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Prep Roundup
Columnists Brian Meadows Brad NormanMembersLocal Connection› Iredell County Young Athletes Association› South Iredell Athletics Association › SHS athletics › WIHS athletics › NIHS athletics › SIHS athletics › LNHS athletics Syndicate RSSAP NASCAR NASCAR Features A look at this year's schedule A look at this year's drivers Differences between stock car and open-wheel racing NASCAR Research & Development Petty Enterprises splitter testing Aerodynamic testing in Concord's wind tunnel Top 10 moments in Daytona history Site StatisticsThis page has been viewed 800894 timesPage rendered in 0.2241 seconds Total Stories: 2136 Total Comments: 34 Most Recent Entry: 08/15/2008 01:53 pm Most Recent Comment on: 04/17/2008 11:54 pm Most Recent Visitor on: 05/22/2012 11:01 am |
• Racing
2007 Sep-20
Dover could be a surpriseBy Mike Mulhern When they get done with all this week’s extracurricular activities, the drivers and crews will trek to Dover International Speedway for the second race of this season’s Nextel Cup Chase for the Championship. Martin Truex Jr. was the surprise winner at Dover in the spring, and he wound up making the Chase. But what happens this time around on the concrete one-mile track could be just as surprising. Jimmie Johnson, the tour leader, said: “The corners are below the level of the straight, so you’re launching off into the corner and then trying to get the car to slow down and turn, and then driving back up onto the straight. “It’s really an entertaining track, a fun track to drive - but you’re on the ragged edge. That’s why it’s such a dangerous track, and you can have so many issues.” “But we’ve been through this before, competed against each other in championships, and through it all, we recognize how if we work together it helps both of us, and that’s still the bottom line,” Johnson said. “When we get on the track there’s still enough going on - with each driver’s style, each crew chief’s style - that you can race your own independent race. “I would expect us to continue with the open-notebook policy we’ve always had. “That goes along with Kyle Busch (even though Busch is leaving at the end of the season). I have to give him a lot of credit for staying committed to the racing, being open and sharing what changes they’re making on the car, really helping the whole organization.” Johnson is a three-time Dover winner. While the Chevy drivers, such as Johnson and Gordon, are hot, the title picture is a bit murkier in the Ford camp. “To be honest with you, I don’t think it’s possible to handicap it today,” Matt Kenseth said of the championship. “You have to wait a few weeks. “I don’t think anybody expected Clint Bowyer to come in and win the (New Hampshire) race, and lead all the laps. He was real consistent and solid all year, and he was a threat to win a couple of races. But I don’t think anyone thought of him as one of the guys who was really going to have a shot at it. “Then he just kicked everybody’s butt this weekend.” Kenseth should be the Ford benchmark, as Jack Roush’s lead driver, but he hasn’t quite had a handle on things this season. Frustrating? Heck, no, Kenseth said: “It’s not frustrating at all making the Chase four years in a row.” Still Kenseth said that there is a large element of the unknown ahead: “Last year I couldn’t wait to get to Kansas and the 1 1/2 miles, because we ran so good at them. Then we went to Kansas, and I ran dead last all day.” Bookmarkz |
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