and led the first 44 laps of the STP 400, but his hopes of winning his first NASCAR Sprint Cup race evaporated when his secondary throttle linkage broke.

The failure of that part is incredibly rare, but it was also the next episode in a series of bizarre issues that have plagued Allmendinger and teammate Brad Keselowski this season.

"I've never seen it," Todd Gordon, Allmendinger's crew chief, said of the linkage failure. "We've managed to find all the things that nobody's ever seen before."

What compounded Allmendinger's problem on Sunday was the difficulty in diagnosing it. The transition to electronic fuel injection in the Cup series has brought a new set of variables and an added layer of complexity to the fuel delivery system.

The carburetor that EFI replaced was a self-contained unit that mixed air and fuel. Where the carburetor was mounted now sits a throttle body, which controls airflow.

The fuel injectors themselves are in the manifold. The process is governed by an electronic control unit.

Three major components in three different places make for a more efficient system, albeit one that also is more complicated.

"With a carburetor, your whole fuel system is in one piece there," Gordon said. "Now the fuel operation system is an ECU on the dash, injectors in the manifold and the throttle body on top, so those three things are in different places."

That makes it tougher to pinpoint the cause when something goes wrong. In the case of Allmendinger's No. 22 Dodge, the car began "spitting and missing," at race speeds, as Allmendinger put it, but ran without problem in the pit stall. Hence, the crew started looking for an electrical problem.

While the car sat on pit road, the crew replaced the ECU and the coil pack and checked the spark plugs -- to no avail.

It wasn't until the engine tuners downloaded the data from the replaced ECU that they realized where the problem lay.

"Actually, how we found it was looking back through the ECU data," Gordon told the NASCAR Wire Service. "We could see some things that didn't line up, and when they started talking about it . . . nobody thinks to change a throttle body on pit road.

"We changed coil packs. We did everything electrical, because the car would run fine in the pit box. So we changed the ECU and the coil packs, and we checked all the spark plugs, and everything was fine there. After changing out the ECU and downloading the data and looking at it, they discovered what they thought it could have been."

The diagnosis, however, didn't come quickly enough to help Allmendinger, who finished 32nd, 10 laps down.

Yes, the secondary throttle linkage was broken, but the ECU didn't read it that way. There are two shafts in the throttle body, each with two butterfly valves. If the butterflies are wide open, the engine gets maximum airflow.

The secondary throttle linkage connects the front shaft to the rear one. When the linkage broke, the throttle position sensor, which is mounted on the front shaft, communicated to the ECU that all four buttterflies were open. In reality, only the front two were.

"The computer sees that we're wide-open throttle providing all this air," Gordon said. "We're only providing half the air. Thus, the fuel usage goes up, because it's putting more fuel than we need to have in it."

Given new parts and sensor arrays that have accompanied the transition to EFI, crew chiefs and engine specialists have little experience to draw on as they learn the nuances of the new fuel delivery system.

"I'd say the biggest thing is that it's an unknown to everybody," Gordon said. "We all look at the new parts first (when diagnosing a problem), and it can actually be old things or new things. There's more question marks because we haven't built a log of confidence in the durability of parts.

"Knock on wood, with some of the things that are in that system, we haven't had a coil pack failure at the racetrack. We haven't had an ECU failure. We've just got to build confidence in that."

Kurt Busch edges Hamlin for Nationwide victory at Richmond

Kurt Busch edges Hamlin for Nationwide victory at Richmond

April 27, 2012 (EDITORS: Writethru/results)

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

RICHMOND, Va. -- By the thinnest of margins, in a breathtaking finish that featured two cars sideways and side-by-side at the finish line, Kurt Busch beat Denny Hamlin to the checkered flag by .062 seconds to win Friday night's Virginia 529 College Savings 250 at Richmond International Raceway.

Busch delivered the first-ever NASCAR Nationwide Series victory to the team owned by his brother, Kyle Busch. The win was Busch's fourth in the series and his first on a short track. Hamlin came up two feet short after a phenomenal drive from the rear of the field after a pit road mistake.

Pole-sitter Kevin Harvick ran third, followed by defending series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Sam Hornish Jr. Elliott Sadler finished sixth to cling to the series points lead by two points over Stenhouse.

"To get KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports) its first win -- this is unbelievable," Kurt Busch said in Victory Lane. "It's harder than you think, putting a program together. You think you can come in here and muscle your way to the top, but you have to think your way to the top."

Busch parted ways with Penske Racing at the end of last season and took a Sprint Cup job with James Finch's Phoenix Racing this year. He and Kyle are sharing driving duties in the No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota in the start-up Nationwide program.

"It was unbelievable racing with him," Busch said. "I was pacing myself and pacing myself, and -- boom! -- he came out of nowhere at the end."

For Kyle Busch, it was difficult to contain the excitement of the first victory with his own equipment.

"This is the most emotional I've ever been for a win," said Kyle, himself a prolific past winner in the No. 18 Toyota that Hamlin drove Saturday night. "Man, this is cool. When you're behind the wheel, it's a lot easier to do. When you're standing here watching the guy behind you close in on you . . . Kurt ran him really tough, and then Denny ran us clean."

In a race dominated by Sprint Cup drivers Busch, Hamlin and Harvick -- and featuring the relentlessly promoted Nationwide debut of X-Games gold medalist Travis Pastrana -- the most noteworthy story was the spectacular maiden voyage of 18-year-old Ryan Blaney, who finished seventh in his series debut.

Hurt by three slow pit stops, the last under green, Blaney otherwise would have been a likely contender for the victory in his first Nationwide race.

Hamlin likewise was a victim of a pit road mistake, but one of his own making.

Hamlin missed his pit stall under caution on Lap 117, restarted 24th on Lap 125 and drove up to the third position before pitting under the green flag on Lap 208.

Second soon after the cycle of pit stops, Hamlin harried Busch until the end of the race but ran out of time. Hamlin said he could have moved Busch on the final lap but preferred to have the race decided fairly.

"I could have moved him up and gotten him out of the groove, and it would have been over with," Hamlin said. "But Kyle's a teammate (at Joe Gibbs Racing) and (KBM general manager) Rick Ren and those guys have built a great program, so I wanted it to be fair.

"He won fair and square, and (I was) just one lap too late."

Despite a pit road speeding penalty, Pastrana ran 22nd in his ballyhooed Nationwide debut. Danica Patrick came home 21st.

Mark Martin edges Carl Edwards by .006 seconds for Richmond pole

Mark Martin edges Carl Edwards by .006 seconds for Richmond pole

April 27, 2012

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

RICHMOND, Va. -- The late draw in Friday afternoon's NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying session made little difference at all -- except to Mark Martin.

The last driver on the track, Martin sped around .75-mile Richmond International Raceway in 21.040 seconds (128.327 mph) to edge Carl Edwards (128.290 mph) by .006 seconds for the top starting spot in Saturday night's Capital City 400.

The Coors Light Pole Award was the 53-year-old Martin's second of the year, his fifth at Richmond and the 53rd of his career, eighth most all-time.

Kevin Harvick (128.041 mph) qualified third, followed by AJ Allmendinger (127.962 mph) and Kyle Busch (127.956 mph), who has won the last three spring Cup events at Richmond. Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start Saturday's race from positions six through 10, respectively.

Series points leader Greg Biffle, who went out next to last, was 28th fastest in the time trials at 126.428 mph.

Conventional wisdom holds that drivers late in the draw during an afternoon session will benefit from a cooler track, but Martin was the only driver late in the session to match, in relative terms, his speed from Friday's first practice session.

"I did not ask (crew chief) Rodney (Childers) what he put under the car," said Martin, who in 1981 won his second career pole at Richmond -- in a .542-mile configuration of the track. "We made some improvements to the car in happy Hour (final practice) in race setup right at the end.

"If it would have been me, I probably would have incorporated those changes into the qualifying setup, and I didn't want to ask Rodney if he did or not, or what he did to the car. All I want to do is roll out on the racetrack with no preconceived notion and drive it as fast as it'd go and rely on him and his judgment."

Martin was second fastest after the first of his two laps and edged Edwards on his second time around.

"I was really hoping that he (Childers) would call me (on the radio) on the first lap and tell me to shut it down -- I told him to tell me to shut it down if we happened to get the pole on the first lap. When he didn't, I was afraid, 'Oh, no, we're 15th fastest. That wasn't near fast enough, and I've really got to get up on the wheel.'

"I was very close to skinning the car up, especially off of (Turn) 4 on the second lap, and that was my concern. That was my concern in practice as well. Both the qualifying runs I made in practice, I almost skinned it up, too. So I was driving as hard as I can go -- at the very limit of my talent, for sure -- and if I keep pushing the limits, I'm going to run out of talent here, one of these days."

Note: Scott Riggs and J.J. Yeley failed to qualify for the 43-car field.