 |
|
 ABOUT CSD
Race
Shop
Tickets
Fantasy
Garage Opinions
ADVERTISE |
|
|
Welcome to the Cup Scene Daily for
Vol. III,No.VIXII RACE DAY EDITION
|
Quote of the day:
``The best thing you can do here is pull your seat belt tight and make sure your safety gear is good.''
7 DAY ARCHIVE SundayMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday INSIDE TODAY'S ISSUE: Special paint schemes will abound tonight Win in All-Star race could bode well for the season Reeling off the violence: all-star event has had its share of scrappy moments Blaney takes pole for Open Ratings for Richmond race down DW stirs up more controversy Hendrick Motorsports plans to build new shop Elliott a no-show Ford's New Engine Will Get First Real Test Tonight NASCAR business is booming Drivers to watch at Lowe's Shame on You, ESPN and About That Tony Stewart/Darrel Waltrip Thing Cup Scene readers speak out about Talladega
SEARCH THIS SITE:
The Daily Scene Newsletter is BACK! CLICK HERE To Sign up
New Raceshop Stuff!
KEEP THE CUP SCENE DAILY COMING! PLEASE Support our sponsors!
Check out the NEW NASCAR Ebay page
Check out the NEW DIECAST SHOP!
|
TODAYS FRONT PAGE<
DRAMA
For Rusty Wallace, the fireworks started a bit early. Wallace earned his third career pole for tonights Nextel All-Star Challange, which is for former race winners, with a time of 2 minutes, 3.998 seconds.
Teammate Ryan Newman was second with defending series champion Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin and Tony Stewart completing the top five. The format featured three laps and a four-tire pit stop. During Wallace's first lap, his car drifted down the corner and his left front tire went on the flat apron. "It shot up the race track and bent the left front fender all up and sparks flew everywhere," Wallace said. A lap later, Wallace entered pit road for his stop. A cone near the pit entrance showed where drivers had to slow to the pit-road speed of 45 mph. "I come off turn 4 at 170 mph and hit that cone and started coming down through the gears and locked up the brakes and slid across the cone," Wallace said Even so, Wallace was fast. And he benefited because of penalties issued to others for speeding. Kurt Busch would have won the pole but was penalized 20 seconds for speeding on pit road. He'll start 14th in the 24-car field. Among the eight drivers penalized for speeding on pit road were Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and rookie Kasey Kahne. Terry Labonte was penalized five seconds for going through three pit stalls before entering his pit box. The fastest pit stops were by the crews of Busch and Kahne at 12.2 seconds. Friday's success does not guarantee anything for Wallace. The polesitter has not won this race since Davey Allison did in 1992.
Waltrip was irate in defeat, saying -- among other things -- "It was an ugly, ugly win. I hope he chokes on the $200,000, that's all I can tell him." Wallace said it was just an accident. But the teams got into a fight, prompting NASCAR to hand out fines and suspensions. The accident also changed the image of both drivers. "It was the turning point of my career," said Wallace, who went on to win the Winston Cup title that season. "I don't think there has ever been in the history of our sport a situation where in a split second the roles are reversed like that -- totally reversed. "Darrell became the hero there in that race and I became the villain." Three-time champion Waltrip, who had been given the nickname "Jaws" for his outspoken ways, went from being loudly booed to rousing cheers almost overnight. Wallace, on the other hand, received death threats. "I'll never forget having my daughter Katie, who was only about 5 years old at the time, ask me, 'Daddy, why are there policemen with guns sitting outside our front door?' We actually had to have bodyguards and extra security around the clock for me and my family," he recalled. "It definitely put my name and face on the map and I got booed for years to come after that one." Wallace eventually worked his way back into the good graces of the fans and is now considered one of the icons of the stock-car sport. "But it was something they talked about for years to come," he said. "That day and that race was a very big part of the sport's history." Wallaces' teammate Ryan Newman still comes to the track to win, and that mentality served him well through the first 11 races of 2004. He hasn't won yet, but he's still better off. Newman is sixth in Nextel Cup points after 11 events, an improvement of 21 spots compared to this stage last season. He trails leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. by 201 points. "I'm pleased we're doing better, but I wouldn't say we're satisfied," Newman said Friday, "I wish we had been to victory lane." Newman had a series-high eight victories a year ago, including six during an amazing 13-race run through the summer. But he also failed to finish seven races, and that lack of consistency left him 311 points behind champion Kenseth.
"On a weekly basis, we're still here to win races," crew chief Matt Borland said. "But we're trying not to take unnecessary risks and do things that made us fall out of races last year." Newman still is plenty fast - his three poles are tied with rookie Kasey Kahne for most in the series - and the only blemish on his record is an accident at Texas Motor Speedway. He admits to being a bit more conservative on the track, making sure he has clearance before making any pass. It doesn't always work, as the wreck at Texas showed, but for the most part, he's been successful. "I think about it a little bit more," Newman said. "Just trying to keep out of the wrong place at the wrong time. But sometimes, you can't help it. You get caught up in somebody else's problems." He's been close to a couple of victories, and he joins Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon as the only drivers to lead at least one lap in eight races this season. Newman has four top-five finishes, including a best of third at Darlington. "Everybody keeps talking about how we're struggling this year because we don't have any wins yet," Borland said. "Well, we had only one win at this point last year. And we're still running good every week. We'll be fine." Although a victory in the All-Star Challenge wouldn't count in the standings, it might serve as the springboard Newman needs to get back on the winning track. The three-segment format, with a final 20-lap dash, seems to favor quick drivers such as Newman. In 2002, he won this event as a rookie, only the second time a first-year driver accomplished the feat. Another victory would make him the fifth driver to win the race twice, and it also might help when NASCAR goes back to points racing next week. "Wins just seem to happen in bunches for us," Borland said. "Maybe we could start that by winning Saturday night." The winner of tonight's All-Star Challenge will pocket at least $1.035 million. Only the Daytona 500 paycheck is bigger. That and the fact there are no points to worry about explains why the intensity level rivals that at all but Daytona and the Brickyard. ``The best thing you can do here is pull your seat belt tight and make sure your safety gear is good,'' said Wallace. Jeff Burton is entered in the Nextel Open, a qualifying race that will send two drivers into the main event at about 9 p.m. He notes the contrast between other all-star events and NASCAR's. ``I've watched the all-star hockey game and the basketball and football events, and a lot of the best players don't even go,'' he said. ``When they throw a million bucks out there and say, `Go win this, boy,' that ratchets things up a bit.'' The Challenge, formerly The Winston, is like no other major race anywhere. It's entertainment driven - as it had better be, because if fans don't come back, they can't pay $1 million the next time. Only 90 laps and 135 miles long, it is broken into segments of 40, 30 and 20 laps. Some of the components are hokey. A drawing between the first and second segment determines whether to invert part of the running order and, if so, by how many cars. One driver will advance from the qualifying race via a fan vote on NASCAR.com. But the big payday keeps the focus on the competition. And as important as the prize money is for drivers, it may be even more important to crew members, whose incomes can rise substantially with a bonus from a million-dollar win. ``An all-star event, no points, you'd think it would be more relaxed, but it's really not,'' Jeff Gordon said. ``Pretty much all the money is on the top. You don't want to come out of here second or anywhere else.'' Jimmie Johnson, the defending champion of both the all-star race and next week's Coca-Cola 600, qualified 11th. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Gordon will start 15th and 17th, respectively, after getting nailed for speeding. Joe Nemechek also drew a speeding penalty, and that was after wrecking his primary car in practice. So it was a doubly bad night. ``We didn't get to make any [practice] laps with the backup,'' Nemechek said. ``It has a different tachometer and a different rear-end gear ration. We're trying to calculate all that stuff. I think NASCAR caught me on the initial entry.'' Rookies Kasey Kahne and Brian Vickers are in the Challenge because their cars won races last year - Kahne's No. 9 Dodge with Bill Elliott and Vickers' No. 25 Chevy with Nemechek. Dave Blaney, who doesn't have a full-time ride, turned in another impressive showing in Bill Davis Racing's No. 23 Dodge, winning the pole for the qualifying race. He'll share the front row with Casey Mears. Kirk Shelmerdine will go into the night with the most unusual ``sponsor.''
He is driving the ``Vote For Kirk Ford,'' a plea to fans to vote him from the qualifying race into the main event.
|
