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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 801133 timesPage rendered in 0.1960 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: 05/23/2012 12:12 am |
• Racing
2007 Oct-11
Johnson, Gordon are drivers to beatBy Mike Mulhern CONCORD - Well, Bruton Smith hasn’t shut down Lowe’s Motor Speedway yet, so there’s still time to see the last race here. But the kicker might be that even though the track, built by Smith in 1960, is right in the heart of stock-car country, ticket sales recently haven’t been up to snuff. Whether that changes in time for Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 remains to be seen. Certainly, the rapidly dwindling excitement in the NASCAR championship Chase won’t help. Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, among the big favorites here, are starting to pull away from the field. Seven of those 10 have never won a Cup race here at all. Kurt Busch is 0 for 14, Kevin Harvick is 0 for 13, and he has led only two laps. Carl Edwards is 0 for 5, but he does have two thirds. The only driver still in sight of Gordon and Johnson is Clint Bowyer, in only his second season on the tour. Bowyer is 63 points down to Gordon. But Johnson is the driver to beat this weekend, coming into today’s qualifying runs at 7 p.m. He has won five times in his 12 starts at LMS, and he has won two All-star races. This could be Johnson’s week to break away even from teammate Gordon. Over the past five Cup races here, Johnson dominates the statistics as the fastest leader, the top passer under green, and the best closer. Gordon has five DNFs in those races, with an average finish of 33rd. He hasn’t won here since 1999. Johnson’s chief competition could come from Mark Martin, whose 17 top-fives are the most of any driver here. And Martin has led more laps here than any other man in the field. “It is probably my favorite track on the entire circuit,” Martin said. “In my opinion, it’s the greatest place to race in the world. I can remember the first time, in 1982, and thinking ‘Wow!’ ” + + + The rest of the Chase pack can go for broke, because they’re all fading fast. If anyone can launch a comeback, it’s probably Tony Stewart, if he’s not still moping over last Sunday’s problems. Stewart is 154 points down, after finishing eighth at Talladega, a race he called “boring,” a phrase repeated by several other drivers about the follow-the-leader race. After losing Sunday, Stewart left Talladega Superspeedway without comment. Now he says, “I feel I let my team down. “I don’t know what I should have done different, but I should done something different obviously, because we went — in the last three-quarters of a lap — from third to eighth. I had a great run on the outside, but all it took was Jeff to pull up there (in front of him), and there was nothing I can do. I’m treed. “It’s either push him or get crashed trying to go to the inside by him or run into the guys down on the bottom. It’s not a very fun deal. “That doesn’t seem like racing to me. It’s happened that way before, and that’s something the drivers are figuring out. Unfortunately it’s making the racing more boring every time we go to Talladega. “We could shorten the race to about 60 or 80 laps and cut all the crap in the middle where we’re all riding around absolutely bored out of our skulls. We could still put on a good show and everybody could get home earlier.” Bookmarkz |
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