Burton gets first Truck win at Texas

Posted on June 7, 2013 by

Burton holds off Ty Dillon to become youngest Truck winner at Texas

Related: Results | Shares big win with racing family

FORT WORTH, Texas — Rookie Jeb Burton added another chapter to his family’s racing history Friday night when he won the 17th annual WinStar World Casino 400 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Burton, the 20-year-old son of 2002 Daytona 500 champion Ward Burton, posted his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory at the expense of Ty Dillon, grandson of NASCAR championship team-owner Richard Childress. Burton is the first winner among the 13 drivers comprising NASCAR Next, an initiative to spotlight the sanctioning body’s rising stars.

"It was really fun," said Burton, driver of the No. 4 Chevrolet Silverado fielded by Turner Scott Motorsports. "I’m just living the dream. I’ve got a great team here. I want to thank Arrowhead and everyone in South Boston (his hometown in Virginia). It’s huge. I’ve been telling everybody once we get one (win) they’re going to start stacking-up. We’ve got the momentum going into Kentucky. Every week it’s fun to go to the racetrack. I’m just so pumped-up."

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• View all articles
• View all videos
• View all photos

Jeff Burton, Jeb’s uncle and a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regular for team-owner Childress, won the first Cup race on TMS’ high-banked, 1.5-mile quadoval in April 1997. On Friday, Jeb took the lead from Dillon on a restart on Lap 144 of the scheduled 167 and motored to victory by 0.139-seconds.

German Quiroga finished third in his No. 77 Toyota Tundra, while series point-leader Matt Crafton finished fourth in the No. 88 Toyota. Crafton, who began the race with a 30-point lead over Burton, exited Texas with a 23-point advantage.

Burton, who started third, recorded his fifth top-10 finish of the season one year after watching this race on television because of a lack of sponsorship. "We worked very hard to get here," said the winner, who led twice for 25 laps, including the final 24. "The sponsorship is out of my hometown. They’re family to us and I’m glad to get a win for them."

Ward Burton celebrated with his son post-race at the track where he made nine career Cup starts between 1997 and 2006 with a best finish of seventh in 1997.

"Shoot man, this is the most special moment in motorsports I’ve ever experienced," said Ward Burton, who won five Cup races with Bill Davis Racing during a 17-year career. "The biggest two races I won were the 500s at Darlington and Daytona. But anybody’s that’s got children, the experience of them and all the sacrifices you make for them to be successful, it’s such a different emotional experience. It’s hard to say it’s better (than winning himself) but it’s … at the top."

Burton’s team is led by crew chief Mike Hillman Jr., who said he spent the last few laps trying to calm the rookie down.

"What Jeb lacks in experience he makes up in talent," said Hillman, who won six races at Texas Motor Speedway with two-time NASCAR Camping World Truck champion Todd Bodine. "I treat him like a little brother–pat him on the back when he needs it but also punch him on the arm. I’m really proud of Jeb."

Team-owner and native Texan Steve Turner — father-in-law of reigning Camping World Truck Series champion James Buescher — also celebrated his first home state win.

"I’ve watched Jeb all year long staying in single-digits (in race results)," Turner said. "He’s big-picture racing."

A rejuvenated Brendan Gaughan finished fifth in his No. 62 Chevrolet after making a strong bid for what would have been his fifth career victory at TMS.

Gaughan, who is Dillon’s Richard Childress Racing teammate, was looking to add to his personal history in Cowtown, where he scored that first win 11 years ago to the day — June 7, 2002. Gaughan is third in the point race, 35 behind Crafton and 12 behind Burton.

Dillon, meanwhile, closed with a rush over the final two laps. "It’s a heartbreaker," said Dillon, driver of the No. 3 Chevrolet. "Our truck was the dominant truck all night. That last restart, it seemed like the No. 88 (of Crafton) gave the No. 4 (of Burton) a good push down the backstretch. I can’t blame it on anybody. You get a draft, that’s five extra horsepower. If I could do it again tomorrow, I’d do it again, take the top."

Dillon led three times for a race-high 76 laps, with Gaughan leading twice for 44 laps. There were 12 lead changes among eight drivers.

"If we had one more corner … I’d like to make a request to move the straightaway here like Talladega right now," Dillon joked. "But that’s cool for Jeb. Experience is a key in this series so all us rookies can do is drive our hearts out."

Burton’s winning average speed was 142.984 mph. There were only three cautions for 16 laps.

Pole-sitter Johnny Sauter, who swept both Truck Series events here last year, finished seventh in the No. 98 Toyota. The No. 29 of Ryan Blaney, who finished eighth, was ruled to be too low in post-race inspection.

READ MORE:

READ: All news
from Pocono, Iowa, Texas

READ: Viewers Guide
for Pocono, Iowa, Texas

READ: Paint Preview

WATCH: Preview Show:
Pocono

Posted on June 7, 2013 by

Three-year deal with Axalta puts four-time champ’s career in focus

LONG POND, Pa. — Jeff Gordon’s longest-tenured primary car sponsor has renewed its deal with Hendrick Motorsports through the 2016 season — so does that mean the driver of the No. 24 car will be behind the wheel for the duration of that agreement?

Axalta Coating Systems, which is the rebranded name of the former DuPont division that has been a fixture on Gordon’s car since his very first race, announced this week that it had signed a three-year extension with Hendrick Motorsports. The company is backing 14 events this season, and will serve as primary sponsor on the No. 24 car for 10 races annually over the span of the new deal.

"We go into every race trying to win."

—Jeff Gordon

Gordon turns 42 in August, and will be 45 years old when the renewed agreement ends at the conclusion of the 2016 season. Will the four-time Sprint Cup Series champion still be in the car at that point? As is often the case when the conversation turns to retirement talk, Gordon left open the possibility for anything. He has a lifetime contract with the Hendrick team.

“Can you pencil any driver in for every weekend for every year? I feel like the same things apply. Nothing has changed for me. We’re still competitive and still being challenged and have goals, and my back is hanging in there. We’ve got sponsorship, which is a positive thing for our team and the sport,” he said Friday at Pocono Raceway.

“Because of the transition and the sale of how DuPont went about it, this was a season that was sort of guaranteed. The next seasons ahead were not guaranteed, and so it’s pretty exciting to know that they have that interest and have been working with Hendrick to sign an extension. I want to race for a long time, but I can’t say how long that is going to be at this time.”

DuPont was on Gordon’s car for his very first race, at Atlanta in the finale to the 1992 season, and became a fixture on the vehicle in the years that followed. Sunday at Pocono will mark the first time the Axalta brand has appeared on the No. 24 car. In between, the driver and company have forged the longest-running partnership in NASCAR’s premier series. DuPont’s performance coatings division was purchased earlier this year by the Carlyle Group, which renamed it Axalta.

Gordon suffered from back problems a few years ago, but that condition has abated thanks in part to a training regimen. He also has two young children — 5-year-old Ella and 2-year-old Leo — and he’s often said he wants them to experience their father winning races and championships.

It certainly helps Gordon’s longevity that he remains a viable contender for both. He won two races last year, and despite a campaign fraught with mechanical difficulties still managed to narrowly snag a wild-card berth into the Chase for the Sprint Cup. This season he’s in 11th place in the standings coming to Pocono, where he won an August race last year that was shortened by weather.

“We go into every race trying to win,” said Gordon, who jumped four spots with his third-place run last week at Dover. “We’re further up in points at this point this year than we were last year, and I don’t feel like we’ve had a terrific season. We’ve certainly had our challenges, so it’s sort of refreshing to come to a place that we know we can win.”

Posted on June 7, 2013 by

Dover race’s protagonists have different views of closing stages

LONG POND, Pa. — Jimmie Johnson thinks there should be more clarity. Juan Pablo Montoya doesn’t know how things can be any clearer.

The fallout from last weekend’s final restart at Dover stretched up the rainy east coast to Pocono Raceway, where unlike the radar, one thing was clear — the two primary antagonists in the saga have very different views on why events unfolded the way they did. Johnson believes he was baited into the NASCAR equivalent of a foul-drawing flop in basketball, while Montoya said that as the leader he was entitled to control the restart of the race.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• View all articles
• View all videos
• View all photos

“You’ve got to restart between the two cones. That I did. And you’re not supposed to beat the leader to the line. What’s so hard about that?” asked Montoya, who restarted on the front row alongside Johnson, but was ultimately passed in the final laps by race winner Tony Stewart.

“I read a quote from (Johnson) this week. He said if he would have done that, the 42 would have beat him. Well, I’m the leader, not you. I know you dominated the race, but we came to a pit stop, and we did better than you guys. And if we did a better job than you guys, we’re the leader, not you. Crazy enough, if he would have backed off, let me go, he would have probably passed me again. It would have been all good. He wanted to time it well so he didn’t have to deal with me through turn 1 and 2. But he mistimed it. That’s it. No drama.”

Johnson was black-flagged for jumping the restart, and the ensuing pass-through penalty resulted in a 17th-place finish in a race where the five-time champion had led 143 laps. NASCAR officials said the call was an easy one, that decision no doubt reinforced by the massive gap the No. 48 car quickly opened on the rest of the field. But to Johnson, there was nothing simple about the situation — or the rules that govern who is able to go when.

“I just need a better understanding of the rule. I think I’ve played into trying to do the right thing, trying to maintain pace car speed when the pace car pulls off. We see guys really choke up the field at that point, which they way they say the rule works, you’re not supposed to do that,” he said.

“I’m cool with whatever it is, I just want it crystal clear what we can and cannot do. I guess I find myself trying to do the right thing more often. At Phoenix earlier this year I got taken advantage of on that last restart, and then clearly again at Dover. Whatever it is, I’m fine. And if we want the leader to have full advantage, then take the limitations away, let’s really give them the opportunity to take that restart. And if not, let’s enforce it properly the other way.”

Section 9-9 of the Sprint Cup Series Rule Book states plainly that the leader “is the control car for the restart,” and that all cars “must maintain their respective track position for the restart, until they cross the start/finish line.” But that doesn’t rule out attempts at gamesmanship, accusations of which are flying on both sides. Just as Montoya argues that Johnson tried to time the restart, Johnson claims that Montoya laid back to such an extent that the No. 48 had no option but to go by — and NASCAR had no option but to penalize the best car remaining in the race.

“I really believe that in the restart zone to the start-finish line, Juan just didn’t go. And in my opinion, I think he played it right. I think he was smart and let me get ahead of him, and let them make the call on me to keep me from having the lead and winning the race. I really don’t have anything against Juan for doing it — as racers, we need to work any and every angle we can to win a race. That’s what we do, we race,” Johnson said.

“Essentially, Juan found a loophole. He found a loophole in the officiating and worked it to his advantage. So sure, I’m mad I didn’t win the race. I’m not necessarily mad at him. But I think we need to look at how we officiate and how we can regulate that to keep that from happening.”

Told of Johnson’s claim that he had found a loophole, the driver of the No. 42 car could only smile and shake his head. “Did I? Wow. I’m that good. Man. That’s a compliment,” Montoya said.

“If I did that, why did only Jimmie pass me in his lane, if you think about it?” he added. “Let’s say I had a bad start and he beat me by a bumper or a half a car-length. NASCAR wouldn’t have said anything. But it was Jimmie … the field. So I’m OK with it. If you pay attention coming to the cones, he didn’t even want to line up with me. He wanted to time it. And he just mistimed it. It’s all good. It’s racing.”

Jeff Gordon, who finished third last weekend, didn’t see the restart up close — he was back in traffic, among those drivers jamming the brakes — but watching it later on video, he can see a little responsibility on both sides.

“I think Jimmie was really right there on that edge of anticipation of getting all that he could on that restart. And I think Juan did a great job of — I’ve been watching the NBA Finals lately, and watching the flops. And that was a good a flop as it gets,” said Gordon, Johnson’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports.

“Listen, the leader has, to me, that ability and that position to do that. It’s his job to lead you to the green and get the best start that he can. And if he feels someone is going to take advantage of that situation or get a little bit of a run on him, he can play that card. But it’s also at the discretion of NASCAR making a judgment call. I think if the 15 car (of Clint Bowyer) kept going and passed the 42, I don’t think (NASCAR) would have called Jimmie. I think they would have thought something happened to the 42. But because the 15 checked up to not pass the 42, it just made Jimmie’s lead look so absurd.”

Bowyer restarted third, and kept his position behind Montoya approaching the start/finish line. Looking back, Johnson wonders if he should have done the same. He said he tried to give the position back to avoid a potential penalty, but that Montoya wouldn’t take it.

“I should have been like the 15 and been all over the brake pedal,” Johnson said. “You can see on the video, he’s all over the brake trying to not beat the 42 to the finish line. … My mistake was expecting the call to come my way. I can’t count on that.”

But he can count on all eyes being on the restart area Sunday at Pocono, particularly if Johnson and Montoya are once again at the front with a potential victory in the balance. If that happens, what will Montoya do?

“I’m going to beat him by 10 car-lengths,” he said, smiling.

Posted on June 7, 2013 by

Lineup set by owner’s points; drivers like Logano jet to Iowa for Nationwide practice

Party in the Poconos 400: Lineup

LONG POND, Pa. — Persistent rain at Pocono Raceway washed out all activity scheduled for Friday at the 2.5-mile track, but likely alleviated a little anxiety for one driver also competing this weekend in the Nationwide Series event at Iowa Speedway.

NASCAR announced Friday afternoon that a 90-minute Sprint Cup Series practice and a qualifying session had both been rained out, setting the lineup for Sunday’s event on owner’s points according to the rule book. That puts a pair of two-time Pocono winners on the front row for the 400-mile race, with series leader Jimmie Johnson joined by Carl Edwards.

"There are a lot of good benefits from starting on the pole, from track position to pit road picks," Johnson said. "We’ll take it. The great season that we’ve had so far and the quick start, it’s nice to have that. It’s one of the benefits (as points leader) when things rain out. So we certainly earned this first starting spot, and we’ll try to take advantage of it on Sunday."

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• View all articles
• View all videos
• View all photos

Sprint Cup practices are still slated for 10 a.m. and 11:40 a.m. local time on Saturday, when forecasts call for a reduced chance of precipitation. That wasn’t the case Friday, when steady rain fell all day at the triangle-shaped track, leaving pools of standing water in several areas.

“The engineers are out there right now running all the numbers and trying to figure out where we would want to start,” Edwards said. “… I guess there were some teams that came out here and tested; I don’t know which teams those were. Those guys are praying for it to rain tomorrow, because there will be a huge advantage that they have if we don’t get any practice. If we get a practice tomorrow and if it happens to be a shortened one, it will be a very intense practice session. We’ll be trying everything we can. We’ll be working with as many of the Ford teams as we can to not waste time.”

Stewart-Haas Racing drivers Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman and Danica Patrick tested at Pocono for two days last week, as did Richard Childress Racing drivers Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Paul Menard. “Well just kind of leave it up to race runs tomorrow,” Patrick said, “which is not a bad thing.”

Not everyone was as pleased. Denny Hamlin, trying to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup despite missing several races with a broken vertebra, will start 17th. He’ll also lose a practice session on the first event weekend after Toyota Racing Development has retooled its engines to put more of an emphasis on reliability over horsepower.

“We’ve been on such a qualifying roll. I don’t know what our average is this year with me in the car, but it’s been pretty low,” Hamlin said. “I think obviously not qualifying will hurt us. Also, were going to lose a practice in the sense of trying to get a feel for what we’ve got in power and things of that nature. We would like to have practice, but everyone’s in the same boat. But 17th, it’s not too big of a deal. This race is long enough, you can make up for it.”

The relatively early cancellation at Pocono was likely a relief to Joey Logano, one of four drivers — along with Landon Cassill, Joe Nemechek and J.J. Yeley — who are also entered in Friday night’s Nationwide event at Iowa. Rather than waiting around, the afternoon cancellation in northeastern Pennsylvania allowed Logano to jump on a plane and try and make Friday’s practice sessions at Iowa, although teammate Sam Hornish Jr. was available to shake down his No. 22 car if needed.

“We’ll use Sam to tune in the 22 a little, make sure there are no vibrations and leaks, to give me something close and go from there,” Logano said earlier Friday. “Obviously, it’s not an ideal situation. As a driver, you want to be in the car and set it up yourself, because all of us drive a certain way. But I couldn’t think of anyone better to put in the car then Sam.”

Of the four drivers doing double duty, Logano is the only one with Chase aspirations. The Penske Racing driver is 18th in the standings, 36 points out of the 10th and final guaranteed playoff berth coming to Pocono, where he won the June event last season. That’s why is Sprint Cup car is the priority this weekend, and he won’t forego any track time at Pocono to get to Iowa.

“We’ll do what we’ve got to do to get all the track time, to make sure we have the best shot here,” said Logano, who will start 21st Sunday by virtue of his position in owners’ points. “Because if you look at our season, we’re 18th in points, but we’re only 30-something points out, I think. So we’re very capable of getting in the Chase this year, and we can’t afford to not give it our all at this point. We’ll make sure we focus on the Sprint Cup car and try to get the best finish we can.”

READ MORE: