Monday, September 28, 2015

The Frontstretch Newsletter: Tony Stewart Will Retire After 2016

THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
Sept. 28, 2015
Volume IX, Edition CLXXII

~~~~~~~~~~

What to Watch: Monday

- Today, the teams are returning to the shops to swap everything out for the races this weekend.  Camping World Truck Series teams are leaving tomorrow for Las Vegas while the Cup and XFINITY teams are prepping for a much shorter haul to Dover.

~~~~~~~~~~

Monday's TV Schedule can be found in Couch Potato Tuesday here.

Top News
by the Frontstretch Staff

Matt Kenseth Wins Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway

Matt Kenseth took advantage of Kevin Harvick's late fuel woes to take his fifth victory of the season Sunday in Loudon.  Teammate Denny Hamlin was second followed by Joey Logano, Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards.  Read more

Sources: Tony Stewart to Retire After 2016

Motorsport.com's Jim Utter reported Sunday after the Sylvania 300 that Tony Stewart will likely retire from the Sprint Cup Series at the end of the 2016 season.  An announcement will be made to that degree later this week.  Read more

Furniture Row Racing Re-signs Truex, Will Move to Toyota

Furniture Row Racing announced this weekend at New Hampshire that driver Martin Truex, Jr. has re-signed with the Colorado-based race team to continue driving the No. 78.  In addition, their much-rumored manufacturer change became official. Sunday morning saw the team unveil the Toyota Camry that they will be fielding starting next year in Sprint Cup.  The team will replace their Richard Childress Racing alliance with a Joe Gibbs Racing one beginning with the 2016 season.  Read more

Ryan Blaney Surges to VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 Victory

Ryan Blaney took the lead away from Ty Dillon on a green-white-checkered restart and pulled away to earn his second win of the season Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway.  Dillon was second followed by Regan Smith, Chase Elliott and Brandon Jones.  Brian Scott, who finished 13th, confronted Darrell Wallace, Jr. multiple times on pit road after the race, angry over how the final restart unfolded.  Obscenities were exchanged before the war of words moved to Twitter.  Read more

Austin Dillon Wins UNOH 175 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway

Austin Dillon had the fastest truck in town all weekend... and he knew how to use it.  The elder of the Dillon brothers led 80 laps on the way to his seventh career Camping World Truck Series win, the first ever in the series for GMS Racing.  Matt Crafton was second followed by Johnny Sauter, Timothy Peters and John Hunter Nemechek.  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.

~~~~~~~~~~

Chasing the Chase: Kenseth Comfortably In Front
by Phil Allaway

Contrary to what you've seen on TV, Matt Kenseth already had the points lead entering Loudon.  Sunday's victory (his series-best fifth of the season) allowed him to slightly expand that advantage.  It now stands at six points over teammate Denny Hamlin, who finished second in Sunday's race.  Carl Edwards and Joey Logano are tied for third, ten points back.  Edwards gets the position by virtue of his second-place result at Chicagoland.  At New Hampshire, Edwards was busted for taking half a dump can out of his stall and had to charge back from the tail end of the lead lap to finish fifth. 

Jimmie Johnson is up two spots to fifth in points, but it didn't come easy.  Johnson cut a left-front tire on lap 200 and lost a lap making an unscheduled pit stop.  Thanks to a Lucky Dog and some good form Johnson got back to sixth by the finish.  Behind him sits Ryan Newman, advancing to sixth in points after a tenth-place finish.  Kurt Busch is just behind in seventh but he lost points when he ran low on fuel in the final couple of laps. His 19th-place result, unofficial at press time should still be good enough to take the pressure off at Dover considering the cushion he already had over 13th in points.

Brad Keselowski is up one place to eighth in the standings; however, he had to spend the last 50 laps of the race making up for being penalized by jumping the restart.  12th place was a pretty good finish given the circumstances. Martin Truex, Jr., meanwhile recovered from a poor qualifying effort to run eighth. That's good enough to move him up to ninth in points, just ahead of Jeff Gordon in tenth.  Jamie McMurray is 11th, while Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ran out of gas late at New Hampshire and finished 25th.  He's now on the bubble, 12th in the standings and just a singular point ahead of getting knocked out.  Kyle Busch, who crashed on Sunday, is tied with Paul Menard, one point behind Earnhardt Jr.  Kevin Harvick is 23 points behind Earnhardt Jr. and all but needs to win Dover to advance after running out of fuel and finishing 21st.  Clint Bowyer, rounding out the 16-driver field is 39 points out of 12th and also must win to advance - even if the team wins their 25-point appeal heard by NASCAR this week.

Chase Point Standings: 1) Matt Kenseth 2099, 2) Denny Hamlin -6, t-3) Carl Edwards -10, t-3) Joey Logano -10, 5) Jimmie Johnson -16, 6) Ryan Newman -25, 7) Kurt Busch -26, 8) Brad Keselowski -27, 9) Martin Truex, Jr. -28, 10) Jeff Gordon -31, 11) Jamie McMurray -41, 12) Dale Earnhardt, Jr. -42, t-13) Kyle Busch -43, t-13) Paul Menard -43, 15) Kevin Harvick -65, 16) Clint Bowyer -81.

Best of the Rest: 17) Kasey Kahne 732, 18) Aric Almirola -4, 19) Kyle Larson -49, 20) Greg Biffle -57, 21) Austin Dillon -106, 22) Casey Mears -128.

Regular Point Standings (1-16): 1) Joey Logano 1028, 2) Kevin Harvick -22, 3) Dale Earnhardt, Jr. -83, 4) Brad Keselowski -86, 5) Jimmie Johnson -105, 6) Matt Kenseth -117, 7) Martin Truex, Jr. -142, 8) Denny Hamlin -145, 9) Kurt Busch -180, 10) Carl Edwards -199, 11) Jamie McMurray -213, 12) Ryan Newman -216, 13) Jeff Gordon -223, 14) Paul Menard -262, 15) Clint Bowyer -294, 16) Kasey Kahne -296.

Drivers Outside the top 16 in the Chase: 26) Kyle Busch -470.

Race Winners: Joey Logano (Daytona-1, Watkins Glen, Bristol-2), Jimmie Johnson (Atlanta, Texas, Kansas, Dover), Kevin Harvick (Las Vegas, Phoenix), Brad Keselowski (Fontana), Denny Hamlin (Martinsville, Chicagoland), Matt Kenseth (Bristol-1, Pocono-2, Michigan-2. Richmond-2, Loudon-2), Kurt Busch (Richmond-1, Michigan-1), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (Talladega, Daytona-2), Carl Edwards (Charlotte, Darlington), Martin Truex, Jr. (Pocono-1), Kyle Busch (Sonoma, Kentucky, Loudon-1, Indianapolis)

~~~~~~~~~~

Letter of the Race: Sunday's Sylvania 300 was brought to you by the letter "P," for "Pure Chance."  In Kevin Harvick's case, his team really didn't believe that they were taking a chance on fuel by trying to go the distance from lap 212.  Unfortunately, the 88-lap run that wasn't bit him - badly.  - Phil Allaway

~~~~~~~~~~

Quotes to Remember: Sylvania 300
compiled by Phil Allaway

"We had to be there to win. These Dollar General guys did a great job today. We didn't pit that one time and I was like, 'Ahhh,' and Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) was like, 'It's fine, relax.' We made it to the front faster than we thought. I was giving it everything I've got and I thought he (Kevin Harvick) was going to beat us and he had a better car today, but I guess he was a little short on fuel. This is unbelievable. This feels unbelievable. Thanks to everybody – thanks to Dollar General, DeWalt, Toyota, TRD (Toyota Racing Development) – I say it all the time, but we've got great partners. I really appreciate these guys a lot and thank the Lord for putting me here. This has been so much fun." - Matt Kenseth, race winner
 
"We had a pretty good race, really.  I thought we had a top‑5 car pretty much most of the day. At best I thought we were a second‑place car, at worst a fifth. We had everything kind of work out well there for us at the end. We came in, took tires and fuel with 60‑something to go, so we were good on fuel and we had good tires, and it really allowed us to be aggressive and get through the pack pretty quick and put some pressure on the 4 to try to make him run as hard as possible because we knew he was close. Overall a good day for the company, good day for us, and we'll look forward to Dover." - Denny Hamlin, finished second

"My team did a great job and Todd did a great job calling this race.  We didn't have the most speed in our Shell/Pennzoil Ford today, but I felt like as we worked on the car we got a little bit better.  He made some great calls and got us those four tires and started kind of weaving through the field.  I didn't quite have enough to beat the guys in front of me but, overall, that's what we've got to do.  We've got to have those blue collar days to get a nice top 5, which sets us up good for Dover at the end of this first round." - Joey Logano, finished third

"I feel really good about this run, especially when we got out in clean air how fast the car was.  Our Ford Fusion ran really good and we're happy to have Kleen Performance on it this week, but we still have a little bit of work to do.  They were on a little bit better tires than we were, so they showed a little bit more speed than we did right there – the 4, the 11 and the 20 – but I was trying to save a little bit of gas too.  I knew I had a long ways to go if we were gonna make it that far, so it was a great run for us.  The team needed this.  We need to continue to work and try to make our cars a little bit better." - Greg Biffle, finished fourth

"My guys they never quit. We got the penalty just barely. My guys on pit road are the fastest and they're that way because they push it, they let it all hang out. They had a little problem there. Just an awesome finish though for everybody at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing), for Toyota, for Sport Clips – they came on board in a big way for us for here and Kansas. It's what we needed. Now we go to Dover (International Speedway), have a little bit of fun." - Carl Edwards, finished fifth

"Yeah, it was really weird.  I went into turn 3 and got on the brakes and the car traveled and slowed down.  It felt like something broke in the left-front, but they said there was a lugnut inside the wheel.  I guess when I hit the brakes to slow down a lugnut hit the valve stem and took the tire out.  Fortunately, some cautions fell in quick order to let us get back on the lead lap.  We had a solid car and got up there to ninth or something and some guys ran out of fuel and got us to sixth." - Jimmie Johnson, finished sixth

"We had a tough day; that is for sure.  We had to make some adjustments on the car to get it tuned up.  I was really proud of Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) and the team.  They did a great job getting the car where we needed it to be.  It wasn't perfect, but it was certainly a top-10 or top-5 car.  We didn't have much go our way, but at the end we finally did have something go our way, which was Alan made the call to put four tires on and had a decent restart and had a long green-flag run.  That is what we needed and maybe a couple of the guys to run out of fuel, too." - Jeff Gordon, finished seventh

"It's a pretty basic understanding.  It's an entertainment sport, not a fair sport, but we had a great car.  The Miller Lite Penske Team was really strong.  I don't know if we would have been able to beat the 20 and the 11.  It looked like they probably had four tires, but it was a heck of a rebound.  I'm really proud of my guys to come back and get a top 12 out of that without getting another yellow or catching any other breaks after the black flag, so that's part of it." - Brad Keselowski, finished 12th

"The good thing about these days is you have [Electronic Fuel Injection] data to go back and look at.  By the data, [Kevin Harvick] saved double what we needed to make it to the end.  It should have been a non-issue.  Which is why we weren't worried.  It looks like for some reason, [the car] must have not gotten full on our last stop of the race, or our fuel cell bladder is coming apart.  But, all in all, my engineers do a great job for me and hardly ever make any mistakes.  They work their butts off to make sure this doesn't happen. If anything showed we were taking a chance, we would have pitted.  On [to] Dover...it's not over." -Rodney Childers, crew chief for Kevin Harvick, finished 21st, on the final run at Loudon on Twitter

"We just came off a green-flag run and the tires looked fine, the balance was a little off and then had that short run there and the handling went away and just blew a right front. It looks like it just had a slow leak and just overworked the shoulder and finally blew out, but the balance was free, so it's not like we abused it – especially after we just went a fuel run, you know what I mean? Just one of those things that happens – sometimes you get a pinhole or run something over and we found the fence."- Adam Stevens, crew chief for Kyle Busch, finished 37th

"Yeah, I'm fine. I definitely got hit hard enough to knock the breath out of me for a second. But, to be honest, I went because I actually wanted to get my carbon monoxide levels checked and I thought OK, I've got time now. So, I'm fine. I feel fine. But, I definitely got hit and I think that when I got hit in (turns) 1 and 2, by the car (No. 55 of David Ragan) and not the wall, it seemed like the worst of it. But, it's such a shame. We were having a good race and the car was definitely pretty decent. We took two tires on that last stop and it was definitely a little bit too loose, but I was kind of waiting for it to come to me and (Ryan) Newman has always been super fair and I know that he was working to get by me. But, it sounds like maybe Jeff (Gordon) got into him, or something. It's that time of year. It's the Chase and people are racing hard and they want everything they can get and maybe Jeff couldn't see exactly where he was in relationship to the No. 31 (Newman) and me. But I did not get the good end of the stick." - Danica Patrick, finished 40th (crashed out)

"I don't know what happened to her, but typically when you hit the wall you hold onto the brakes, you lock it down – you try not to come back across the track. I saw her coming back down and I was trying. I didn't want to lock my brakes up because I knew I would hit her, so I was trying to just get it as low as I could and just couldn't get it as low as I needed to. Unfortunate to get involved in a wreck like that. I really hate it for our Michael Waltrip Racing Aaron's Toyota team. We had a rocky start to the race with a loose wheel and unscheduled green flag pit stop, but we had kind of gotten back our mojo that last run and got back on the lead lap. Just one of those deals. I hate it for everybody that works on these race cars. We needed a good finish today, but I wish that she would have locked her brakes up and would have stayed up on the wall." - David Ragan, finished 41st (crashed out)

"Something happened in the right front and it's really odd that it happened that early.  We ran a lot of laps in practice on a set of tires as well, so we thought we would have seen some issues in practice, but I don't know.  Something in the right front broke or the right-front tire blew out and it just went straight when I got to turn 1." - Aric Almirola, finished 43rd (Crashed Out)

Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager for Frontstretch.  He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.

~~~~~~~~~~


~~~~~~~~~
FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:

Q: For two years, the Indy Racing League held races at then-Dover Downs International Raceway.  In the 1999 event, Eliseo Salazar was involved in a nasty crash.  What happened?

Check back Tuesday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!

Friday's Answer:

Q:  The 1990 Grand Prix of Japan is best known for a bizarre crash on the first lap between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.  Senna all but admitted that the crash was intentional.  Like every instance that involves the two drivers, there's more to the story.  What happened before the race that angered Senna?

A: Prior to the race, Senna requested the pole position be moved to the outside because it was on the normal racing line.  At the time, track stewards agreed to Senna's request but FISA President Jean-Marie Balestre overruled the stewards, forcing Senna to start on the dirty side while Prost got the clean side.  A further rule strongly discouraging drivers from cutting across the yellow line on the straight also restricted what Senna could do on the start.  Regardless, Senna stated that he was going to go for the lead at the start.  This was the result.

~~~~~~~~~~
COMING TOMORROW

In The Frontstretch Newsletter:
We'll have breaking news from Monday and S.D. Grady returns with Sitting In The Stands: A Fan's View.

On Frontstretch.com:
Danny Peters returns with Five Points to Ponder after Sunday's race in Loudon.
 -----------------------------
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

--
--
Feel free to forward this newsletter if you have any friends who loves
NASCAR and great NASCAR commentary. They can subscribe to the Frontstetch by visiting http://www.frontstretch.com/notice/9557/.
 
If you want to stop your Frontstretch Newsletter subscription, we're sorry
to see you go. Just send an email to
TheFrontstretch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com from the address that you
recieve the Frontstretch Newsletter.

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Frontstretch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to thefrontstretch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Posted by Curious ... at 9:33 AM

No comments:

Post a Comment