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Relive some of Five-Time’s historic postseason performances
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This past Sunday saw Jimmie Johnson do once again what he’s done so many other times — win a race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
When it comes to Victory Lane visits in the playoff, no one does it better. Johnson’s unprecedented reign of five consecutive championships from 2006 to 2010, and most of his illustrious career, have fallen within the Chase era — but make no mistake about, his greatness is no quirk of the system. He’s dominated so often because he excels at NASCAR at its most fundamental, which is winning races when it matters most.
And goodness, is he good at that. Johnson’s win last Sunday at Dover International Speedway marked his 23rd race victory in the Chase, a number that far and away exceeds the total of any other driver. Tony Stewart is a distant second with 11, Carl Edwards has eight, Greg Biffle has seven, Matt Kenseth has six — two of them this season — and no one else has more than five to date.
Last weekend’s victory bumped Johnson up to second in the championship race, eight points behind Kenseth with seven races remaining in the season. Historically, Johnson is at his best when the leaves start to turn different colors and the standings begin to tighten, as evidenced by 10 race triumphs that stand as Five-Time’s biggest ever in the Chase.
10. Dover, 2013: Record breaker
After ending the regular season with the worst four-race stretch of his career, Johnson recorded a statement victory at a track where no one has ever been better. It was a typical effort by the No. 48 team — clinical and seamless, one where Johnson led 243 laps, outran teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. with the help of a late four-tire stop, and surpassed Bobby Allison and Richard Petty with a record eighth crown at the facility. It didn’t win him the title, but after a regular season filled with questions, it reminded everyone of what Johnson is capable of in the Chase.
9. Charlotte, 2005: Fourth straight
It was better remembered as the night tires were gobbled up left and right on a surface that had been recently ground down, an event that featured a record 15 cautions and led NASCAR to mandate tire pressure minimums in the middle of the race. Emerging from all that chaos was Johnson, who led only 13 laps, but beat Kurt Busch in a green-white-checkered finish to claim his fourth straight victory at Charlotte, and knot Stewart for the points lead. Although he didn’t win the championship that year, the race offered another sign that his inevitable first title was coming.
8. Dover, 2010: One was enough
Johnson’s greatest feat en route to his fifth title wasn’t a victory — it was a stretched fuel run at Phoenix that turned the tables on Denny Hamlin and helped Five-Time earn just that nickname the next week. But after his worst Chase opener ever dropped him into a 92-point hole, Johnson needed some momentum. And he found it once again at the Monster Mile, in a "max points" day that saw him start from the pole and lead 191 laps en route to another dominant effort in the Delaware capital. His lone race win of that Chase was a big one, lifting him back to second in the standings. We all know what happened from there.
7. Atlanta, 2004: Triumph amid tragedy
The darkest day in Hendrick Motorsports history occurred on Oct. 24, 2004, when 10 people — including Rick Hendrick’s son, brother, and two nieces — were killed when a team plane crashed trying to land in foggy conditions en route to Martinsville. The organization carried on with heavy hearts the next week at Atlanta, where Johnson used a late restart to beat Mark Martin, who had led 227 laps. It was Johnson’s third straight victory, which seemed less than important at the time. "I had 10 angels riding along," Johnson said afterward. "… Things happen for a reason."
6. Fontana, 2009: Sorry, teammate
Martin was enjoying an unforeseen late-career renaissance with Hendrick in 2009, when he carried an 18-point lead into the fourth Chase race that year at Auto Club Speedway. But it was another Hendrick driver, Southern California native Johnson, who held the lead at the end of the day. In an event that featured an eight-car pileup near the finish, Johnson led 126 laps and left with a 12-point advantage over his teammate. He wouldn’t relinquish it from that point on, winning two more playoff races and running away to a fourth straight title that eclipsed the record he had shared with Cale Yarborough.
5. Kansas, 2008: No banzai for you
It was another typically dominant afternoon from Johnson, one in which he led 124 laps and seemed poised to move atop the Chase. Edwards did all he could to prevent it, including a last-gasp banzai run in which he threw his car past Johnson on the final circuit, shooting by on the low side. But Edwards couldn’t hold it, sliding up the track and bouncing off the wall as Johnson shot by to win. "That was cool," Johnson said afterward. So was the fact that the victory gave him a 10-point lead in the Chase standings and an advantage he would maintain the rest of the way.
4. Martinsville, 2006: Keying a comeback
Before Johnson started winning championships, he lost a few. There were despondent moments like 2006 at Talladega, when contact from Brian Vickers dropped Johnson to eighth in the Chase and 156 points (under the previous system) off the lead. No way, right? Wrong. Johnson embarked on one of the greatest comebacks in NASCAR history, with four runner-up finishes sandwiched around a victory at Martinsville where he led 245 laps. That same day series leader Jeff Burton went out with engine trouble, allowing Johnson to make a big move in the standings and setting the stage for his first crown.
3. Texas, 2007: The hat fits
Jeff Gordon built a 300-point advantage over the course of one his best regular seasons ever, but it couldn’t stand up to an onslaught of Johnson race victories in the Chase. Few were more pivotal than Texas, when a late four-tire stop helped Johnson muscle past Kenseth and score what was his third consecutive race win at that point. Gordon finished seventh — good, but not good enough to stop Johnson, who donned a new black cowboy hat and seized the Chase lead by 30 points over his teammate, who faced almost a must-win prospect the next week.
2. Martinsville, 2008: Dropping the hammer
At the height of their run, Johnson and the No. 48 team seemingly had opponents mentally beaten even before they showed up at the race track. That was never more the case than in 2008, when Johnson won five of the season’s final 12 events. Few were more impressive than Martinsville, where Johnson crushed the competition in an effort that saw him lead 339 laps and outrun Earnhardt Jr. in a green-white-checkered finish. He left southern Virginia with a commanding 149-point lead, his record-tying third straight championship all but assured.
1. Phoenix, 2007: "It’s over"
It was all Gordon could say after an afternoon that perhaps best encapsulated the Johnson legend. Needing to make up ground on his Hendrick teammate to stay in the title race, Gordon could only watch as Johnson led the final 24 laps en route to his 10th victory of the season, still a personal record. In a ruthlessly efficient fashion that came to define the No. 48 team, Johnson capped a run of four wins in a row and all but secured the sport’s first back-to-back titles in nearly a decade. The finale at Homestead became what it’s so often been during the Johnson era — a coronation.
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Kenseth, Johnson have different personalities despite similarities
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They’re a pair of cool customers who have each earned the admiration of everyone they race against, a pair of former champions from the same generation who each have two little girls at home. Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson, who combined have swept the first three races of this Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, appear at first blush to be cast from the same mold.
Well, maybe not.
"I’ve been trying to find some time to get away," Kenseth said during a visit to Charlotte Motor Speedway to advocate breast cancer awareness. "I was kind of jealous Clint (Bowyer) and Ryan (Newman) got to get away last week and go elk hunting. I was going to go on that hunt and I couldn’t, because I had other commitments and things to do around town. So I was kind of bummed out about that, because that would have been fun and relaxing."
Yes, perhaps it’s a little difficult to envision a certain five-time champion galloping across the Wyoming steppe on horseback, a crossbow slung over one shoulder. Just as it might be hard to picture Kenseth running 10 miles each morning in preparation for his next triathlon. No question, Kenseth and Johnson are both gifted and largely unflappable drivers on the race track, personality traits befitting their respective first- and second-place standing in the points.
But the similarities might just end there.
"They’re both talented race car drivers, but I think they’re different people, and how they handle things professionally and personally are probably slightly different," said Brian Vickers, who was a teammate of Johnson’s during his days at Hendrick Motorsports, and now works with Kenseth at Joe Gibbs Racing. "I think they’re both good representatives of the sport, and representatives of their sponsors … but they are different people. I’d say they’re very different, actually."
There is, though, some personal history. Kenseth moved into NASCAR’s top series two years ahead of Johnson, and it was the former Roush Fenway Racing driver who proved the No. 48 team’s stiffest competition — he even led the standings with three races remaining — in 2006, before Johnson finally broke through and won his first title. Kenseth and Johnson’s crew chief Chad Knaus go back even further, to the days when late model drivers in the upper Midwest plied a circuit that spanned Kenseth’s native Wisconsin to Knaus’ hometown of Rockford, Ill.
Kenseth even once worked the counter at the Lefthander Chassis shop in Rockford, which Knaus would visit to buy parts for his father John, who was a star driver at the local short track. "That’s where we first met and talked," remembered Kenseth, 41.
"He really gets it," Knaus, 42, said of Kenseth. "He gets it more than most of the drivers out there. He knows when to get the hell out of the way. He knows when he has the best car. He knows when to take advantage of that. He knows what to do. I had a lot of respect for Matt when he finished second in the championship to us a few years ago. His father and Matt both came up to me and said, ‘Man, we wanted to win, but you definitely were the best.’ Matt is a good dude. I like racing against Matt. I think going to Gibbs has given him better equipment. I think the Roush equipment isn’t as good as what they’ve got at Gibbs."
Johnson agreed. Over the years he and Kenseth have developed a friendship, allowing Johnson to good-naturedly rib his JGR counterpart — especially at a place like Martinsville, where Johnson has won eight times and Kenseth had never enjoyed much success. That is, until this past spring, when Kenseth led a career-best 96 laps at the half-mile track.
"The change has been good for him. Is it equipment? Is it a personnel thing, working with someone new and different, that relationship? I don’t know where it lies," Johnson, 38, said after his victory Sunday at Dover, which moved him within eight points of Kenseth in the standings. "But I think the bottom line is, the tracks Matt struggled at, for whatever reason, that has risen, and he’s more competitive on those tracks than he was at the Roush side of life."
And he’s admittedly more confident than he’s ever been, understandable in a season where he’s notched a personal best seven race wins. Although this championship is far from a two-man race — Kenseth’s JGR teammate Kyle Busch is right there, 12 points back in third — it’s difficult to ignore the two former champions at the top, particularly given the mutual respect that flows back and forth.
"I have a lot of respect for obviously everything Jimmie and Chad and everybody over there has done. It’s been amazing," Kenseth said. "I still think, as crazy as this sounds, in a way they don’t get enough credit for what they’ve done, because it’s just been unbelievable. So I think Jimmie and I have always had a lot of respect for each other on the race track, off the race track. I’ve always gotten along with him well, and I’ve always had a lot of respect for Chad. I’ve known Chad for a lot of years, and obviously with all the wins and championships he’s engineered, he’s definitely someone to look up to."
Busch was a teammate to Johnson for several years at Hendrick, and is in his first year working with Kenseth at JGR. "They’re completely different people," he said. "I think Jimmie is the best of the best. Week in week out, year in year out, Jimmie is the guy. Matt is obviously very, very good at what he does, and he’s voiced it — this is the best opportunity he feels like he’s ever had of going for a championship."
But personally? "Everybody’s different in their own way, in their own respect," Busch added. "… I probably joke around a lot more with Matt Kenseth than I ever did with Jimmie Johnson. Jimmie was always a go-to guy — ask him questions, lean on him, ask him, ask him, ask him. Matt, he’s that guy too, but he’s definitely more of a — ‘Hey, the Packers sucked this weekend. What did you do to those guys?’ kind of thing."
So don’t let those unflustered personalities behind the wheel fool you — Kenseth is about as unlikely to put a down payment on a condo in Manhattan as Johnson is to spring for box seats at Lambeau Field. No question they share some similarities in terms of demeanor and reputation, and all too often their position atop the standings. Beyond that? "I wouldn’t even say they have the same personality," Vickers said. And in one notable opinion, the former late model racer and motocross rider really aren’t that comparable at all.
"I would never stand here and compare myself to who I consider is the best," Kenseth said. "When you look over the numbers of what (Johnson) has done in this day and age, with the competition and all the rules changes and the Chase and all the different things, to be able to win all those championships, I think it’s hard to say that he’s not the best. So I would never stand here and compare myself to the best. I think I’d have a lot of work to do to get better to be able to be in that same conversation. But that’s just me."
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Busch feels he can learn from leadership, preparation of All-Pro quarterbacks
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Kyle Busch counts the people who are his biggest influences, he mentions crew chief Dave Rogers, with whom he’s had many a heart-to-heart talk. He mentions his wife Samantha, who is often a voice of reason in his ear. He mentions team owner Joe Gibbs, a steadying presence in the lives of all of his drivers.
And he mentions two people he’s never met: Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.
The NASCAR star lists the NFL quarterbacks as two figures he watches on and off the field, with the intention of learning from how they handle potentially adverse situations and applying those lessons to his own performance-based sports job behind the wheel. Whether it’s how they deal with the media, how they deal with their offensive line after a poor series, or how they react when the pressure is on, Busch believes there are parallels that can help him improve inside and outside of his No. 18 Toyota Camry.
"You watch guys who are good at what they do, and what they can achieve in their own realm of what they’re doing," Busch said during a visit to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. "There’s a reason why Tom Brady has won three Super Bowls and he’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and there’s a reason why Peyton Manning is probably considered one of the best in the league as well. You listen to what they say sometimes in the media experts you get to read, and you also get a chance to take in what they do on the field and how they’re a leader, and what they do with their team and how they can lead their team through different situations."
Brady, quarterback of the undefeated New England Patriots, owns three NFL championships and has cemented his legacy as one of the greatest signal-callers of all time. Manning, who won one title with the Indianapolis Colts, is now with the unbeaten Denver Broncos and enjoying one the best seasons of his career. Both players are renowned not just for their on-the-field exploits, but for their preparation and leadership skills.
They provide lessons that surely come in handy now, with Busch ranked third in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings, 12 points behind leader and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth entering the playoff’s fourth round Sunday at Kansas Speedway. With the three Chase leaders — Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson and Busch — running so well and already distancing themselves from the rest of the field, managing potential adversity could be a key to staying in the mix.
Enter Brady and Manning, two experts in doing just that.
"I think the biggest thing is, how they react to difficult situations with their team and what they do to get their team back focused on what they need to do throughout games, throughout plays, throughout an offensive series or even a defensive series. You can watch Peyton Manning sit on the sideline, and they go down and they have a bad defensive series and the other team scores, and he knows he’s got to get back out there and do something well," Busch said.
"You see that in our sport, when there are guys who are running well, they’re passing you, they’re going forward, and maybe you’re not. You’re stale. You know you can do it, you’re capable of it, you’ve got to get with your team to make that happen. And the talking part off the race track, I think you can use that to your mentality or your focus during the races in being able to achieve just those moments where you’re not freaking out about going backward. You’re still trying to work on going forward."
Perhaps Busch’s choice of role models shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that his team owner Gibbs won three titles as head coach of the NFL’s Washington Redskins. The driver even sees parallels in how he deals with his pit crew after a slow stop, and how a quarterback address an offensive line after a poor series — with one notable difference, of course.
"They just don’t have a microphone button to press that the whole world can listen to," he said. "That’s the exact same thing. If I’m the quarterback of the team, my offensive line is my pit crew. My head coach is my crew chief. You definitely have to have that relationship where you can go to those guys and voice your opinion, good or bad, and get everybody back on the same page to move into the next series."
Busch believes the examples set by Manning and Brady provided a tangible benefit for him last year, when he was able to run well in the final 10 races despite missing the Chase. "Maybe I didn’t push the envelopes as hard as I could have, because of the guys in front of me who were racing for something. But we proved that we could do it," he said. That momentum has carried into this year’s playoff, where Busch hasn’t finished worse than fifth in the opening three events.
"Anytime you can take something from somebody else and learn and apply it to your own (situation)," he said, "then I think that’s only a benefit."
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Multi-zone tread tire to be used at 1.5-mile track this weekend
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Following a successful debut of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.’s multi-zone tread tire at Atlanta last month, the company will use the technology a second time this weekend for the race at Kansas Speedway.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams will get a chance to test the new compound in advance of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 during a specially arranged tire test Thursday afternoon at the recently repaved 1.5-mile track.
Although NASCAR typically doesn’t change tires from a track’s spring date to its fall date, officials from both Goodyear and NASCAR felt confident the recent repave, the evolution of the Generation-6 car and the Atlanta success story made a strong case to use the technology again this week.
"Typically, our agreement or policy is we don’t change the tire from the spring to the fall, but now with all the repaves we’re having to deal with, we felt like working with Goodyear, we were way too conservative in the spring race," NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said. "By the Tuesday after the (Kansas spring) race, we were already putting a plan together with them to get another test in, to try to get the tire so it would be a little racier, a little bit better for the teams."
According to Goodyear, the company increased the grip on the left-side tires. To compensate for the increased stress put on the right side, the multi-zone tread will include a "tougher, more heat-resistant compound on the inboard 3 inches."
The challenge was designing a tire with the right balance between grip and endurance to keep the speeds high and the racing exciting.
"We were extremely happy with the maiden voyage of the multi-zone tread tire we brought to Atlanta — the tire performance was excellent," said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of race tire sales. "We are excited to utilize the same multi-zone tread technology on a different application."
Four drivers tested the new compound at Kansas in mid-July. Kyle Busch, one of those drivers, was optimistic about the impact it would have.
"I thought we learned some things and the (test) went real well for us and Goodyear as well," Busch said this past week, adding with a smile, “they changed the left-side tire compound so we’re not on that treacherous left that everybody spins out and crashes on … including myself three times."
Pemberton said it’s likely this technology will be more prevalent next season. It’s already used on Goodyear’s production all-weather tires and is something the company has been experimenting and testing for years, Pemberton said.
"It’s a case-by-case analysis on their part, places they have on the horizon they would focus on," Pemberton said. "We’ll take our success one at a time and then apply what they learned at the next target."
The new tire is part and parcel with the evolution of the new Gen-6 car, which has set track records at nearly every venue the Sprint Cup Series has raced this season.
"We know that when you test early on with a new car of any type — you can even go back to the Gen-5, Car of Tomorrow days — that the early tests that we did before the cars were optimized really gave us overly conservative tires because the early constructed cars weren’t as good as the second generation even internally with the teams," Pemberton said. "The lessons we learned there we try to apply with the Gen-6 car knowing that things would continue to get better, faster.
"I think the point is they can react better for particular race tracks with all these options. There have been hurdles because of only one compound on a particular tire, you always build the tire to cover the worst-case scenario and now you can have the worst-case scenario covered in one part of the tire and the other part of the tire can be the part that makes the racing better."
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Ottinger (05) took the win at Dover while Hudson’s (01) second place finish set-up a title showdown with Ray Alfalla in the NiSWC finale.
Fresh-off his win at Kansas Speedway, Nick Ottinger returned to the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship victory lane last night with another dominating performance at Dover International Speedway. And as Ottinger celebrated his second NiSWC win in as many races, runner-up Tyler Hudson was looking forward to a title-deciding showdown with two time champion and current point leader Ray Alfalla in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The online race will be broadcast live on October 15 at 9 pm EST on iRacing.com/live and the Motor Racing Network’s live streaming.
Hudson’s third podium finish in the past three races, coupled with Alfalla’s second straight finish outside the top 20, narrowed the margin between the championship rivals to just two points heading to the decisive final round of the season. Although his sixth win of the season brought Ottinger almost to within sight of the championship lead, he is mathematically out of the running for the title.
“I can’t believe we had that killer speed.” — Nick Ottinger
When a disappointing qualifying run left the Rheem Chevy SS eighteenth on the grid, Ottinger seemed out of the running for a win at Dover as well. But it only took him 40 laps to drive through the field and pass polesitter Joey Brown for the lead. After taking the lead, he was unchallenged until Hudson made a run at him with a few laps remaining, a run that fell .791s short at the finish.
“That was really awesome to have a great piece at Dover,” Ottinger said. [The team] had to revamp the set a few hours before the race and it really worked out. I can’t believe we had that killer speed.”
With Hudson finishing runner-up for the second consecutive week, Michael Conti was third, Andrew Fayash III was fourth and Joshua Laughton was fifth.
After a wild week at Kansas that saw 14 caution flags, there were 11 more yellows at Dover, including a huge crash with 12 laps remaining that involved Alfalla and turned the championship battle into a dogfight. Alfalla was racing Danny Hansen for third place when he made contact with Hansen off of Turn Two. Hansen spun and collected Alfalla together with several other drivers running farther back in the field. Alfalla failed to finish due to his damage and was classified twenty-fourth. Hansen, who was looking for his first career top five but ended-up seventeenth, was none too pleased about the incident.
“Don’t have anything nice to say at this point and I’m doing my best to bite my lip but I am proud of the team’s effort this week” he said. “For me to be able to run that good at one of my worst tracks is pretty cool.”
Brown started from the pole for the second straight week, but lacked a little speed in his race setup and slowly dropped down the running order. Then, for the second straight week an incident derailed his chances at a good finish and he wound-up sixteenth.
Once he got to the front, Ottinger was strong enough to pull away with ease and seemingly run only as hard as he needed to in order to maintain the gap. When the yellow flew for the third time on Lap 87, Ottinger chose to stay out and keep the lead instead of opting for fresher tires, hoping his six-lap-old tires would prevail in clean air. Not only did they prevail, he was nearly as fast as the cars with fresh rubber.
“For me to be able to run that good at one of my worst tracks is pretty cool.” — Danny Hansen
The only time his lead was in jeopardy came after the final restart with seven laps to go. Hudson got a great run off of Turn Two and attempted to pass low down the backstretch. When Ottinger blocked the low line into Turn Three, Hudson gave him a bump which sent the lead car up the track and allowed Hudson to take the preferred bottom groove. The two ran side-by-side through Turns Three and Four, but Ottinger got a great run off of Turn Four from the outside, cleared Hudson and drove away to the checkered flag.
Just two weeks ago it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Alfalla was going to coast to his third straight NiSWC title. Not so fast. Two straight wrecks – and two P2s for Hudson — have pulled Hudson right up to the two-time champion’s bumper. Alfalla’s lead is a mere two points after factoring-in the one drop week. 48 points is the maximum a driver can score in a race, meaning Alfalla and Hudson are the only two drivers still with a mathematical shot at the title.
Despite his late-season tear, Ottinger finds himself in third place, 49 points out of the lead. He is 17 points ahead of Conti, whose third place finish must have felt like a win as he had to start one lap down in the pits thanks to a penalty stemming from an incident at Kansas. Brian Schoenburg, who lost ground after being involved in a few incidents throughout the race, now sits fifth, 19 points back of third.
Marcus Lindsey continued his late-season slide with a wreck on Lap 105 after getting loose off of Turn Four. He finished thirty-third and is now 41 points back of Ottinger and facing a tough row to hoe if he is to climb back into the top five.
For Alfalla and Hudson, it all comes down to the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in two weeks. A two point margin means Alfalla has no more room for error. Compounding his issues, Hudson has had more speed than Alfalla the past month or so, putting the two-time defending champ on unfamiliar ground. If Alfalla finds himself down on speed yet again, pit strategy may be his only hope to win a third straight title. As for Hudson, he is in the driver’s seat with his recent momentum and success on 1.5 mile tracks.
With a championship battle so tight it might not be decided until the final turn of the final lap, be sure to catch Alfalla, Hudson and the rest of the field do battle one more time on iRacing.com/live and MRN at 9 pm EST on October 15.
Driver, sponsor will remain with company through 2017 season
Penske Racing secured its driver and sponsor for a sizable chunk of the future Wednesday, signing 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski and primary sponsor Miller Lite to contract extensions through 2017.
Keselowski, a nine-time winner in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, joined Penske late in the 2009 campaign and signed an extension after the 2011 season that was to conclude after 2014. The new multiyear deal keeps the reigning series champion in Penske’s No. 2 for the next four seasons, a contract that runs in conjunction with the five-year agreement Penske struck with Ford at the beginning of the 2013 season.
"I am fully committed to Penske Racing and Miller Lite," Keselowski, 29, said in a team release. "This will allow us to further grow our program and contend for championships on a consistent basis. It’s an exciting time to be a part of this organization and I look forward to a successful future."
While the deal offers security into the second half of the decade, it includes a reduction of annual support from Miller Lite, a full-season sponsor of Penske’s since 1991 and currently Keselowski’s primary sponsor for every race. The team said the Chicago-based beermaker’s brand will be the primary sponsor for 24 races a year and a "major associate sponsor" for the other 12 points-paying Sprint Cup events beginning in 2014.
MillerCoors has been a sponsor of Penske’s NASCAR efforts for 22 years, coming to the organization after it followed NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace to the longtime team owner. Before that, the company’s most notable sponsorships involved its one season backing Wallace’s efforts with car owner Raymond Beadle and an association with fellow Hall of Famer Bobby Allison with the Stavola Brothers.
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Get a sneak peek at the looks for this weekend
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SPRINT CUP SERIES PAINT SCHEMES
Danica Patrick will drive the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet.
SHOP: Danica Patrick die-casts
Mark Martin will drive the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Chevrolet.
SHOP: Mark Martin die-casts
Greg Biffle will drive the No. 16 Sherwin-Williams Ford.
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Tony Raines will drive the No. 40 Moon Shine Attitude Attire Chevrolet.
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NATIONWIDE SERIES PAINT SCHEMES
Brian Scott will drive the No. 2 Fast Fixin’ Chevrolet.
SHOP: Brian Scott die-casts
Austin Dillon will drive the No. 3 Spark Chevrolet.
SHOP: Austin Dillon die-casts
Brad Sweet will drive the No. 5 Great Clips Chevrolet.
SHOP: Brad Sweet die-casts
Regan Smith will drive the No. 7 Fire Alarm Services Chevrolet.
SHOP: Regan Smith die-casts
James Buescher will drive the No. 34 The Fraternal Order of Eagles Chevrolet.
SHOP: NASCAR die-casts
Hal Martin will drive the No. 44 ORACLE Lighting Toyota.
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Parker Kligerman will drive the No. 77 Project Pink Toyota.
SHOP: NASCAR die-casts
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Click here to watch episodes of "Fantasy Showdown" before this week’s race.
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Vital stats for the Hollywood Casino 400
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Track: Kansas Speedway, Kansas City, Kan., 1.5 miles, asphalt surface, 17- to 20-degree variable banking in turns, 10-degree banking on frontstretch, 5-degree banking on backstretch.
Time/TV: Hollywood Casino 400, 2 p.m. ET, Sunday, Oct. 6. TV: ESPN (coverage starts at 1 p.m. ET). Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
Trailblazers: Jeff Gordon prevailed in the first-ever event for NASCAR’s top series at Kansas Speedway in 2001. He repeated the feat the following year. … The speedway was repaved and reconfigured with progressive banking in the turns in between the track’s two annual races in 2012. Matt Kenseth has won both races since the new asphalt was laid down, joining Gordon as the only winner of back-to-back Sprint Cup events at Kansas.
.081 seconds is the closest margin of victory in Kansas Speedway history, achieved when Joe Nemechek edged Ricky Rudd in October 2004 to notch his only win in the Sunflower State.
1 is the number of races for NASCAR’s premier division at Kansas Speedway that have gone into overtime. Jimmie Johnson‘s victory in this race in 2011 was extended five laps past its scheduled 267-lap distance by a green-white-checkered finish. 1 is also the number of abbreviated races at Kansas. Greg Biffle scored his first Kansas win after two rain delays forced NASCAR officials to halt the race because of darkness 57 laps shy of the scheduled length in September 2007.
2 Kansas-born drivers have prevailed in NASCAR’s top series, both at opposite ends of the sport’s history. Active driver Clint Bowyer, who hails from Emporia, is an eight-time Sprint Cup Series winner. Jim Roper of Halstead has the distinction of winning the series’ first-ever race on June 19, 1949, when the division was known as Strictly Stock.
4 is the number of Kansas Speedway wins each by Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Fenway Racing, making them the winningest teams at the 1.5-mile facility. Joe Gibbs Racing is next on the list with three Kansas victories.
5 drivers share the top spot on Kansas Speedway’s all-time win list with two victories apiece — Greg Biffle, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart.
7 is the number of Sprint Cup wins posted by Chevrolet, the winningest automaker at Kansas Speedway. Ford has four victories on the 1.5-mile track, followed by Toyota with two and Dodge with one.
9 drivers have competed in every race for NASCAR’s premier series at Kansas Speedway — Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte, Mark Martin, Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart. Those streaks will end this year for Stewart, sidelined by a season-ending leg injury, and Labonte, who was not on the race’s preliminary entry list.
14 caution periods is the track record for slowdowns in a single race at Kansas, set in this event last season. Of that total, 12 yellow flags were for spins or crashes as drivers struggled to get a handle on the freshly paved speedway.
15 is the number of races that NASCAR’s premier series has run in the state of Kansas. All have been held at Kansas Speedway.
15.367 is the difference in miles per hour between the fastest qualifying speeds in the race before and the race after Kansas Speedway’s repaving and reconfiguration project last season. AJ Allmendinger won the Coors Light Pole Award in April 2012 at 175.993 mph, but when the series returned to find a redesigned, higher-banked track in October, Kasey Kahne blistered the qualifying leaderboard with a pole lap at 191.360 mph. Matt Kenseth inched the benchmark up to 191.864 mph this spring, marking one of the 17 times this season that a track record has been broken with the new sixth-generation (Gen-6) car for NASCAR’s top series.
21 years is the age difference between the oldest and youngest race winners at Kansas Speedway. Ryan Newman was 25 years, 9 months and 27 days old when he scored his only Kansas win in the fall of 2003. Two years later, Mark Martin prevailed at the 1.5-mile track at 46 years, 9 months and 0 days of age.
25 is the deepest starting spot for a Kansas Speedway race winner. Brad Keselowski stormed from midpack in June 2011 to register his first victory driving for Penske Racing.
40 is the number of races that Kansas Speedway has hosted for NASCAR’s three national series. Besides the 15 Sprint Cup events, the 1.5-mile track has also been the site of 12 NASCAR Nationwide Series races and 13 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series events.
119.1 is the series-best driver rating of Jimmie Johnson at Kansas Speedway. Johnson also leads the series at Kansas with 12 top-10s, a career average finish of 7.6 and most laps led (556).
173 is the most laps led in a single race at Kansas Speedway without winning. Martin Truex Jr. led more than half of the 267-lap race there in April 2012, but his dominant day wound up in second place, seven tenths of a second behind race winner Denny Hamlin at the finish.
197 is the most laps led in a single race by a Kansas Speedway winner. Jimmie Johnson set the pace for all but 75 laps on the 1.5-mile track in October 2011.
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