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22-year-old driver doesn’t expect disease will impact racing career

RELATED: Bayne diagnosed with multiple sclerosis | NASCAR Nation reacts

CONCORD, N.C. — Trevor Bayne treated his body like a race car, and wanted as much information as possible to help it run better. Which is why he returned to the Mayo Clinic again and again for tests related to the mysterious illness that kept him off the track for two months during the same season where he electrified NASCAR by winning the sport’s biggest race.

Tuesday, the Daytona 500 champion revealed the long-sought diagnosis he finally received late this past summer: multiple sclerosis, a disease of the central nervous system which interrupts the flow of information between the brain and the rest of the body, and can cause symptoms that range from numbness and tingling to paralysis, in extreme cases.

Bayne said he currently has no symptoms, and his advice from doctors is that he manage heat and hydration in the race car. The 22-year-old full-time NASCAR Nationwide Series participant has been cleared to continue competition by both physicians and NASCAR.

"My hope is to never have symptoms again," Bayne said in a conference room at Roush Fenway Racing, which fields his Nationwide car. "There are people who go on with completely normal lives with MS, and I hope to be one of those people. Obviously nobody knows what exactly the future holds for anybody. But for me, I trust that whatever God has planned for me is best for my life. I’d love to be healed. That would be perfect, if that’s what He plans for. But if not, then we’ll move on day by day with it. At this point, I have no symptoms, and feel completely fine to drive."

Bayne won the Daytona 500 in 2011 for the Wood Brothers, the Roush-affiliated NASCAR Sprint Cup Series organization he still drives for on a limited basis. Later that season in a race at Texas, Bayne felt numbness in one arm, and subsequent tests led to him sitting out of the race car for nearly two months. Bayne said later that doctors believed he had Lyme disease, even though it was never officially diagnosed. He still might have it  — Bayne said Tuesday he did indeed suffer an insect bite and have a rash on the same arm that went numb, but the lack of a definitive diagnosis always bothered him.

"It’s an easy thing, because I did have the rash on my arm from a bug bite. I don’t know if the two are connected — I’m not a doctor and I wouldn’t want to make that call," he said. "But they wanted to do more research, because I wasn’t satisfied with not knowing. As a competitive person, as a racer, you guys know how we work. We kind of want to know how everything works, and causes and effects and all that stuff. I just kept going back for checkups, and this is what it led to."

Bayne said he kept returning to the Mayo Clinic of his own volition, undergoing more tests searching for an answer. If he wasn’t suffering from any symptoms, why keep going back?

"Why not go back and find out?" he said. "Obviously for me, I want to take the best care of myself possible, so if there are things that help you, or if you have a diagnosis and there are ways to keep yourself better, then it’s better to have information than to not have information in my book. What’s engrained in me from racing is, you get as much data, as much information as you can and you make the most of it, and that’s what I wanted to do."

Bayne said he is currently on no medication and feels fine — he worked out Tuesday morning as usual, and last December finished second in his age group in a triathlon. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the symptoms and severity of the disease vary from person to person. Although Bayne’s sister also has MS, he said doctors have told him the disease is not hereditary. The driver added he wasn’t sure exactly what type of MS he had — some manifest themselves in episodes of relapse and recovery, while others are progressive.

"The doctors recommend what they recommend for everybody — just take the best care of your body you can, stay hydrated, keep yourself cool and do everything you can," he said. "That’s something we do already as performance athletes. We want to take care of our bodies, train hard, stay hydrated in the race car because you sweat so much. So that’s what I’ve been doing, and I’ve always done that. You want to keep yourself as healthy as possible with or without a condition, and now just make that even more apparent."

Bayne said he needed some time to process the diagnosis and alert family and team members before making it public. Roush Fenway president Steve Newmark said the organization is relying on the judgment of the Mayo Clinic — the Rochester, Minn., hospital where team co-owner Jack Roush recovered after a 2010 plane crash — that Bayne is OK to continue competition. NASCAR released a statement supporting Bayne and the manner in which his condition is being addressed.

"I think NASCAR probably had similar questions that we all did," Newmark said, "and first and foremost was, ‘How are you feeling? How are you doing from a health perspective?’ And then it really is just making sure that the doctors who have evaluated him regularly have said, ‘Yes, driving is something that you’re permitted to do, and we give you the authorization.’ I think that’s really what NASCAR was looking for. I’m not sure what the process was internally, but I can tell you that (NASCAR president) Mike Helton and that crowd have been extremely supportive of Trevor."

Bayne said he didn’t believe the health issue has impacted this season — he’s currently sixth in Nationwide points, with a victory at Iowa, heading into Saturday’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He added that his plans for next year are similar to this one, with a full Nationwide slate for Roush and select Sprint Cup starts for the Wood Brothers. He’ll likely be part of three-car Nationwide effort next season at Roush, along with Chris Buescher and Ryan Reed.

And although he needed some time to come to terms with the diagnosis, Bayne said he never feared for his career.

"For me, I don’t have concerns about that," he said. "To me, I’ve felt great. I feel like I can continue on with my job without any differences. My competitive nature is still exactly the same as it has always been since I started racing when I was 5 years old. I want to go win races and go win championships and contend at the highest level. To me, there’s nothing that has changed for me in my physical world, so I’m able to go on."

That much was evident when Bayne sat in the same conference room to inform Roush of his diagnosis. As the driver recalled it, Roush asked, "Are you OK?" After Bayne informed him he was, the car owner responded with "All right, then. What can we do to make our cars better?" The focus immediately shifted back to performance, right where Bayne wanted it to be.

"That’s Jack Roush for you," Bayne said. "He’s a competitor, and he wants to know what we can do to make our cars better to win races and championships. He trusts me. He trusts the doctors that have cleared me. I trust the doctors that have cleared me, and we’re ready to go racing. Like I said, Jack’s concern is how can we make all of our teams faster, as it should be."

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for win at Phoenix

WATCH: Final Laps:
Harvick wins late

WATCH: Kenseth:
‘still one week left’

WATCH: Johnson’s
close call
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The 2011 Daytona 500 winner plans to compete in season finale, for Nationwide title in 2014

RELATED: Bayne: ‘Nothing has changed’ after diagnosis | NASCAR Nation reacts

Roush Fenway Racing driver and former Daytona 500 champion Trevor Bayne has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but the team announced Tuesday that the 22-year-old has been cleared by doctors to continue to compete in NASCAR.


Bayne has undergone testing at the Mayo Clinic, the same institution where he was examined repeatedly in 2011 for what the driver believed was Lyme disease, which sidelined him for two months that season. Multiple sclerosis is a more serious, less predictable disease of the central nervous system which interrupts the flow of information between the brain and the rest of the body, and symptoms can range from numbness and tingling to paralysis in extreme cases.

"We are 100 percent supportive of Trevor and his ability to compete in a race car," Roush Fenway team owner Jack Roush said in a statement. "I have full confidence in Trevor, and his partners have all expressed that same confidence and support. As with all of our drivers, we look forward to standing behind Trevor and providing him with all of the tools he needs as he continues to develop in his young career."


Bayne won the 2011 Daytona 500 for the Wood Brothers, and was sidelined later that same season after complaining of numbness in his arm while driving in a race. This season Bayne is competing full-time on the Nationwide Series, where he is sixth in the standings entering Saturday’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He has competed in every event and has one victory on the year, at Iowa Speedway in June.


"I’ve never been more driven to compete," said Bayne. "My goals are the same as they’ve been since I started racing. I want to compete at the highest level and I want to win races and championships. I am in the best shape I’ve ever been in and I feel good. There are currently no symptoms and I’m committed to continuing to take the best care of my body as possible. I will continue to trust in God daily and know that His plan for me is what is best.


"As for now, I want to close out the season strong this weekend at Homestead and then shift my focus on getting ready to compete for the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship in 2014. I have a great team, a great family and great people all around me. I have been truly blessed in life and I look forward to what my future holds."


A native of Knoxville, Tenn., Bayne has two career Nationwide victories to go along with his Daytona 500 championship. He will return to the Nationwide tour for Roush next season.

NASCAR on Tuesday extended its support.

"We support Trevor and are proud of the way he’s addressing his condition. We know that he’s in very good hands and we’re confident of his ability to continue to compete at a high level in our sport."

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for win at Phoenix

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Harvick wins late

WATCH: Kenseth:
‘still one week left’

WATCH: Johnson’s
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Not being able to master the ‘bloody black art’ of racing contributed to his eventual exit

RELATED: Pastrana not returning to NASCAR in 2014

Speed has never been a problem for Travis Pastrana.

Whether it’s rocketing up Mount Washington, zooming off a ramp and onto a barge anchored off the Southern California coastline, or shredding through the curves behind the wheel of a rally car, the world’s foremost action-adventure superstar knows how to slam the pedal to the floor and go fast. The countless broken bones, the back injury that once put him in a wheelchair, the fractured foot he famously suffered in the X Games — nothing could stop him. The man was born to accelerate.

That much was also evident once Pastrana moved into NASCAR, undertaking a Nationwide Series effort fielded by Jack Roush. Some of Pastrana’s best moments this season have come on qualifying day, where he could mash the throttle and go. That he had raw speed was never at issue as the Maryland native tried to make the transition to stock car racing from rally cars, motocross, stunt jumping, and general feats of derring-do.

No, it was the little things that plagued Pastrana, that frustrated a competitor who has enjoyed crazy success in just about everything else he’d ever tried. Pastrana came into this with eyes open, understanding that the transition to NASCAR would very well be the toughest endeavor he’d ever undertaken. There were no illusions of winning races and contending for titles from the beginning, even though he hoped to get there eventually. From the start he was realistic, completely accepting of the fact that this would be damn hard.

And indeed it was, evidenced in Monday’s announcement that he won’t return to NASCAR next year. Having all that raw speed was one thing — harnessing it was another. It was the finesse, the nuance, what old-timers called "the bloody black art" that Pastrana most wrestled with, those struggles laid bare in a series of hard crashes that came to define his season. They weren’t all his fault, but in retrospect he realized there were measures he should have taken to evade or prevent them altogether, the balance between going fast and slowing down lost somewhere amidst all that crumpled sheet metal.

He admitted as much at Kentucky Speedway in June. "That’s why I’m beating myself up," he said. "In motocross, I knew what was going to happen. Here, I feel like I’m blind until it’s too late."

He always fought the battle between locking it up and playing it safe, and perhaps driving over his head. Too often, by his own admission, he chose the latter.

"I always try to save it," he said at Kentucky. "And the guys who try to save it always end up hitting the wall a lot harder.”

Goodness, did he do that. Charlotte, Talladega, Iowa, Daytona — Travis Pastrana’s greatest hits were enough to make you wince, once again proof of all that speed the guy could squeeze out of a vehicle, but how elusive the line could be in keeping it all under control. After the Charlotte hit, which lifted the rear wheels of his No. 60 car off the ground, he found it hard the next morning to turn his head from side to side. No question, the dude absolutely oozes raw talent. But in NASCAR there are a lot of guys who can go fast, and success is often found in the margins, and those margins can be difficult to locate.

"I’ve never been able to figure out the finesse required in pavement racing, and that is disappointing," Pastrana wrote in his statement Monday, when he announced he would not return to NASCAR next season.

Clearly, inexperience played a part here. Back in his motocross days Pastrana was downright clairvoyant, all that accumulated knowledge on the bike helping him to sense when an accident was going to happen a half a lap before it actually did. It might be unfair to expect him to have that same internal alarm so finely calibrated after all of his 42 national-division starts (counting the 2013 season finale at Homestead).

For now, though, Saturday’s Nationwide Series finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway shapes up as his last. Pastrana’s stock car adventure has been financed to a degree by his personal sponsors, and he wrote Monday that his results weren’t good enough to pull together enough funding for next season. That’s sad on a lot of levels, especially given Pastrana’s infectiously upbeat personality and crossover appeal. But it also serves to reinforce one of the cornerstones of NASCAR — that this is first, foremost, and forever a performance-based sport.

Of course, that doesn’t make Pastrana’s looming departure any easier. He clearly relished this opportunity, from the challenge NASCAR presented, to the structure Roush’s organization afforded, to the charge he got out of trying to improve. In June, Pastrana said he woke up every morning thinking about how to get his to get his No. 60 car to go faster, and sometimes woke up his wife drilling on the iRacing rig until 2 a.m.

"I love this," he said then. There’s no lack of effort here. On all fronts, Travis Pastrana did everything right, except master the small details that separate great NASCAR drivers from the rest. 



Talladega was Pastrana’s experience in a microcosm — he was fast enough to claim his first pole and have a real shot to win, but he pushed it too hard, too early and got himself taken out in a crash that started when Brian Scott and Reed Sorenson tangled in front of him. "There’s no reason we should have been there," he said afterward. "That was entirely my fault."

And so it went. Pastrana possesses courage by the bucketful, as evidenced in some of the ridiculous stuff he’s tried on a motorbike or in a race car. He’s never been afraid of slamming down that right foot and making his crazy pink, blue and yellow vehicle scream by in a polychromatic blur. But in NASCAR, knowing when to slow down is as important as knowing when to go fast, as counterintuitive as it might seem. And all those little nuances that bedeviled Pastrana all season can add up to an awful lot.

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WATCH: Final Laps:
Harvick wins late

WATCH: Kenseth:
‘still one week left’

WATCH: Johnson’s
close call
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A win is the missing puzzle piece to a successful 2013 campaign

RELATED: Full Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is finishing like he started, closing his best season in years with a surge even more impressive than the one that kicked off this 2013 campaign. Now with only the finale left on the schedule, there’s just one puzzle piece remaining to complete the strongest season in almost a decade for NASCAR’s most popular driver.

"A win would help," crew chief Steve Letarte said after Earnhardt’s fourth-place run Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, his seventh top-10 finish in this Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. "Right now we just have a lot of good runs. We’re ready for a great one."

They’ve come close, using a trio of runner-up finishes to climb from 13th to fifth in points over the course of the playoff. Take Earnhardt’s engine failure and subsequent 35th-place result in the Chase opener at Chicagoland out of the equation, and his average finish in the remaining events is 5.8. That’s notably better than the 8.8 accumulated over the same span by current second-place driver Matt Kenseth, who finished 23rd Sunday. And it’s within striking range of the 4.6 average in the past eight events of leader Jimmie Johnson, who can clinch his sixth title with a finish of 23rd or better at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

That speed was evident this past Sunday at Phoenix, when Earnhardt lost a lap early after making an extra pit stop to address a loose wheel, and still rallied for his best finish at the one-mile track since 2005. Of course, the mistake likely cost him a chance to challenge winner Kevin Harvick. Even so, his No. 88 cars have been formidable every week.

"We’ve been fast since the Chase started," Earnhardt said at Phoenix. "We’ve been quick and one of the best cars every week. So hopefully if we don’t get this (next) race, if we don’t win damn Homestead, we’ll still have speed when we show up in Daytona. It would be good if we could go ahead and get one, but if we have to wait, hopefully we haven’t lost anything when next season starts."

Even without a victory, Earnhardt is easily enjoying his best season since his heyday at Dale Earnhardt Inc. If he remains in his current position in the standings — Earnhardt is currently 17 points ahead of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon in sixth — he’d secure his best points finish since 2006. If he can overtake fourth-place Kyle Busch, who is six points ahead of him, he’d record his best finish since he placed a career-best third in 2003.

Matching that high-water mark might prove difficult, given that third-place Harvick is 29 points ahead. But clearly, this is the more potent Earnhardt everyone envisioned when he first joined the Hendrick powerhouse before the 2008 campaign.

"I’ve got to give credit to the team," Earnhardt said. "The guys are working hard. They’re doing really good work. Just because we’re not in the title hunt, they’re not laying down. They’re working as hard as anybody. Steve is doing a good job. They’re doing a great job. They’re putting great setups under the cars."

Earnhardt’s surge comes as teammate Johnson — whose cars are assembled in the same 48/88 shop at the Hendrick facility — is zeroing in on a sixth championship, which appears much more likely after the turn of events at Phoenix. Letarte and Johnson’s crew chief Chad Knaus are veteran stable mates, going back to the days when the former was car chief and then crew chief on Jeff Gordon’s team, which was then housed with Johnson’s in what was a 24/48 shop. "We’ve been working together a long time," Letarte said.

And the success of one often buoys the other, exactly what owner Rick Hendrick envisioned when he shuffled personnel and brought the 88 and 48 teams under the same roof before the 2011 campaign. Although Letarte doesn’t think strength is necessarily guaranteed to carry over from the end of one season to the start of the next — "rules change, everything changes," he said — the team has clearly benefitted from a blueprint that has it peaking at the most important time of the year.

"I think we’ve had definitely some better cars here toward the Chase," Letarte said. "We had a plan, and the plan was to make the Chase, to build new cars, to redo old cars, to test toward the end of the year. Our goal all year long was to be great in the final 10, and we’ve been really, really good in seven of them, average in one of them, and blew up in one of them. So it is what it is. Can’t go back and redo the first one."

But oh if they could, given that Earnhardt was running in the top 10 at Chicagoland before his engine failure — well, that’s for the citizens of Junior Nation to lament. Regardless, it’s a hopeful finishing stretch that to Letarte is reminiscent of how the No. 88 team opened the season, with five straight top-seven results that had Earnhardt in the points lead after Fontana.

"Reminds me a lot of the beginning of the year," Letarte said. "We’re kind of bookending the year. We had speed in the middle, but we broke a motor at the first Michigan leading, blew a tire at the second Michigan, broke an alternator running second or third at Texas. We’ve had a lot of good cars go bad, and unfortunately we’ve had a lot of bad cars run all day. We didn’t quite spread them out like we should. But it’s a lot of fun. We’re hitting on all cylinders. We tested Homestead, and hopefully we can go down there and try to get a trophy."

Which for Earnhardt in this 2013 season is the only puzzle piece that remains.

MORE:

READ: Harvick rallies
for win at Phoenix

WATCH: Final Laps:
Harvick wins late

WATCH: Kenseth:
‘still one week left’

WATCH: Johnson’s
close call
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Hornish trails Dillon by eight points heading into finale

Before Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick settle the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, two other titles will be decided at Homestead-Miami Speedway this weekend.
 
One should be a slam dunk. As soon as Matt Crafton takes the green flag in Friday night’s Ford EcoBoost 200, he’ll be the new NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion.
 
The race in the NASCAR Nationwide Series is far less clearly defined. Austin Dillon holds an eight-point lead over Sam Hornish Jr. in what has been a hotly contested up-and-down battle all season long.
 
Dillon is a former truck series champion who expects to graduate to NASCAR Sprint Cup next year in a car owned by his legendary grandfather, Richard Childress.
 
Where Dillon’s career is following a blueprint, Hornish’s future is anything but certain. Where Dillon will race for a championship trophy in Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300, Hornish will race for a title and everything that comes with it, including the possibility of a stock car ride for next season.

Team owner Roger Penske doesn’t have a concrete opportunity for Hornish in 2014 and has given the 34-year-old driver from Defiance, Ohio, the OK to shop around for a solid situation. Thus far, Hornish has no announced plans for next year, though the former IndyCar and Indianapolis 500 champion would prefer to remain in NASCAR.
 
"I’ve always been a person that never says never, but I’m pretty well focused on trying to continue to make my way and to make this work on the NASCAR side of it," Hornish said after running fifth this past Saturday at Phoenix. 
 
"The level of racing here, the amount of talent and the way that these races are run is extremely appealing to me, because I feel like it commands me to work harder to be a better driver and a better person. We’ll have to see how everything plays out."
 
A championship certainly would help raise his visibility. And more than simply considering a title as validation of his NASCAR career, Hornish wants to seize the opportunity in front of him.
 
"I feel like I want to win the championship, because at this point in time, I don’t know what the opportunities for me to win another one will be," Hornish said. "So you’ve got to go out there and work hard to try to get the best finishes and the best opportunity, but I don’t feel like it completely validates it.
 
"I feel like this last year has shown something that I’ve known for a while, and it’s just me being able to back it up with the results. We don’t have as many wins as we’d like to at this point (one this season, at Las Vegas), but I feel like being able to go out there and race against top level Sprint Cup guys and to race the way that we did throughout the season … I feel pretty good about that.
 
"So I’ve got my head held high on that one, and we’re going to continue to work hard to try to figure out how to continue to be in this sport as long as I can."

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READ: Harvick rallies
for win at Phoenix

WATCH: Final Laps:
Harvick wins late

WATCH: Kenseth:
‘still one week left’

WATCH: Johnson’s
close call
Posted on by Holly Cain

Title-contending teams heading to Homestead focused on the path to a championship

RELATED: Full Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage

Only days away from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the three title-contending crew chiefs sounded very calm and measured Tuesday discussing their championship potential and realities.

There was no locker room bulletin board material offered up. No cocky arrogance or veiled inference from the men behind the scenes.

Two of the three recognize that it will take some very specific scenarios and an off-day from a nearly-never-off team to translate into the sport’s most coveted trophy.

But don’t suggest to the third – championship-leading crew chief Chad Knaus  — that guiding Jimmie Johnson to a sixth Cup title is any sort of slam dunk or that the final round of this title fight lacks for any drama or intensity.

It’s all about perspective. And Knaus has plenty.

"If you don’t think it’s a fiery ending go talk to Denny Hamlin and ask him what happened a couple years ago when he came in (to Homestead) with the points lead," Knaus said, raising his voice in emotion as he reminded reporters of Hamlin losing the 2010 title to Johnson after coming up just short (14th) at Homestead.

"If you don’t think it’s a fiery ending," Knaus cautioned, "then come over here and hop on the pit box and help me try to call the race and make sure you don’t mess up. It’s a very fiery ending. It’s so easy to throw these things away. We see it time and time again.

"There’s things that you cannot control, there’s things you can control and we’ve got to make sure we can control what is in our ability and put our best foot forward.

"It’s not easy going out there and trying to race for 267 laps. It’s not easy at all."

Having participated and prevailed in more championship situations than any other crew chief in the last decade, Knaus knows the trophy isn’t yours until you kiss it and wipe confetti from your eyes.

It’s a moment of pure exuberance that his counterparts, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Jason Ratcliff and Richard Childress Racing’s Gil Martin would like to experience.

Hearing them speak Tuesday, it’s obvious their approaches to the weekend and general demeanor are more similar to one another as championship fate and circumstance have dictated.

Ratcliff’s driver Matt Kenseth trails Johnson by 28 points entering Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 and Martin’s driver Kevin Harvick – last week’s race winner — is 34 points back.

They realize Johnson wins the championship with a finish of 23rd or better. And that makes not only the math, but the path, more clearly defined. The other two teams must win.

"I hate to oversimplify it, but it’s just that simple. We need to go out here no different than maybe what we did earlier in the season and that is just throw caution to the wind,’’ said Ratcliff, who won a Nationwide Series title for Gibbs.

"We have everything to gain and nothing to lose. We don’t have to play defense. We can be full bore on offense. We can get as aggressive as possible.

"We need to go out and lead a lot of laps and win the race and that’s really all we do do."

While Ratcliff and Martin find themselves at a similar crossroads this season, their road forward couldn’t be more different. This is Ratcliff’s first year with Kenseth, who moved to the Gibbs’ Toyota camp after a career – and the 2003 Cup championship —  driving Fords at Roush Fenway Racing.


Listening to him and Kenseth talk about their maiden season makes this championship go-round feels like a preamble to a future of successful chapters.

Ratcliff echoed Kenseth’s comments following a disappointing 23rd place effort at Phoenix last week that may cost the team a title. As far as they are concerned their first season together (in which Kenseth has won seven races, although Ratcliff was only the crew chief for six of the wins as he served a one-week suspension for a rules violation when Kenseth won at Darlington) exceeded all expectations.

"We feel like we have a good weekend in front of us and if we can go out there and win and lead a lot of laps, then you never know what can happen," Ratcliff said.

"We’re a lot further out than we hoped we would be, but again, we’re still mathematically in it.

"We know how big that would be for us to close out what’s been a great season with a win. Even if we fall short of that championship, that would be an awesome way to close it out for us."

Conversely, Martin and Harvick are trying to create a nice postscript to Harvick’s storied tenure at Childress.

With Harvick moving to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014, this title run is an emotional bookend to 13 triumphant and turbulent years with Childress after replacing the late Dale Earnhardt at RCR a week after the seven-time champ’s death in the 2001 Daytona 500.

While much of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup has focused on Johnson and Kenseth, Harvick has crept right into the mix and never appeared the lame duck some predicted once his 2014 plans were revealed this summer.

"It’s not just proving a point, quite frankly we want to win the championship badly," Martin said. "Everybody wants to feel they’re worthy out there in this garage. … These guys showed this weekend (at Phoenix) that they have tenacity and that they are more than willing to fight to the end to see if we can take the trophy home. I know it’s a David and Goliath task that we’ve got ahead of us right now, but there’s a lot that can happen.

"We want to send Kevin out of here with a championship and that’s what we’re trying to do."

MORE:

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for win at Phoenix

WATCH: Final Laps:
Harvick wins late

WATCH: Kenseth:
‘still one week left’

WATCH: Johnson’s
close call
Posted on by Staff Report

Five-time K&N Pro Seres East winner Corey LaJoie to race at Homestead

Richard Petty Motorsports development driver Corey LaJoie will make his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut this weekend when the 22-year-old attempts to qualify for Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

RPM officials announced LaJoie, son of two-time Nationwide Series champion Randy LaJoie, will drive the No. 9 Victory Junction Ford with crew chief Mike Shiplett overseeing the effort. Shiplett is currently car chief of the No. 9 Sprint Cup team and driver Marcos Ambrose.

The organization’s No. 43 Cup pit crew will handle race-day duties on pit road.

LaJoie is a five-time winner in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East division. He has made only two starts in the series this year, however.

"I feel like I’ve been ready for this for a couple of years, but finally everything is falling into place," LaJoie said.

"I haven’t been to Homestead, but it’s a fast mile-and-a-half track like Kansas or Chicago. I know the competition will be tougher too. … I’ll be able to lean on my RPM teammates, on the Nationwide and Cup level. I’m going to soak it all in."

RPM currently fields one full-time entry in the Nationwide Series for driver Michael Annett, as well as Cup entries for Ambrose and teammate Aric Almirola.

"Everyone knows what the (Victory Junction) camp means to the Petty family," LaJoie said. "It’s an honor for me to be supporting this special place this weekend."

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for win at Phoenix

WATCH: Final Laps:
Harvick wins late

WATCH: Kenseth:
‘still one week left’

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Posted on by Nascar

Crew chief Gil Martin acted as mediator during tense time

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The turmoil that rocked Richard Childress Racing at Martinsville Speedway last month could have easily spelled the end of Kevin Harvick‘s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title hopes.

Yet in spite of the on-track altercation between Harvick and fellow RCR driver Ty Dillon in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, and in spite of the heat-of-the-moment comments made by Harvick afterward, the No. 29 Sprint Cup Series team finds itself clinging to a shot at the championship as the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup heads to Homestead for the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 400.

Harvick is third in points, trailing leader Jimmie Johnson by 34 and second-place Matt Kenseth by only six. He is the series’ most recent winner, capturing Sunday’s AdvoCare 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. He has two Chase wins, as do Johnson and Kenseth.

"This deal is tough enough like it is, and obviously you don’t want things like that to happen, but it did," Gil Martin, Harvick’s Sprint Cup crew chief, said of the Martinsville dust-up during a teleconference Tuesday.

"But I felt like after several phone conversations that we could get right back on track. I never had the doubt about the focus of the team or Kevin once the race started. After the race was over, I felt pretty confident that we were right back on track."

Contact from Dillon sent Harvick, driving for NTS Motorsports in the race, spinning as the two battled for second place. An angry Harvick drove into Dillon while under caution; Dillon retaliated by getting into the back of Harvick’s truck as the two headed to pit road.

"That’s exactly the reason I’m leaving RCR because you’ve got those punk-ass kids coming up," Harvick said afterward.

Dillon and older brother Austin are the grandsons of team owner Richard Childress. The two have gradually advanced through lower series before making the move into NASCAR where Austin is leading the NASCAR Nationwide Series points standings and will move to Cup in 2014 while Ty is expected to move up to Nationwide competition next year.

"The 3 just dumped me," Harvick said. "Exactly the reason why I’m leaving RCR because you’ve got those kids coming up and they’ve got no respect for what they do in this sport and they’ve had everything fed to them with a spoon."

The following morning, Harvick was apologetic, saying, "sometimes you regret the things you say for sure. Yesterday was one of them."

Martin has been with RCR since 2000, and has won races in all three major touring series. He and Harvick have been paired together, off and on, since May of 2002. With Martin atop the pit box, Harvick finished third in points in 2010 and 2011; he spent much of 2012 as director of team operations, but returned to his crew chief duties with the team in September and Harvick finished eighth in the standings.

In the aftermath of the Martinsville incident, Martin, 53, suddenly found himself trying to keep the team together and, more importantly, move forward.

"After you have something like that happen, no matter what the situation is, with two parties you’ve got to have somebody that’s a mediator. So I tried to be a mediator," he said. " … You can’t stick your head in the sand and not address it. There had to be some conversations just to get things smoothed over.

"Like it or not, in this environment there’s so much stress, so much pressure, you’re going to do and say some things in the heat of the moment … you’re going to have people who are going to try to stoke that fire and … people who are going to try to calm the waters.

"Well, we had enough people try to stoke the fire, so all I was trying to do was calm the waters, make sure that when Kevin got in the car on Sunday he knew the support was still behind him, the company was still behind him and I think Richard (Childress) relayed the same message."

Harvick will wrap up his RCR career this weekend at Homestead, a track where he’s yet to win but has often run well. In 2014, he’ll join Stewart-Haas Racing.

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