Opening Night: Big Anticipation For Kentucky Debut

Opening Night: Big Anticipation For Kentucky DebutThe wait is over.
Ten years have passed since a track debuted on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule. Of course, that drought ends this Saturday night when Kentucky Speedway hosts a much-anticipated NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event.
Where do you go for favorites at a track with no premier series history? A few options, and storylines, for a track with no precedent …
Jeff Gordon, The Great Adapter: Historically, a debut fits perfectly into four-time series champion Jeff Gordon’s comfort zone. He has won debut NASCAR Sprint Cup races three times: Indianapolis (1994), Auto Club Speedway (1997) and Kansas Speedway (2001). On the verge of history, Gordon’s next win puts him alone in third on the all-time wins list, with 85.
Joey “Wire-To-Wire” Logano: Though there’s no NASCAR Sprint Cup history, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series has raced at Kentucky since 2000 and the NASCAR Nationwide Series since 2001. Logano has won all three of his Kentucky starts, all from pole – the only driver in series history to do so. Logano joined this week’s NASCAR national video teleconference. Click here to listen to the interview.
Similarity to Chicagoland, Kansas: During his video teleconference, Logano likened 1.5-mile Kentucky to Chicagoland Speedway and Kansas Speedway, both also 1.5 miles in length. Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart lead the series in wins at Chicagoland, with two each. (An aside: Could this be a preview to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup opener at Chicagoland?) Brad Keselowski won the first Kansas race this season. Greg Biffle, Gordon and Stewart lead in Kansas wins, with two apiece.
Speaking of Biffle: Biffle, still winless in 2011, won the first ever NASCAR national series event at Kentucky – the 2000 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race. In six NASCAR Nationwide starts at Kentucky, Biffle has three runner-up finishes, and five top 10s.
Another First Timer: David Ragan was the third first-time winner of 2011. Who’s next? AJ Allmendinger could have a shot. The Richard Petty Motorsports driver has enjoyed solid runs on 1.5-mile track of late, including a fifth-place finish at Charlotte. Richard Childress Racing’s Paul Menard finished fifth at Texas earlier this season. The last season with four first-time winners: 2007 (Juan Pablo Montoya, Casey Mears, Martin Truex Jr. and Clint Bowyer).

Long Forgotten Corbin Speedway Brought NASCAR To Kentucky
Corbin Speedway, a ½-mile dirt oval on the Whitley County Fairgrounds, is a one-time blip in the history of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, but it’s got a far larger claim to fame this week as the only track in the state of Kentucky to previously host a race for the sanctioning body’s premier division.
Corbin is located near Interstate 75 in southern Kentucky, north of Knoxville, Tenn. According to Allan E. Brown’s “History of America’s Speedways,” the track operated for two seasons – 1953-54 although the ending year is somewhat in question.
NASCAR Hall of Fame member Lee Petty won the Corbin race held Aug. 29, 1954, the 30th race of a 37-race season. It was Petty’s sixth of seven victories en route to his first championship. Driving a 1954 Chrysler, Petty averaged 63.08 mph for the 100-mile distance.
Many of the 21 participants are names long forgotten but others, Buck Baker, Herb Thomas, Marvin Panch and Dick Rathmann are legends upon which NASCAR was built.
Only one other driver completed the race’s 200 laps: Oregonian Hershel McGriff, who would win four races, five poles and finish sixth in the points standings before bidding NASCAR good-bye at season’s end to operate his family’s business.
McGriff is the only competitor from the Corbin Speedway field still active in NASCAR competition today. He returned to racing on the west coast in the late 1960s and won a K&N Pro Series West championship among other accomplishments. The Bridal Veil, Ore. resident, now 83 years of age, most recently competed in the June 25 K&N Pro Series West race at Infineon Raceway in California.

Ragan Traveled Long Road To Glory
David Ragan’s feel-good story of patience and perseverance might as well start on Memorial Day Weekend, 2006.
While most of the NASCAR attention focused on the traditional Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series raced at Mansfield Motorsports Park, the ½-mile paved Ohio track no longer hosting NASCAR events.
That’s where Ragan’s career almost ended. Even to the most optimistic observer, a successful NASCAR career – in any series – seemed doubtful.
Mansfield was race No. 7 of the NASCAR Camping World Truck schedule that season. Ragan had started four of the first six races that year, crashing out of two of them. After again wrecking his No. 6 Ford truck in practice for the event at Mansfield, owner Jack Roush benched him in favor of Auggie Vidovich (who eventually finished 19th).
It was a typical Roush technique. One that looks brilliant five years later.
Now, a half-decade gone by, Ragan is a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series winner.
Though probably still the lesser known Roush Fenway Racing stable member, he joins teammates Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle on two exclusive lists: NASCAR premier series winner, and more importantly, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship contender.
Ragan’s win immediately put him in the hunt for one of two Chase Wild Card spots.
After race No. 26, the top-10 drivers earn berths for the 12-driver Chase. Spots 11 and 12 go to those drivers outside the top 10 with the most wins, provided that they are in the top 20.
Currently, those Wild Cards would belong to Denny Hamlin (currently in 11th) and Ragan (17th).
If he does make the Chase, consider him a legitimate threat. A strong restrictor-plate racer, Ragan should contend at Talladega’s Chase race. Also, five intermediate tracks make up the Chase, a style firmly in Roush Fenway Racing’s wheelhouse.

Points Lead, Three Wins Give Harvick Championship Favorite’s Aura
Kevin Harvick has accomplished what many thought was impossible: Go from worst to first under NASCAR’s 2011 points system.
Harvick, who suffered engine failure in February’s Daytona 500, posted three points and left Daytona ranked 37th in the standings.
Now, 16 races later, Harvick tops the charts with nine races remaining in the Race to the Chase following his seventh-place finish in last weekend’s Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola. He displaces Carl Edwards, whose 10-race run heading the points ended with an early accident and 37th-place finish.
Harvick doesn’t just have the points lead. With three victories – each worth three bonus points once the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup begins Sept. 18 at Chicagoland Speedway – the Bakersfield, Calif. veteran becomes the mid-season favorite to end Jimmie Johnson’s five-season title run. Johnson is sixth with one victory.
This marks the fourth season Harvick has led the standings. He ranked first after 19 of the 2010 season’s first 26 races eventually finishing a career-high third in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Several drivers – Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon, both two-time winners – solidified their hold on top-10 rankings after Daytona’s summer race. Others, among them Dale Earnhardt Jr., moved in the opposite direction. Earnhardt, third as recently as mid-June, is 39 points ahead of 11th-place Denny Hamlin, who has a possible wild card victory on which to fall back.
The run-up to Chase cut-down Sept. 10 at Richmond International Raceway will be pivotal for other competitors as well, among them two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle, who has made the Chase in each of the past three years. Both still are winless in 2011 and are five and 25 points, respectively, out of the top 10.
Wild cards currently are held by Hamlin and Coke Zero 400 winner David Ragan. Two of the season’s other 12 winners, Brad Keselowski and Regan Smith are outside the top 20 in points and aren’t now qualified for wild card consideration.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series ETC.
Starting this weekend at Kentucky Speedway, there will be a rain-out qualifying procedure change for all three NASCAR national series. If first practice is run, but qualifying is unable to take place, the starting lineup will be based on speeds from the car’s fastest lap from the first practice, with top-35 cars in owner points no longer segregated from the non-top 35 cars. Previously, the top 35 cars lined up in front of all other eligible car owners. … Media Alert: Indianapolis Motor Speedway is hosting a press conference Wednesday, July 6 at 1 p.m. ET from the famed Yard of Bricks to announce their plans for the 2012 Brickyard 400 race weekend. … In preparation for the inaugural NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Kentucky Speedway this weekend, there will be two test sessions for teams on Thursday. In addition to team testing for the event weekend, NASCAR is taking advantage of this test to offer the opportunity for teams that are prepared to test fuel injected cars to do so. NASCAR expects five fuel injection cars to participate, all from various organizations, and all four manufacturers should be represented. … Michael Waltrip, from Owensboro, Ky., is entered this weekend in the No. 15 Toyota. To celebrate the election of his brother Darrell to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, he’ll race an orange and white paint scheme similar to the Terminal Transport car Darrell drove to his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory at Nashville Speedway in 1975. Michael’s Kentucky paint scheme also includes a photo of the Nashville victory lane celebration on each of the car’s rear quarter panels and a picture of “DW” on the hood also taken at Nashville.