THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
Mar. 16, 2015
Volume IX, Edition XXXII
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
Mar. 16, 2015
Volume IX, Edition XXXII
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What to Watch: Monday- Today is another swap day for Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series teams. A number of additional transporters will be rumbling into Phoenix International Raceway to allow teams to change out their equipment in favor of the intermediate cars needed for this weekend's action at Auto Club Speedway.
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Monday's TV Schedule can be found in Couch Potato Tuesday here.
Monday's TV Schedule can be found in Couch Potato Tuesday here.
Top News
by the Frontstretch Staff
Kevin Harvick Lives up to Hype, Wins Phoenix for 7th Time
Prior to the race, seemingly everyone was giving the CampingWorld.com 500k to Kevin Harvick on a platter. Harvick didn't prove anyone wrong as he once again dominated the proceedings to win for the second week in a row. He has now won four straight Cup races at the one mile tri-oval, posting his fourth top-2 finish of the season. Read more
Joey Logano wins Axalta 200 at Phoenix
On Saturday, Joey Logano dominated the proceedings, leading 176 laps to take the victory in the Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200 at Phoenix International Raceway. Matt Kenseth was second, while Kevin Harvick, Austin Dillon and Erik Jones rounded out the top-5 performers. Ty Dillon was the highest finishing XFINITY Series regular in sixth. Read more
Jamie Dick Hospitalized After XFINITY Race
On Sunday afternoon, Viva Motorsports announced that driver/owner Jamie Dick was hospitalized Saturday night after he finished 28th in the Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter 200. The team indicated on their Facebook page that the reason was not due to anything that had happened during the race, but "medical reasons unrelated to racing." Read more
Have news for The Frontstretch? Don't hesitate to let us know; email us at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com with a promising lead or tip.
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FRONTSTRETCH JOB: WEBMASTER
Frontstretch.com is looking for a talented and motivated individual to fulfill the role of the site's webmaster. The ideal candidate must be highly proficient in WordPress, as the site recently converted from Textpattern to WordPress as the content management system. The webmaster will assist with leftover conversion tasks, work with the management team to implement site enhancements and help troubleshoot problems as they arise. The candidate must also have a working knowledge of search engine optimization strategies to help improve search rankings for the site. Motorsports knowledge is preferred but not required. The candidate should have on average at least 1-2 hours per week to devote to Fronstretch initiatives. If you are interested, please contact our Business Manager, Tony Lumbis at Tony.Lumbis@gmail.com.
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FRONTSTRETCH JOB: WEBMASTER
Frontstretch.com is looking for a talented and motivated individual to fulfill the role of the site's webmaster. The ideal candidate must be highly proficient in WordPress, as the site recently converted from Textpattern to WordPress as the content management system. The webmaster will assist with leftover conversion tasks, work with the management team to implement site enhancements and help troubleshoot problems as they arise. The candidate must also have a working knowledge of search engine optimization strategies to help improve search rankings for the site. Motorsports knowledge is preferred but not required. The candidate should have on average at least 1-2 hours per week to devote to Fronstretch initiatives. If you are interested, please contact our Business Manager, Tony Lumbis at Tony.Lumbis@gmail.com.
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Chasing the Chase: Harvick Expands His Lead
by Phil Allaway
Kevin Harvick was considered to be a heavy favorite to win Sunday at Phoenix. Therefore, his victory should not really surprise anyone. Harvick's domination of the race for his second straight triumph allowed him to increase his lead to 22 points over Joey Logano. Logano's run was similar to what he had at Atlanta and Las Vegas; strong early, but not enough at the end. Martin Truex, Jr. gained one spot to move into third after finishing seventh.Kasey Kahne is up two places to fourth in the standings after finishing a strong fourth on Sunday. With Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s struggles, Kahne is now the best driver in the standings from Hendrick Motorsports. AJ Allmendinger, despite having to start in the rear Sunday after an engine change, maintained fifth after charging up to finish 17th. Earnhardt Jr. dropped four positions back to sixth after blowing a right-rear tire and crashing out on lap 181, leaving him with a 43rd-place finish.
Jimmie Johnson had what could probably be one of the more eventful 11th-place finishes of his career Sunday. The team had to recover from contact at the end of the first lap with Brian Vickers and multiple stops to keep their seventh spot in points. Ryan Newman is up four places to eighth after a third-place finish Sunday. Brad Keselowski made the biggest move upwards of anyone, picking up seven places to ninth in the standings after starting and finishing sixth. Matt Kenseth rounds out the top 10 in points.
Point Standings (1-16): 1) Kevin Harvick 182, 2) Joey Logano -22, 3) Martin Truex, Jr. -27, 4) Kasey Kahne -50, 5) AJ Allmendinger -55, 6) Dale Earnhardt, Jr. -56, 7) Jimmie Johnson -58, 8) Ryan Newman -59, 9) Brad Keselowski -66, 10) Matt Kenseth -69, 11) Paul Menard -70, 12) Casey Mears -71, 13) Denny Hamlin -74, 14) Aric Almirola -77, t-15) Clint Bowyer -81, t-15) Greg Biffle -81.
Race Winners: Joey Logano (Daytona), Jimmie Johnson (Atlanta), Kevin Harvick (Las Vegas, Phoenix)
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Letter of the Race: Sunday's CampingWorld.com 500k was brought to you by the letter "F," for Foregone Conclusion. Rarely in the Sprint Cup Series has it been so evident to observers that someone was going to win a race as it appeared that Kevin Harvick would win. It's almost like everyone had a defeatist attitude entering the weekend and nothing that happened during the weekend changed anything. - Phil Allaway
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Quotes to Remember: CampingWorld.com 500k
compiled by Phil Allaway
"Well, I don't know. <to crew chief Rodney Childers> Do you ever feel like you're under pressure? <Childers replies yes> Okay. I guess when he's under pressure, his pulse might be 55. He's on the verge of being dead when he's happy and riding along. That's just one of the great things about everything that we have going on. He's on that end of the spectrum with calm and collective. When he gets wound up, he gets even quieter. For me, I get wound up and tend to just get more wound up. It's a great balance between the two of us because of the fact you can find that middle road and balance. Balance is the thing you hear me talk about. I know y'all are probably getting tired of hearing me talk about it. There's a balance with your personal life. There's a balance with the job, what you do. But there's also a balance within your team, the things that you do, how everybody works together. Just finding that balance has worked out. They've done a great job of putting those people in the right places, and it's just working." - Kevin Harvick, race winner
"Well, I don't know. <to crew chief Rodney Childers> Do you ever feel like you're under pressure? <Childers replies yes> Okay. I guess when he's under pressure, his pulse might be 55. He's on the verge of being dead when he's happy and riding along. That's just one of the great things about everything that we have going on. He's on that end of the spectrum with calm and collective. When he gets wound up, he gets even quieter. For me, I get wound up and tend to just get more wound up. It's a great balance between the two of us because of the fact you can find that middle road and balance. Balance is the thing you hear me talk about. I know y'all are probably getting tired of hearing me talk about it. There's a balance with your personal life. There's a balance with the job, what you do. But there's also a balance within your team, the things that you do, how everybody works together. Just finding that balance has worked out. They've done a great job of putting those people in the right places, and it's just working." - Kevin Harvick, race winner
"We just had a really good weekend. Every practice, our car was quick. We qualified well. Just had, you know, a mistake‑free day and really executed the race perfectly. The 4 car is on an amazing roll. If I could do my restart over again right now, I would have done something a little different. But it is what it is. I'm really happy with second. It would be nice to be in Victory Lane and know you were locked into the Chase the way the point format works. As a group, our whole organization, the 1 car team, Matt McCall, really awesome cars. Matt did a great job calling the race. That's hard in your first four or five races to make that decision in the end to stay out on old tires. In hindsight, it was the right one. When you're in the car, you run that many laps, you know how bad the car feels, when he asks me, What do you want to do? I'm like, You're the crew chief. I'm going to do whatever you think is right. He did a great job today." - Jamie McMurray, finished second
"It's great to be back and post a top‑5 finish in our first effort back. It is a testament to the team, Stewart‑Haas, Tony Gibson, the crew chief. It was a pleasure to drive the car today. Lots of emotions, but had to keep those in check and focus on the racecar. There were a few times I was determined enough to overdrive it. Had a chance at the lead at one point racing Kevin side‑by‑side. But overall as the race progressed, we got a little bit too loose at the end and I ran out of tools in the car to change on that final restart. I was hoping to have a little bit better grip with the right‑side tires. It just didn't seem like we could grab the racetrack like we needed. So in hindsight staying out, we didn't quite have a shot to win, but it would have been great to finish 1‑2 for Stewart‑Haas in my return. But top five, we'll take it." - Kurt Busch, finished fifth
"With Kurt, there were no guarantees. We were like you. We didn't know what was going to happen. NASCAR made statements about what they were going to do. NASCAR, I think has a higher respect as a media company to do what they felt was best. So we didn't exactly know what they were going to do. It was going to be based on what the other parties did. In that respect, there was nothing that we really planned as far as, 'Was Kurt going to come back or not?' That was just something we didn't have any control over. If things would have gone the other way, it would have been a completely different scenario. But fortunately, we're happy we're back at racing. Next week, there will be other stories to focus on than this." - Gene Haas, on Kurt Busch
"That is not quite where we wanted to be there at the end. Todd made a gutsy call there at the end to put four on it and we were back to 16th there with 12 to go and really, at that point he was leaving it up to me to be aggressive and we were able to pass a lot of cars to get up to eighth. Getting a top 10 is great but we want to win some more. We just didn't quite have the speed. We had speed in the beginning of the race and made some adjustments and got better and then the track changed and we couldn't keep up with it. We couldn't fix the car no matter what we tried we were going the wrong way. We still have some setup issues we have to try to work out with the Shell Pennzoil Ford and we will be back at it soon. We have speed in qualifying, started up front and ran up front but when we lost our track position it was really hard to get back up there." - Joey Logano, finished eighth
"It was a good finish. We ran top 15 the first run and lost a little ground in the pits and then made the wrong adjustment I think and got us too tight. We fell back and lost all our track position. Nick did a good job of getting us two tires and making sure we kept doing that to gain those positions and we had some really good restarts at the end that propelled our Fastenal Ford up a few more spots and got a good finish out of it. We needed that. It has been a tough start to the year but that was definitely a big positive for us." - Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., finished 12th
"We fought a lot of things. We were a little tight in the middle of the corner and when we would get in dirty air, our car seemed to be more affected than other people. We just have to work on that. Overall, we just got lucky a couple times not to tear something up. This is a better finish than we've had so I'll just move on to California. We had a lot of folks from Stanley here and just wanted to make sure we had a good effort for them and I feel like we did a great job never quitting. I'm proud of my guys for that." - Carl Edwards, finished 13th
"I don't know. I came out of turn four and my spotter said, 'All clear.' I went up to the wall and all of the sudden I got hit from behind. I don't know what happened. I don't know if Jimmie (Johnson) was outside and if he was, then I was told I was all clear and if he wasn't outside or if he was outside by an inch then it seems kind of early to wreck someone on lap one. I don't know whose fault it was, I just know I got hit from behind and I was against the wall and my spotter said, 'All clear.' That's pretty much all the information I've got." - Brian Vickers, finished 41st
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TODAY AT FRONTSTRETCH:
by Amy Henderson
by Jerry Jordan
by the Frontstretch Staff
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FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
Talk back to the Frontstretch Newsletter!
Got something to say about an article you've seen in the newsletter? It's as easy as replying directly to this message or sending an email to editors@frontstretch.com. We'll take the best comments and publish them here!
©2015 Frontstretch.com
Q: In 1997, CART Champion Alex Zanardi was injured in practice, forcing him to sit out the inaugural Marlboro 500 at then-California Speedway. Chip Ganassi tapped former driver Arie Luyendyk to substitute. However, Luyendyk ended up laid up after the race as well. What happened?
Check back Tuesday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!
Friday's Answer:
Friday's Answer:
Q: In 2001, John Andretti started on the outside pole at Phoenix and led a couple of laps early. However, he fell victim to an incident that would not occur today at the track. What happened?
A: Back in 2001, the track in turn 2 pinched significantly inward. Andretti came off of turn 2 and brushed the outside wall. That slowed his pace and allowed Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to get in the back of the Cheerios Dodge. The contact spun Andretti into the outside wall. The crash can be seen here.
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COMING TOMORROW
COMING TOMORROW
In The Frontstretch Newsletter:
We'll have breaking news from Monday and S.D. Grady's Sitting In The Stands: A Fan's View commentary.
On Frontstretch.com:
Danny Peters gives us Five Points To Ponder after a thrilling weekend of racing out in Phoenix.
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Got something to say about an article you've seen in the newsletter? It's as easy as replying directly to this message or sending an email to editors@frontstretch.com. We'll take the best comments and publish them here!
©2015 Frontstretch.com
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