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Turning Left: NASCAR and IndyCar
By Charlie O. Mallonee September 16, 2009 |
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The Chase is on! We now know who the “12 Chasers” will be for the NASCAR Championship. Making the Top 12 were the usual suspects and a few surprises. The non-surprise qualifiers are Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch. The somewhat of surprise “Chasers” are Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne and Denny Hamlin. The surprise chase qualifiers are Juan Pablo Montoya and Brian Vickers. The surprise non-qualifier is Kyle “Wild Thing” Busch. But, the biggest surprise of “the Chase” has to be the top seed qualifier is Mark Martin. Four years ago, Mark Martin was on his farewell tour driving for “the cat in the hat” – Jack Roush. Martin did not win a race in 2006, but he won over $4-million while being showered with love from NASCAR fans. There was only one problem – Martin still wanted to race cars. So in 2007, Martin decided to run a part-time schedule to help his friend Bobby Ginn keep his race team together. Martin ran 24 races and won another $4-million in prize money. In 2008, Ginn Racing merged with Dale Earnhardt Inc Racing. DEI had just lost Junior to Hendrick Racing and needed help. Enter Mark Martin who drove in another 24 races for DEI/Ginn. Now, we come to 2009. Rick Hendrick decided to replace Casey Mears in his #5 car and asked Martin to be his driver. Martin signed a two-year deal to drive full-time for Hendrick Motorsports. Through 20-races, Martin has 4 wins, 6-Top 5 and 10-Top 10 finishes. He is also the number one seed in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Martin also has to be the favorite to win it all in 2009. If Martin wins the Championship, it really will not be a surprise to anyone. Just the Facts about New Hampshire The New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a one-mile oval with four-12 degree banked turns. It is really a mini-Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This track is very hard on engines. The drivers will be jamming the pedal to the floor coming out of Turns 2 and 4 to get the most speed down the 1500-foot front and back stretches. The drivers will also try to get as much speed as they can in short-stretches between the turns. In order to protect the engines, every car will utilize a rev limiter. The limiter will cut off the engine if the driver tries of over-rev the power plant down the straightaways. Passing on this track can be difficult. Passes must be set up on the stretches and completed while diving down into the turns. The turns will be mostly single-file racing. Joey Logano won the rain-shortened June 28th race in New Hampshire. Logano was followed across the finish line by Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, David Reutimann and Tony Stewart. Mark Martin finished P-14. Second races on the same track tend to feature the drivers who did well in the previous race. That means we should look for Logano, Gordon, Kyle Busch, Stewart and Kurt Busch to do well in New Hampshire on Sunday. My pick is Tony Stewart to win, Gordon to place and Kyle Busch to show. The Sylvania 300 will be televised on ABC TV beginning at 10 AM PDT/ 1 PM EDT. Oh My Lord … is that Petty in a Ford? The financial downturn has forced Richard Petty Motorsports into merging with Yates Racing for the 2010 season. The merged team will be racing Ford cars. Petty who’s name in synonomous with Dodge/Chrysler products was unable to secure enough financial backing from Dodge and will turn to Ford Racing. RPM will feature Kasey Kahne, Elliot Sadler, A.J. Allmendinger and Paul Menard as drivers. Petty won nine races driving a Ford in 1969. "This is a pretty big deal for us," said Petty. IndyCar Wounded Again As we stated in our last column, the IndyCar is a series in trouble. As of September 1st, IndyCar has taken another hit. DIRECTV has ceased carrying VERSUS – the network of IndyCar racing. VERSUS is owned by cable giant Comcast. The two entities were unable to make an agreement over licensing fees for DIRECTV to carry VERSUS programming. So as IndyCar heads to Japan where Danica Patrick won in 2008, DIRECTV viewers will be watching movies instead of IndyCar racing. IndyCar needs to put pressure on Comcast to come to agreement with DIRECTV now! In the meantime if you have DIRECTV like me, there’s no IndyCar for you! Flash Update: IndyCar management has realized that losing all DIRECTV viewers could have on their sport. To counteract this loss, IndyCar is offering free streaming of all on-track events from Twin Motegi including practices, qualifying and the race. The address for the stream is www.IndyCar.com. The race begins at 6:30 PM PDT/ 9 PM EDT on VERSUS and the internet. IndyCar visits the Twins The Twin Ring Motegi facility gets its name from the two race courses on the grounds. There is a 1.5-oblong oval track and a 3.0-mile road course. The two tracks intersect with portions of the road course running in the oval’s infield. The oval is oblong and is much tighter in Turns 1 and 2 than in Turns 3-4. Drivers find the Turns 1-2 the easiest of the four turns. The turns feature 10-degree banking. Twin Ring Motegi is really two tracks in one. Danica Patrick is the defending champion of the Twins race. The smart money knows that defending champions tend to do very well on tracks where they have previously visited victory circle. F1 The Formula One Series has the weekend off. They will be back in action next weekend in Singapore. |
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