Papis solid in No. 14, but who's next?

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Holly Cain

Max Papis filled in admirably, but questions remain as to who will step in for Stewart next
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WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Max Papis gave himself an A-plus grade for his 15th-place effort filling in for injured three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champ Tony Stewart in Sunday’s Cheez-It 355 at The Glen.

It was perhaps the hardest-earned 15th place the Italian sports car veteran has ever had. It was certainly the highest profile one.

With Stewart watching the race from a North Carolina hospital bed while recovering from multiple surgeries to repair a severely broken right leg, all eyes were on Papis — expectations high, the spotlight bright.

And there was plenty to see.

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Papis, who qualified Stewart’s No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Mobil 1 Chevy 29th, was spun out by Greg Biffle early in the race and then collided with pole winner Marcos Ambrose late in the race, but he still climbed up through the field in the waning laps — persevering in the same gritty spirit that has endeared Stewart to fans for decades.

“I drove the wheels off this and am super proud of keeping the seat of ‘Smoke’ as warm as I could,’’ Papis said. “I felt I did a pretty good job and I’m proud of myself.’’

Then, he added with a smile, “Now it’s time for people that know how to turn left only.’’

After selecting Papis to fill in on the circuit’s last road course of the season, the Stewart-Haas Racing team said this weekend it hopes to name a more permanent replacement or replacements by Monday for the oval-only finish to the season.

The team has indicated it would prefer a Nationwide driver to fill-in. It’s likely they will name one driver for next week’s race at Michigan — when there is a scheduling conflict with the Nationwide Series — and then someone to take the seat on a more consistent basis thereafter.

“We would love to put somebody in the car until Tony comes back,’’ SHR Competition Director Greg Zipadelli said Friday. “The problem we are faced with next week is if you look at the schedules and you lay out the Nationwide schedule at Mid-Ohio and us in Michigan they don’t match up very well.

“Somebody would do two half-assed jobs or we can try and find somebody that is out of the norm and put them in the car and try to go to Michigan and do the best we can. Then hopefully maybe Bristol we could pick up with one person that may be able to do the rest of it and obviously it would be a Nationwide driver. “

There is still no timetable for Stewart’s return, or if he will return this season. He suffered a broken tibia and fibula in his right leg in a crash while leading a sprint car feature race in Iowa late Monday night.

He has had two surgeries already and may yet need another. The team tweeted Sunday night that Stewart had been released from the hospital and was "resting as comfortably as he can at home."

It’s doubtful Stewart would be back in time to maintain his position in the driver standings. Although he has a victory and held one of the two Chase Wild Card positions entering the weekend, his absence from the field Sunday dropped him six spots in the standings to 17th.

Certainly Papis’ showing gave Stewart a little something to smile about. Biffle apologized to Papis after the race for spinning him out and Ambrose conceded afterward that something was wrong with his car as he raced Papis late in the afternoon.

And Papis’ performance Sunday was good enough to keep the No. 14 car ranked 11th in the owners’ points, the first Wild Card position.

“I’m really proud of everything we have done together here at Stewart-Haas Racing,’’ Papis said. “It was a tough call to come here at the last minute like this. But I’m really proud of the job I did. We almost had a top-10.

“We proved, never give up and I think that’s the spirit Tony wanted me to have. I pushed, I went from last to the middle of the field, fought really hard and brought it home the best I could.’’

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Posted on August 11, 2013 by Holly Cain

Gordon, Kahne fall out of the top 10; Johnson clinches Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup berth

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — For a driver with lots of fond memories of the Watkins Glen, N.Y. road course, four-time Glen race winner Jeff Gordon might rather forget his trip to Western New York this weekend.

So might his teammate Kasey Kahne and his other teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished 34^th and 30^th respectively. It was a rough drive through the scenic hillside for NASCAR’s premier Hendrick Motorsports team, which left with three pretty banged up Chevy SS Gen-6 race cars. And bruised egos.

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Gordon and Kahne free-fell four positions in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings as a result. Four races remain to set the 12-driver Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoff field. Gordon, who is winless, is now 13^th and unless he scored a victory in the next month, must climb back into the guaranteed top 10 in the standings.

Kahne, who won last week at Pocono, Pa., dropped to 12^th place, his pair of victories put him in the top Wild Card position.

The lone bright spot for the team in Sunday’s Cheez-It 355 at The Glen was Jimmie Johnson, who finished eighth, clinched at least a Wild Card in the 2013 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and took a whopping 75-point lead over Clint Bowyer atop the Sprint Cup Series standings.

He summed up the range of emotions.

“Sux (sic) all my teammates were unlucky,’’ the five-time NASCAR champ Johnson posted on Twitter following the race.

The start of the weekend may have been a harbinger of things to come. None of the four drivers — normally contenders for a win here — had particularly good qualifying showings. Johnson and Kahne’s 18^th and 19^th place starts were the best of the group.

Gordon, had a disappointing 28^th-place qualifying effort, spun and crashed his No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet hard into the guardrail on lap 14 while racing Denny Hamlin back in the field.

The team frantically made repairs to the car and after returning to the race Gordon improved six positions to finish 36^th and he was clearly still miffed after the race.

“Fight hard,’’ Gordon said of recovering from this uncharacteristically poor road course showing. “Just keep working to go to the next race and qualify better, execute better and not make mistakes. That was my mistake. That was on me today. We can’t have stuff like that happen.’’

Kahne and Earnhardt’s fates intertwined with only eight laps remaining. After getting spun out in a chain-reaction accident triggered by Matt Kenseth and Marcos Ambrose, Kahne’s No. 5 Farmer’s Chevy ended up across the track and was hit by Earnhardt who was trying to avoid the smoking, spinning melee.

“I probably could have lifted and waited on the 5 (Kahne) and see where he was going to go, but I went where there wasn’t a car and he was in the throttle real hard and just kind of John Force’d it (like a drag racer) across the racetrack in front of us,” Earnhardt said.

“I knew (when we) get a late caution like that, man, you’re just drawing a pill in the lottery to make it through the rest of the race at that point.

“So I’m not too upset … because it was going to happen to somebody.”

“We had a good car,” he said. “I was surprised we were running as good as we did. We did not run any better position-wise, but normally we’re in the damn way.

“And today we were kind of making moves, passing guys and working hard around everybody.”

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