The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
Nov. 11, 2016
by The Frontstretch Staff
Records and facts
Last year's Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500k at "Jeff Gordon Raceway" played out somewhat similarly to last weekend's AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Rains resulted in the start of the race being delayed for six hours. As a result, a day race ended up being run at night.
A crash involving Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and Joey Gase occurred during a round of pit stops, bringing out the race's second caution. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was on pit road and managed to beat leader Jeff Gordon to the line to stay on the lead lap. He inherited the lead when everyone else stopped. During the yellow, rains returned to Sonoran Desert which forced NASCAR to call the race complete with 219 laps of the scheduled 312 complete. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ended up taking his third win of 2015 as a result. Kevin Harvick was second, followed by Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson. Jeff Gordon ended up sixth.
Kevin Harvick is the winningest driver at Phoenix International Raceway all-time with eight victories on the tricky tri-oval. Jimmie Johnson has four victories in his own right, while Dale Earnhardt, Jr. has three.
Beyond those three drivers, five more drivers have two victories in Phoenix. Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards are the only active ones to accomplish this (Mark Martin, Davey Allison and Jeff Burton have also won twice, but all three won at Phoenix prior to the track being renovated).
Track Facts
Track / Race Length: 1 mile tri-oval, 312 laps (312 miles, 502.32 kilometers)
Banking: 10-11 degrees in Turns 1-2, 10-11 degrees in the backstretch dogleg, 8-9 degrees in Turns 3-4
Frontstretch: 1,179 ft., banked 3 degrees
Backstretch: 1,551 ft., banked 9-11 degrees
Grandstand Seating: 51,000
Pit Road Speed: 45 mph
Pace Car Speed: 50 mph
Opened: 1964 (first Cup race in 1988)
Website: http://www.phoenixraceway.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhoenixRaceway
Twitter: http://twitter.com/PhoenixRaceway
Pre-Race Schedule:
Practice No. 1: Friday, November 11, 1:30 - 2:55 p.m. on NBCSN
Qualifying: Friday, November 11, 6:30 p.m. on NBCSN
Practice No. 2: Saturday, November 12, 3 - 3:55 p.m. on NBCSN
Happy Hour: Saturday, November 5, 6 - 6:50 p.m. on NBCSN
Say What?!
"Phoenix is a really flat racetrack where you want to have the freshest tires possible, but track position is really important. A lot of what happens at Phoenix depends on the weather and how hot it is – how much fall-off and how you have to manage track position throughout the day. The cooler the day is, the more you have to manage your track position. The hotter the day, the more you have to manage the fall-off. Better-handling cars will have a little easier time of getting through the field.
"I feel like that can be gone at any point. That's the hardest thing about having success. You have to have an open mind to try new things to keep moving forward. If you don't have an open mind or are not willing to try a fresh approach, then it will get stagnant. You're going to become stale and get left behind. As we go to Phoenix, we have to look at the things that we've done well. Obviously, we've done a lot of good things. We look at the race tape and pay attention to the lines and braking, steering, throttle and all the things that you have access to and you try to mimic that immediately when you get on the racetrack. The hard part about our sport is the conditions are never the same. You never know if it's going to be 100 degrees or if it's going to be 50 degrees. That makes a big difference on the balance of the car, how much downforce it makes and how much tape you can run on the front. There are all kinds of things to navigate through once you get there. There are a lot of good racecar drivers and lots of circumstances that could play out to have things go wrong. You go there with a fresh start like you've never won there before and try to get the car dialed in." - Kevin Harvick
"Phoenix is going to be like every other race weekend for this Lowe's team. We are heading there to win. There is no such thing as a 'throw away' race in my mind. If my pit crew has more exposure in racing for the win, they have more pressure on them. We could all use practice with pressure because Homestead will bring a lot of pressure. So pressure is good for us. We will be racing for every point we can race for, even if we are locked in. We will race our race and let everyone else race theirs." - Jimmie Johnson
"I consider Phoenix a short track. And even though I like short-track racing, it's not really a place I've enjoyed racing so far. I want to like Phoenix. I like how different it is. I like that it's a challenging place. We've just never run really well there. And, until you go to a racetrack and have a great run and get some speed out of it, you don't really seem to enjoy it as much. It's not that I'm not optimistic going there. We have only one way to go from our run earlier in the season, so we can only be better this time around. We obviously want to finish out this season with some good results and I definitely think we can do that.
"The weather should be nice this time around. We seem to be dealing with weather a lot lately, and hopefully we're done with that. Maybe Phoenix stays the desert it's supposed to be when we get there." - Chris Buescher
Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager and a Senior Writer for Frontstretch.com. He can be reached via e-mail at ashland10@mail.com.
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TODAY ON FRONTSTRETCH:
Q: Robert Pressley had an up-and-down 2001 season for Jasper Racing. Phoenix was no exception as Pressley tied his best qualifying effort of the season (fifth) and kept himself on the lead lap all day. However, he walked out of Phoenix with a terrible finish. What happened?
Thursday's Answer:
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