Jumpin’ “Jack” Edwards discovers Phoenix is a gas, gas, gas. (photo: Getty Images)
AVONDALE, Ariz. – On rare occasions, a man can win a Sprint Cup race by being slower than everyone else, though it’s not a winning strategy for the whole race.
Sunday was just such a day, and Carl Edwards won the Kobalt Tools 500 by gradually going slower than everyone else. Edwards didn’t exactly back into victory lane at Phoenix International Raceway, leading 93 laps after starting on the pole, but the trick over the final 47 laps was slowing down enough to make it to the end.
Down, down, down went Edwards’ lead as his crew chief, Bob Osborne, kept asking him, oddly, “Can’t you go any slower?”
With 12 laps remaining, Edwards’ Ford led Juan Pablo Montoya’s Chevy by 6.9 seconds, and from there the margin sank: 6.1, 5.9, 5.6, 5.4, 5.2, 5.0, 4.6 and 3.6.
The final margin, 4.77 seconds over Ryan Newman, was a consequence of Montoya running out of gas on the final lap.
Requiring a race-car driver to go slow can be as futile as asking speed from a snail.
The experience – Edwards ended a streak of 70 fruitless races, dating back to November 2008 – made the winner sick to his stomach, psychosomatically so.
“You’ve chosen this path,” said Edwards, “and you’re hoping that everything works out, that the race goes the distance (i.e., not beyond, as in green-white-checkered finish), that the amount of fuel I was saving, I was hoping it was the right amount.
“I think (owner) Jack (Roush) put it best when he came over, reached in the window and said, ‘I forgot what it felt like until I got that feeling in my stomach with two laps to go, then I remembered.’ When he said that, my stomach was still hurting just from the nervousness.”
A similar strategy, only one that failed, cost Tony Stewart a victory in New Hampshire on Sept. 19. That was the Chase for the Sprint Cup opener, and Stewart, at least insofar as pursuing a championship was concerned, has seldom been heard from since.
Oh, yeah. The Chase.
The need to conserve NASCAR’s vital natural resources – i.e., fuel – upended all order near the end of the race. Denny Hamlin, who looked like the winner for much of the day, elected to pit near the end and finished 12th as a result. Jimmie Johnson, who never led, coasted across the line in fifth place, cutting Hamlin’s point lead from 33 to 15 points entering the Ford 400 on Nov. 21 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, which, of course, is the final race. Kevin Harvick, who seemed doomed by a pit-crew mistake, also made it to the end without pitting. He finished sixth, shaving the margin between him and Hamlin to 46.
Hamlin, who had been so buoyant after winning at Texas Motor Speedway just a week earlier, left PIR sounding demoralized.
“I couldn’t control it,” he said. “I did everything I was supposed to do. Things didn’t work out for me.
“I hate it boils down to the final race, but that’s what fans love and things like that. I feel like we’ve been the best car over this Chases, and we might not win it.”
Jimmie Johnson – Underdog? What might that do for the popularity of NASCAR?
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Just what does Brian France want to change?
The NASCAR monarch – after all, stock car racing has a clearly defined royal family and order of succession: Bill I, Bill II, Brian I – thinks if times are bad, the only possible solution is change.
The Internet hasn’t changed as much in the last decade as NASCAR.
Why not wait on the fans for once, instead of asking them to adapt?
The Chase, which made finishing 12th as important as first (for 26 races), is in its best shape since 2004, when it debuted. Somehow, by the strangest quirk of fate, one race remains and Jimmie Johnson actually doesn’t have it sewn up.
Johnson, unbeatable and unloved, thinks winning it this year might actually decrease the number of fans who dislike him. He’s going into the final race without the lead. Could the specter of Johnson the … underdog … be raised?
“It would probably be received better than the ones in the past, with the runaway show we’ve had in a couple of them,” he said.
It’s worth a shot, yes?
Lead changes and exciting finishes are up. The flip side, of course, is that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is down.
NASCAR changed its grading system and put everyone on a curve – or maybe all the courses are strictly pass-or-fail – for 26 races. It made all the cars so close to identical that Johnson himself might not be able to tell a Ford from a Chevy without those handy headlight decals. It revved up the action with rules that make the old “racing back to the caution flag” seem safe. The number of laps aren’t even reliable anymore.
Some fans are ticked off. Some are just tired.
Maybe change has been transacted at so dizzying a pace that people just can’t keep up. And contradictions flourish.
With cars that look just alike, inexplicably, one manufacturer, Chevy, dominates as never before.
Exciting races are perceived widely as just the opposite. “Boring” is just a strange word to be used in relation to what has taken place on the tracks this year, but fans say it every day.
Every change is sold as cost-cutting, but none of the teams ever actually save any money because, before they get a chance to do so, more changes emerge from that godforsaken Research and Development Center.
Even change gets old when it never stops.
Kevin Harvick had a loose lugnut on his last pit stop forcing him to pit a second time. The mistake worked in Harvick's favor, however, as he was able to top off his gas allowing him to finish the race without pitting again. (photo : Getty Images)
AVONDALE, Ariz. – An unscheduled pit stop, less than 100 laps from the end of Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500, hindered Kevin Harvick’s flagging championship hopes, but not much.
Harvick’s Chevy needed two stops because of a lugnut left loose on lap 225. Fortunately, it was a yellow-flag stop and he lost track position, not a lap. But the track position was crucial. With 12 laps to go, Harvick was in 12th place, while the point leader, Denny Hamlin, was second and Jimmie Johnson seventh.
As it turned out, though, Harvick actually picked up ground on point leader Denny Hamlin, narrowing his edge from 59 to 46 points. Hamlin leads the runner-up Jimmie Johnson, by 15.
Johnson finished fifth, Harvick sixth and Hamlin 12th.
“We were just lucky, to be honest,” said Harvick. “If you keep at it, you never know what’s going to happen. … We dodged one, for sure. Still got a chance next week.
* * *
GOING, GOING, -- GAUGHAN!-- Brendan Gaughan, making a rare Sprint Cup appearance, crashed at the beginning of the second lap. Provided Gaughan doesn’t respond vigorously with a stirring performance next week at Homestead-Miami Speedway, his entire Cup season will be encapsulated in the one lap he completed Sunday.
SUSPECTS, USUAL-- A hundred laps into the race, Chase drivers rode in eight of the top 10 positions, the only exceptions being Ryan Newman and Martin Truex, neither of whom was in the top five.
GASSSED UP--Shortly after the race’s midpoint, Kasey Kahne’s Toyota was clearly out of compliance with the templates. That’s because he left the pits – and completed two laps – with a gas can stuck upright and clinging with remarkable adhesion to the rear spoiler.
Jeff Burton wrecked at ‘Dega, and he wrecked again at Texas … (photo: Getty Images)
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Have at it, boys. Those words, spoken back in January by NASCAR’s Robin Pemberton, might as well have been the slogan of the season.
Oh, by the way, remember the Maine, the Alamo and Joe Hill, too.
Once, when I was in high school, our team paid a visit to a conference rival we’d beaten 62-0 the year before. That school normally wore orange, but when we trotted out on the field for warm-up, we immediately noticed the other team was wearing red and white T-shirts, matching our school colors. The T-shirts read:
WE REMEMBER! 62-0!
We remembered, too. We won, 34-6, and there weren’t any T-shirts the next year.
While pro football implements rules that limit the capacity of overgrown physical specimens to, uh, play football, NASCAR tumbles into old-fashioned laissez-faire.
If a driver doesn’t like the way another driver is racing him, he can just duke it out, by gosh. Unlike a beanball in baseball, NASCAR doesn’t eject or issue warnings, anything like that.
Have at it, boys. The three R’s are rubbin’, retaliatin’, and wreckin’.
The august ruling body must, of course, prevent an outbreak of anarchy. It can’t have these cocky, rich whippersnappers just rioting in the streets (uh, tracks). They can be scrapping among themselves all they want, but don’t be “sassing” a NASCAR official. Kyle Busch didn’t need words to “sass,” but he would have been no better off had he launched into a profanity-laced diatribe.
One reason modern racers can “have at it” is that they have few limitations.
In the old days, when a driver wrecked a car, he had to fix it, and if he didn’t fix it, he paid to have it fixed. Nowadays that’s the domain of millionaire owners with accompanying millions from sponsors. Now a dozen cars, just like the wrecked one used to be, sit back at the shop. They’ll send a transporter to pick another one up, if need be.
More than 20 years ago, Darrell Waltrip was kidding when he suggested that a car owner’s advice to a driver was, “If you can’t win the race, at least tear up the car.”
That’s no longer a joke. That’s the state of the art now.
When I drive out west of Phoenix to go to the race track, the smell of manure on the cattle ranches reminds me of my own upbringing on a farm.
I wonder, once this gig has run its course, if the smell of oil, gasoline, rubber and exhaust will make me think of NASCAR.
Probably ... in the unlikely event that this gig ever runs its course. This is my 18th season. I reckon I'm going to be a "lifer." Maybe it's indistinguishable from the song that was famously on the country charts at the time of Hank Williams' demise: "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive."
Don't worry. At the moment, I feel fine. Writers tend to write for as long as they live, though, and it seems unlikely I'll ever stray too far from the great speed palaces of the land.
As Robert Duvall once said in a movie, "They's worse things." Race tracks are safe from foreign attack. As you may have noticed, our air superiority is demonstrated prior to the start of practically every NASCAR event.
Specializing in NASCAR gave me a chance to carve a name for myself. So what if I'm typecast? In these times, the woods are full of people wanting to be cast, period.
My cell phone died on Saturday. Then, using the handy GPS provided with my rental car, I set out to see if it could be salvaged. It took four tries to find a retailer established by my "provider." The first three were no longer there. The fourth had merely moved five blocks or so, and I found it thanks to a friendly security guard in a mall.
So technology is failing me left and right, but there are people out there who will still help. It's easy to forget that in an emailing, texting, Facebooking world.
Teammates Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman discuss how their cars were handling after practice for the Kobalt Tools 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. (Photo: Getty Images)
AVONDALE, Ariz.-- Yes, Tony Stewart conceded, it’s tough to be in the Chase but, well, out of it.
“All everybody wants to do is talk about the guys (who) are in it, and all we want to do is worry about the stuff we’re doing … and trying to make our cars better,” he said. “You want to be in the middle of it, and you want to be those guys that are there, but, at the same time, when it doesn’t work out, you have to sit there trying to figure out things at the end of the year and figure out why you didn’t get yourself in that position (contention).”
Stewart also said, by the way, that Juan Pablo Montoya is the most talented driver against whom he has ever raced.
GORDON RELIED ON 'HAVE AT IT'’--Jeff Gordon was angry when he confronted Jeff Burton and provoked a physical exchange a week ago at Texas Motor Speedway. But he had enough presence of mind to realize the fight wouldn’t cost him any Sprint Cup points.
Asked if the same incident would have occurred a year earlier, before NASCAR’s so-called “have at it” advice, Gordon said, “I would have reacted the same way but I would have expected a fine. That’s the only difference. When you know you’re going to get fined – and, to be honest, I held back, I wanted to do a lot worse that that – and, at that moment when you’re upset, you really don’t care what happens on Monday or Tuesday.
“I had a long enough walk (between his car and Burton’s) to think, OK, there are consequences here that I need to consider, and what can I get away with and still show him how upset I am? That’s why I reacted the way I did. I didn’t think it would get points taken away from me, and it didn’t. But I thought there could be a monetary fine, and there wasn’t.”
IN THE BAG--Todd Bodine wrapped up his second Camping World Truck Series championship with a 12th-place finish in the series’ penultimate race at PIR Friday night. Clint Bowyer won the Lucas Oil 150.
Bowyer, by the way, has won back-to-back, though over four years. He hadn’t competed in the series since a November 2006 victory in Texas.
SECOND TRY--Caitlin Shaw, a junior at Belmont Abbey, started 33rd and placed 30th in the Truck Series race. It was the second start for the 21-year-old native of Albuquerque, N.M. She was involved in a crash after completing 84 of the 150 laps.
Since January, Shaw has been working at Michael Waltrip Racing as an intern.
Jimmie Johnson watches his No. 48 crew work on his car before practice on Saturday for the Kobalt Tools 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. He has to pull off a feat he hasn’t had to do in the past, not in the past, at lesatt not in the final two races. (Photo: Getty Images)
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Jimmie Johnson won what is now the Kobalt Tools 500 a year ago. He’s won four of the past six races at Phoenix International Raceway. He’s finished fourth or better in eight straight, and …
… Johnson desperately needs to do it again.
The winner of the past four Sprint Cup championships has to pull off a feat he hasn’t had to do in the past, at least not in the final two races. Johnson has to come from behind. He trails Denny Hamlin by 33 points and leads third-place Kevin Harvick by 26.
Johnson, who seems to speak in sentence fragments at a steadily increasing rate, said, “Great track for us. Excited to get on the track and get going. Obviously, we’ve got some work to do and a points margin to make up. Just excited to get out there and stop thinking about things and just get to work.”
The sentence fragments don’t seem to originate in anxiety. In fact, Johnson seems relaxed and easygoing. For him, perhaps this is just another fun challenge. This mile track certainly seems to offer a likely shot for a comeback.
“We have to beat him (Hamlin). I’m not sure where they’re going to finish, but … we need to expect the best out of them, and that’s going to be those guys running up front. We need to lead a lap, hopefully lead the most laps and win the race. … It’s relative to where he’s running or where he finishes, and we just don’t know until we get on the track and get out there and see what goes on in the race.”
As Johnson suggested, being behind by 33 points doesn’t entirely allow him to control his destiny. Hamlin’s edge means he doesn’t have to win. If Johnson wins, though, Hamlin will have to stay close.
“Right now,” said Hamlin, “I don’t think of it as us having a lead. It’s more of us having a level playing field going to a track where those two guys (Johnson, Harvick) probably have a better record and lately on these types of race tracks have run better.”
Harvick has won twice at Phoenix, though his average finish (15.6) isn’t as good as Hamlin’s (11.6).
Johnson’s average finish at PIR is an extraordinary 4.929.
Not every driver can be a Chase contender in hot pursuit, but here are various reasons still to celebrate the 2010 season. Kyle Busch (above) won all kinds of races, even though they didn't matter enough in Sprint Cup competition.
AVONDALE, Ariz. – As is the case with every sport except college football, where the champion is mythical and the arguments endless, everyone in NASCAR except one (driver or team, take your pick) is going to be a bit disappointed in two weeks. Add wistful “what ifs” to those still in the hunt who fall short.
Really, though, even if winning is everything, winning it all isn’t necessary. A coach whose football team lost 10 games a year ago isn’t going to crushed by 7-5 and a minor bowl. In NASCAR, it’s a big day for some when they make the starting field.
The year’s winners extend far beyond the final three locked in combat. More than Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick have reason to rejoice. (Come to think of it, since Johnson has won the past four championships, he may no longer be capable of rejoicing in anything but another title.)
So who’s got a big year going other than the Big Three?
Greg Biffle’s got a big year going. He drives a Ford. Only two Fords have won races this year. Biffle drove both of them.
Jamie McMurray’s got a big bank account going. He won the season’s two richest races and another that was among them. He makes me think of the old Presbyterian College football coach who used to say, “You beat Newberry, you beat Wofford, it’s a good year.” McMurray won the Daytona 500. He won the Brickyard 400. He won the Bank of America 500. It’s a good year.
Jeff Burton has a lot of years exactly like this. He’s not overjoyed, but he ought to be pleased.
Clint Bowyer has won two Chase races. Unfortunately, they couldn’t make him relevant, at least not after those 150 points were deducted.
Kyle Busch seems to dominate everything that doesn’t matter. It’s entirely possible that he wants to win the Sprint Cup championship too badly. Maybe he’s obsessed, crazed and haunted. That theory would explain a lot.
Remember that old movie “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”? Kevin Conway is going to be the Raybestos Rookie of the Year Who Never Had to Try. Save for the first handful of races, the rookie of the year was the only rookie of the year. Hey. He’s the only guy who ever pulled that off.
Kevin Harvick (left, readying for practice at Phoenix International Raceway on Friday) , criticized Hamlin’s crew chief Mike Ford for over-cockiness in the clinch; Hamlin (right, also getting ready for practice on Friday, traded the word “honest” for “cocky” in describing his crew chief. (Photos: Getty Images)
AVONDALE, Ariz. – It’s Cocky Season at Phoenix International Raceway, and it has nothing to do with the University of South Carolina’s lovable mascot.
A week ago, Denny Hamlin won in Texas, took the point lead and listened afterwards as his crew chief, Mike Ford, rubbed it in, directing his remarks at the team of Jimmie Johnson, winner of the past four championships.
Now the third-place occupant in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings apparently wants in on the act. Harvick was only too happy to pass judgment on Ford’s remarks.
“The only good thing that comes from being cocky like that is you better win because, if you don’t, you’re going to have to answer a lot of questions about your comments when you get done. You create a lot more work than what you see initially when you say those things, if it all doesn’t go your way. I think when you’re trying to intimidate the guy who’s won four championships in a row, I think you might need to go rethink your strategy and just go out and worry about racing, because it’s not really something that was probably necessary.
“In my opinion all the things (Ford) said seem to be a disruption to his team, and now Denny (Hamlin) is going to have to come in here and answer all those questions.”
HOW DENNY ANSWERED-- Predictably, Hamlin defended Ford and suggested that what his crew chief said – basically, that Johnson’s pit crew choked under pressure in Texas – wasn’t all that controversial
“I think he’s honest,” he said of Ford. “He’s the least-cocky guy I know.
Anybody who’s been in this sport longer than last week will tell you that he’s definitely not that. I think he’s more boastful of his own team then he is a skeptic of someone else’s.
“I think it kind of came off wrong. I don’t think it matters. I think anyone who’s leading the points is going to have a target on their backs, like it or not. I think the ‘he said, she said’ is totally irrelevant.”
AT TEAM FOUR STRAIGHT--Johnson, of course, is now the proud owner of Jeff Gordon’s pit crew, which occurred during the AAA Texas 500 and opened the door to Ford’s remarks.
Johnson said he’d do the same for the team, it being Hendrick Motorsports.
“There’s no doubt that, if we were out of the points and didn’t have a chance to win, then I would do anything I could to help my teammates win. Without a doubt, if the roles were reversed, I would offer the same thing up for Jeff Gordon’s team or Junior (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) or Mark Martin’s.
“Without a doubt.”
BLUE, SO BLUE--Carl Edwards could come up with only characteristic the last two tracks, Phoenix and Homestead-Miami Speedway, have in common.
“They both have a blue wall,” he said, “but this (Phoenix) is short track (not technically, it’s a mile), and Homestead is definitely an intermediate track. Just really to be honest with you, two completely different race tracks, but that’s what makes this sport what it is.
“That’s what makes the Chase difficult: Here you are, the last two races to decide a championship, and you have a good short-track race and then you have another good intermediate track. It’s a good mixture of race tracks to have to go through and overcome to win a championship.”
Crew chief Mike Ford discusses strategy with Denny Hamlin. (photo: Getty Images)
AVONDALE, Ariz. – After winning the AAA Texas 500 on Sunday, Denny Hamlin vowed not to back off.
“I’m going to race Phoenix as if I’m 33 (points) behind, to be honest with you,” said Hamlin, who is, of course, 33 ahead. “There’s no comfortable margin going into Homestead because anything can happen, so for me, Phoenix being an up‑and‑down race track for me, I’ve got to really be focused … I’m not going to be conservative having the lead. I’m going to want to stretch that out before we get to Homestead.
“So that’s pretty much my mindset.”
Hamlin is right. His meager lead is much too small to protect. Security can only come from pressing the advantage. Here’s my guess: If Hamlin finishes in the top five in the remaining two races, he will win the championship. If he doesn’t, he won’t.
If Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus had not already gritted their teeth and licked their leftover wounds from Texas, they would have after hearing what Hamlin’s crew chief, Mike Ford, had to say about them after Hamlin’s eighth victory of the season.
Ford was playing with fire when he suggested that Johnson’s pit crew had choked under pressure in Texas. For evidence, he had only to point out that Knaus had brought in reinforcements. When Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon fell out in a bizarre crash, Knaus promptly confiscated Gordon’s idle pit crew and made it his own. That crew will pit the No. 48 Chevy at Phoenix and Homestead, as well.
Ford’s remarks added an “in your face” attitude to what had been a fairly respectful battle. The risk is that Knaus will end up getting the last word. The Superman of the past four seasons has officially had his cape tugged.
This is just what the doctor ordered for NASCAR. With two races to go, three drivers still have a shot, and none can afford to play it safe. My guess is that the driver who winds up being champion is the one who wins at least one of the final two races.