Thursday, May 19, 2016

The Frontstretch Newsletter: Harvick to Stay with SHR, Kahne Given a P3 Penalty

THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
May 19, 2016
Volume X, Edition LXXVI
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What to Watch: Thursday

- Today, Camping World Truck Series teams hold their practice sessions ahead of tomorrow's North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.  Much like last week, the sessions could be crucial to determine the starting lineup since there is rain in the forecast for Friday.  Only the last of the three sessions will be televised.
 
- Meanwhile, practice for next week's Indianapolis 500 continues at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  You can follow along at Indycar.com or on the INDYCAR app (for Verizon users only).
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Thursday's TV Schedule can be found here.

Top News
by the Frontstretch Staff

Kevin Harvick Signs Extension with Stewart-Haas Racing

Kevin Harvick was rather agitated recently by a number of rumors that saw him leaving Stewart-Haas Racing in order to stay with Chevrolet -- some of which were reported on Frontstretch.  He put that to rest by signing a contract extension to stay in the No. 4 long-term, even after the team switches to Ford next year.  Read more

Kasey Kahne, Others Penalized After Dover

NASCAR released their penalty report Wednesday.  The biggest team hit was the No. 5 of Kasey Kahne, assessed a P3 penalty for failing post-race laser inspection. Crew chief Keith Rodden was hit with a $25,000 fine along with a loss of 15 driver and owner points.  Three other teams got penalties while six more were warned.  Read more

Ryan-Hunter Reay Leads Wednesday IMS Practice

Practice continues at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway ahead of qualifying this weekend for the Indianapolis 500.  On Wednesday, Ryan Hunter-Reay was fastest with a lap of 228.202 mph.  Spencer Pigot also had the first crash of the month, but he walked away uninjured.  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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Today's Featured Commentary
Potts on his Adventure on the Streets Surrounding IMS
Potts' Shots
by John Potts

I sincerely hope readers aren't offended by the fact that this particular column isn't purely about racing. However, it involves my love of motorsports, so I feel that it qualifies.

Last Thursday (May 12), I had a couple of appointments at the VA Hospital in Indianapolis, starting with an eye exam at 8:20 a.m. That went fine, took a while, but I was happy with it. New glasses in a month or so.

Second appointment wasn't until 12:30 p.m., so I went to that department to see if they could move it up. No way, the doctor wasn't going to be there until noon. They offered to move the appointment back to another day. I decided that was fine.

Now, I had driven my little three-wheel electric handicapped cart to the hospital, which is about 3.5 miles from my apartment. I figured the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was another five miles, and I knew my cart had a range of about 10 miles, so I decided to head out and go get my media credentials for the activities coming up.

First part of the trip went fine, headed west on 10th Street until a friendly fireman told me that the next street which went all the way through to 16th was just a block away, and had good sidewalks.

Sure enough, I came out at Tremont and 16th, and that's when things got interesting. Somebody had warned me that the sidewalks on 16th were nothing to brag about, and I found out they were right. Dang near knocked my false teeth out several times. One pedestrian asked my why I was avoiding the water puddles (it rained the night before) when I crossed the side streets. I told him if I couldn't see the bottom I didn't know if there was a deep hole in there or not.

When I got close to the Speedway, I noticed that the sidewalks on the north side of 16th looked better, so I headed across and made it all the way to the HQ building.

Tim Sullivan's credential staff was on the ball, courteous and friendly as usual, and fixed me up with pre-race pit/garage access, Media Center access (complete with the noon meal), and a beautiful Silver Badge for the 100th running. My son isn't getting his hands on this one for his collection.

Naturally, I had to head for the Media Center and found the new Gate 1 right next to the HQ building to be something to behold. Beautiful. Can't make it by car from the HQ parking lot but my cart fit nicely between a couple of parking logs. From there I headed up to Gate 6, the closest with a tunnel (glad they didn't change that) and one that comes out right beside the Media Center.

While I'm here, I decided to watch some practice for the road race, especially since I had to charge the cart batteries. All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon. 

Until I left IMS.

I was thinking about coming back on 30th Street, but nobody knew if the north gates were open, so I decided to head back out to 16th.

I switched back and forth from north side to south according to how the sidewalks looked, and that's when it turned into a REAL adventure.

Going past the old White Front (lots of memories there), I was crossing the driveway when some woman came roaring up trying to make a gap on 16th. The old White Front is now a "gentleman's club" so maybe she was an untipped dancer.

Anyway that was the first of two times I almost got killed, but she managed to screech to a stop before running over me. I thought we were gonna get a repeat of the night I got backed into by a Pure Street car at Corbin back in 2012.

The usual bounce-and-dodge most of the way, but I found the automobile set to be somewhat less observant and courteous than they were earlier in the day. I was about to cross Tremont Street when some guy headed for Long's Bakery turned left in front of me. Couldn't have missed by more than a couple of inches.

Then I came up on a used car lot which had decided to park cars for sale on the handicapped sidewalk ramps in front of their business.

This, of course, was in the middle of a block so I had to ease out into the far left traffic lane and keep a close watch on my handlebar-mounted rear view mirror. Only one or two close calls before I got back to where I could get back on the sidewalk.

Tell you what, I was never so glad in my life to make it close to the hospital district, where the sidewalks were OK, but I had another close call with an ambulance which was in a hurry trying to get to the emergency door at IU-Methodist. He may never know how close he came to having to come back and pick up another passenger.

When I got close to home, I stopped at the area package store and picked up a 16-ounce Bud Light. First beer I've had in months, but I felt like I needed it.

Let's just say I have given up on my plan to drive the cart to IMS for the race, and am working on Plan B. Rest assured your faithful correspondent will be there for both qualification days, weather permitting, Carb Day, and the race itself. Our Tom Bowles has even asked me to do some Facebook updates as the weekend progresses.

This next adventure should be a little more fun.

John Potts is a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at john.potts@frontstretch.com.

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The Critic's Annex: Ollie's Bargain Outlet 200
by Phil Allaway

Welcome back, chaps.  Good to be back for another opinion piece.  Today, we're tackling Saturday's XFINITY Series Ollie's Bargain Outlet 200.  The lead up to the event had been rather tough on the assembled teams, but Saturday brought decent action and a broadcast on FOX.

What didn't come along with the deal was NASCAR RaceDay - XFINITY Edition.  I do not know why.  It's not like there was something that prohibited it from airing.  As a result, there was only a brief introduction to the race before we went to opening ceremonies.

On Tuesday, I talked about how I liked that FOX was using a lot of side-by-side setups for replays under green during the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series races.  Yeah, they didn't do that on Saturday.  Weak.  You have the ability to do that.  Why deny yourself?

Heat No. 2 started with Elliott Sadler getting black-flagged for jumping the start because he got pushed by Ty Dillon.  The pushing seemed to cause Sadler to beat Daniel Suarez to the line.  FOX had good coverage of the issue, including Sadler's radio, where he ranted about Dillon pushing him down the frontstretch.
 
Later, we had the big wreck for Justin Marks.  This is another example of why I don't like this heat race setup.  He technically DNS' the race as a result.  These heat races should not have started at 2 p.m.  They should have started around 11 a.m., after the first Cup practice (under this scenario, XFINITY Qualifying would have been Friday, but it would have been rained out, thus aligning the field for these heat races based on practice).
 
There is no local short track that I know of here in the United States that prevents teams from going to backup cars after heat races.  In those cases, your night would end not because of not being allowed a backup car, but because of not having one.  If you did have one, great.  You're probably starting in the rear, but you're still racing.  I feel like NASCAR is doing a disservice to the teams, but the scheduling is the main reason why this is so.  They can't put the backup car through the proper inspection in the time between the heats and the race at present.  I feel like it would be possible if the heats were moved up.  Still give the teams the current ten minutes for post-heat adjustments, though.
 
Ultimately, I believe that the heat race was only created to confine the Dash 4 Cash races to one day.  Previous race results do not determine who's even eligible to run for the money.  I think Comcast likes that and NASCAR probably does, but the fans are probably lukewarm at best.
 
This week's special guest in the booth was once again Brad Keselowski.  He's generally solid and brought some anecdotes from his first experience at Dover with him.  He pays attention to a number of the smaller teams quite a bit when he's in the booth and gives them dap when warranted.  Ryan Sieg was the recipient of said dap during the heat races.

I also personally believe that having the heat races has had a negative effect on the actual on-track product.  Let's face it.  These are the most boring heat races on the face of the earth, partially because of the placement of them.  The "features" that follow are also quite clean.  As a result, the field can get quite spread out.  Viewers saw a decent amount of racing for position, but a lot of the action we saw was constrained to the top 6 or so.
 
The incoming weather definitely played a role in making the XFINITY race the cleanest of the weekend.  Regardless, that meant that there was plenty of time for post-race coverage.  Here, viewers got a few post-race interviews, a check of the points and results, and some post-race analysis before FOX left the air.
 
Ultimately, the action we got on Saturday really wasn't all that exciting.  The only way Alex Bowman would have made it exciting would have been if it ran all the way to the finish from the first yellow without Brendan Gaughan's spin.  Had that not happened, Erik Jones probably still would have won.
 
The booth tried to sell the relatively unexciting race by selling the idea of certain drivers being good on short runs while others were good on long runs (Bowman).  Last year's Ford EcoBoost 400 in Homestead was a little like that.  It takes too long for a long run car to really come in.  That doomed Kyle Larson's chances at winning that race (seriously, without that late yellow, he would have already won a Cup race by now) just like it doomed Bowman (the man who despite racing full-time in Cup at the time, wasn't allowed to park in the infield at Homestead last November).
 
In the end, I really wasn't into this broadcast.  Keselowski's presence did bring some good knowledge and very recent on-track experience into play, but ultimately the broadcast can be brought down by lackluster racing.  Admittedly, it's a little similar to what I think of the Ollie's Bargain Outlet chain (we have one location locally in the Albany area).  If Big Lots is TJMaxx or Marshalls, then Ollie's is the now-defunct AJWright.
 
Compared to the other races in Dover, Saturday was the dud of the bunch.  Not having side-by-side replays really hurts the telecast as well.  Was that because the race was on FOX instead of FOX Sports 1?  I'm not sure.  It's worth asking about, though.

Also of note, please don't configure the FOX Box to display the fact that this is a Dash 4 Cash race instead of showing the lap counter.  That's not cool.  I don't like it.  The fact that there are heat races and a shorter feature is more than enough for me to know that it is a Dash 4 Cash event.
 
I hope you liked this look at the XFINITY Series' Ollie's Bargain Outlet 200 broadcast.  Tomorrow, we're taking a look at Allen Bestwick and the gang at ESPN/ABC's broadcast last Saturday from Indianapolis.  Have a great day.

"It really never even sunk in, and even now it still doesn't. The fact that I was so young and got the opportunity to go do it and [had] very limited pavement experience at the time. The Indianapolis 500 was literally like my 14th time ever racing on pavement. When you tell people that, they're kind of in shock."  - JJ Yeley, on racing in the 1998 Indianapolis 500
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TODAY AT FRONTSTRETCH:
by Aaron Bearden and Sean Fesko
by Bryan Gable

by Joseph Wolkin

 


by Dustin Albino
by Toni Montgomery
 
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FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
Q: As noted below, Arie Luyendyk was DQ'd from his qualifying run on pole day at Indianapolis in 1996 for being underweight.  Forced to re-qualify on Sunday, what did Luyendyk do?

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

Wednesday's Answer:

Q:  For Tony Stewart's first Indianapolis 500 back in 1996, he started his No. 20 Lola-Menard V6 from the pole and ran laps early in the race faster than he qualified.  However, he didn't qualify there.  How did he end up on the pole?

A: Stewart actually qualified third behind Team Menard teammate Scott Brayton and Arie Luyendyk on pole day.  Luyendyk's car then failed post-qualifying inspection, which moved the No. 20 to second.  Stewart sadly inherited the pole when pole-winner Scott Brayton was killed in a practice crash six days after winning the pole.  Team Menard brought Danny Ongais out of retirement to drive Brayton's backup car (the No. 32) in his place in the 33rd spot on the grid.
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COMING TOMORROW
In The Frontstretch Newsletter:
We'll have some news from today (including practice recaps from Charlotte and Indianapolis) while we preview Friday night's Sprint Showdown and Saturday night's Sprint All-Star Race.

On Frontstretch.com:
Zach Catanzareti answers Four Burning Questions heading into this weekend's action in Charlotte.
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