What's up with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin?

   It was a little surprising when late in Sunday's Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. looked like he purposely ran into the back of Mark Martin in order to clear him while making a pass.

   For one, it's typically not a move made by Earnhardt. And second, it's even rarer to see Martin do something that upsets another driver so much.   

   Earnhardt was asked about the incident after Sunday's race.   

   "Personally, yeah, I don’t have a problem with Mark and have so much respect for him. But to me, personally, there is an unwritten etiquette that when the guy is running the top even if you are clearing him or passing him - if you barely clear him off the corner. I’m coming 10 miles an hour faster off the top of the race track, you stay low. Don’t knock a half second off my lap time being a jerk about it. Stay low. You are going to get it in the next corner and the position is going to be yours. Don’t pull up in front of somebody when they are going to come off the corner 10 miles an hour faster," Earnhardt said.

   “I didn’t really mean to put him in the wall but from the cosmetic standpoint it didn’t look like it hurt his car. Probably looked like it knocked some of the right front suspension off of it, and I am sorry about that. But, you know I felt like I was pretty frustrated at the moment before that happened, and that just kind of really sent me over the edge there.   

   "We just want to win really bad and felt like we should have finished better than we did today and I was just frustrated at that point and that is just not the way that I understand it to be done and I am sure he feels a different way about it but I think we definitely disagreed right there at that moment.”

Danica Patrick dialing back NASCAR expectations

    It appears after a rough Sprint Cup debut at Daytona and more frustrations last week in her Nationwide Series race at Phoenix, Danica Patrick is ready to dial back expectations.

    “I definitely feel like I want to do well for so many people,” Patrick said Friday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “I think that I gave myself maybe a little bit of false expectation about running this year for the (Nationwide) championship and probably using those words ‘for the championship.’

   “It’s my first-ever full year, and what I’ve done still doesn’t add up to one year, and I didn’t have anything before that at all in stock cars.”

   After getting involved in three wrecks at Speedweeks – in a qualifying race, the Nationwide race and Daytona 500 – Patrick ran just the Nationwide event at Phoenix. But 30 laps in the race, she was a lap down. She finished three laps down and declined all media interviews after the race.

   Two races into the 2012 Nationwide season, Patrick is 21^st in series points. In the offseason, she repeatedly said she believed she and her No. 7 JR Motorsports team could be contenders for the championship.

   Patrick is also running 10 cup races this season.

    “I think I need to remind myself every now and again of really where the expectation level should be, and where mine should be,” she said. “And I can’t let all of the exposure and hype and hope – I'm serious when I say ‘hope’ - I can’t let that be something that makes me feel like I have to do well.”

Scratch that Elliott Sadler-MWR deal

   Elliott Sadler will not be doing five Sprint Cup races this season for Michael Waltrip Racing after all.

   Over the weekend, MWR announced Sadler would drive the No. 55 Toyota in five of the races this season not on Mark Martin's schedule. Sadler drives the No. 2 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing fulltime in the Nationwide Series. He drove in the Daytona 500 but had no other Cup starts planned this season.

   By Sunday night, rumors were flying the deal was off and Sadler on Monday confirmed he was no longer driving for MWR in an interview with Sirius Satellite Radio.

   Sadler won the Nationwide race Saturday at Phoenix. He said team owner Richard Childress told him following that race he wanted Sadler to focus on winning the Nationwide championship.

   "Richard and the executives of RCR just don't think right now is the right time. It's in our best interest to win the Nationwide championship. After leading the points after the first two races, nobody wants any distractions," Sadler said.

   MWR has not yet announced a replacement for Sadler in the No. 55.

Sadler to drive five Sprint Cup races for MWR

  Elliott Sadler will drive the No. 55 Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing in five Sprint Cup events this season starting at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 18.

  Sadler will drive both Bristol races, both Martinsville (Va.) races and the July 15 race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

  Mark Martin is the primary driver of the No. 55 Toyota.
 
   "This is an awesome opportunity," said Sadler. "We’ve been talking about this for a while, but wanted to get through Daytona before we announced it to everyone. If I had to pick a place on the circuit to start then Bristol would be my first choice. I can’t thank Michael and everyone at MWR enough for giving me this opportunity."

-- Ron Green Jr.

Chad Knaus: 'We didn't expect this'

     AVONDALE, Az. -- Chad Knaus, crew chief for Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet, said today that he's focused on the Sprint Cup race this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway while he awaits an appeal of the punishment handed down by NASCAR this week related to unapproved modifications of C-posts prior to the Daytona 500.

   Knaus was fined $100,000 and suspended for six races for the violation. A date for the appeal to be heard as not been set and Knaus is allowed to work until the appeal hearing.

  "Obviously, I'm deeply saddened of course. We didn't expect this," Knaus said at the track this morning. "It's not the way we wanted to start off the season but it's good to have the support of everyone at Hendrick Motorsports and we'll go after this thing and hopefully get it resolved and get back to business. Right now we're focused on Phoenix and trying to win this championship."

   Asked if he anticipated a problem, Knaus said it took him by surprise.

 "I didn't expect any of it to be honest with you. We do everything we can to build the best race cars we possibly can to bring to the race track and that's what we do. Unfortunately, they didn't like something so we've got to address that," Knaus said.

   Knaus reiterated team owner Rick Hendrick's earlier statement that the car was no different than the cars the No. 48 team ran in all four restrictor plate races last year, each of which passed inspection.

  "It did run all four (plate) races last year and went through inspection," Knaus said.

  Knaus said the violation was determined through a visual inspection.

   "The templates were never actually put on the car," Knaus said.

  -- Ron Green Jr

Roger Penske talks Ford move

    Penske Racing and Ford Racing announced Thursday they will be joining forces for the 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and beyond. Roger Penske answered several questions about the move.

   Penske: We announced today that Penske and Ford will campaign in 2013 in NASCAR Sprint Cup. Penske Racing will obviously race the new 2013 Fusion. We’ll also run Mustangs in the NASCAR Nationwide Series in 2013. I personally want to thank the Ford
leadership team -- Edsel Ford, Jamie, Mark Fields, Jim Farley and Ken Czubay for their commitment in this very important time for our team to Penske Racing. As you know, Dodge has been aligned with Penske Racing for the past 10 years. Together, we’ve had much success on and off the track. Obviously, throughout the 2012 season we are committed
to winning races, making the Chase and hopefully winning the championship. The timing of this announcement with Ford is obviously very important due to the implementation of the new 2013 NASCAR Ford Fusion, which we will compete with next year at Daytona. With only a year to go, we needed to plan for the future and make important commitments to our sponsors, drivers, crews and employees. As many of you know, Penske Racing is no stranger to Ford Racing. Over the years we’ve raced with Ford for 11 seasons with over 500 NASCAR starts. We have 27 victories and 36 poles, so, again, I’m very excited to join
Ford again in 2013."

   Q: Why are you making this move? Who is going to do your engines?
   Penske: From an engine perspective, if you go back in Penske Racing’s history, I would say that all the time we’ve been in many different motorsports, we have had our own engine company and developed our own engines. And I think this was not part of the agreement, from the standpoint with Ford, that we would use Roush Yates or use other people’s engine. This is certainly something that we’re going to evaluate going forward. We have got a great engine company with great people. You can see what they’ve been able to do
with the Dodge product, so we just want to be able to benchmark, and I think that’s one of the reasons when we looked at the change in 2013 is it’s going to be a difficult year for everyone as we have to change bodies on all of our cars and if we were going to make a change, this was going to be the year that we would do that. Obviously, our contract with Dodge ends at the end of 2012, so when you take the contract ending, I think the chance for us in this particular case to be able to benchmark against someone like Roush and Roush Yates will give us a chance to be sure that we can be a leading team in NASCAR in
the future. We’ve had a great relationship with Dodge. We’ll continue, as I said earlier, to commit 150 percent to what we need to do. There’s no disincentive for Penske Racing not to be the best in 2012, and I think that at this particular time when we assessed the
options, and this is something that didn’t come overnight. We had a relationship with Ford before, and I think at the end of the day we felt that this was an option that we couldn’t turn down.

   Q: Can you say how long the deal is for? Will you use Roush Yates Engines?
   Penske: This is a long-term deal. We don’t really comment on length of different agreements, but this is a multi-year agreement and we’ve obviously have multi-year agreements with Ford and Dodge in the past, so it’s consistent with what we’ve done in the
recent deals that we’ve had. From an engine perspective, we have a commitment to our people at the engine shop. We’ve got a big investment in dynos and other things, so this is something that we’ll take a good look at, but what I like about it is we’ll be able to benchmark our capabilities at Penske Engines versus the best in the business at Roush Yates.

   Q: Why is this a better deal than Dodge?
   Penske: Let me say this, this wasn’t about money and I want to make that clear from the standpoint of everybody that’s on the call. I think that we evaluated, when you look at the strength of the teams in NASCAR – the multiple car teams – the success that Stewart-Haas had and the alignment with Hendrick. Also with Gibbs and Waltrip and the teams that were out there. We’ve been operating for the last 10 years pretty much with some support in the previous years, maybe four or five years ago, but we needed to have a benchmark and I think that having that additional technical information flow through the process as Ford has outlined it to us, I think, was very important to us. The term was important to us. We wanted a long-term deal because I have to make commitments to sponsors. Obviously with drivers today you can’t just hire a driver at the last minute, so I think some of those things came into play. We want to thank Dodge for what they’ve done for us. I think we’ve delivered and they’ve delivered, and we’ve got a big job to do ahead of time, but this was a business decision. We had a long, important relationship with Ford in the logistics and dealership area, and all of these things carry some weight in our final decision.

   Q: How tough is it to leave Dodge and did you look at joining Chevrolet?
   Penske: This was a very tough decision and I think we had discussions with Dodge. This wasn’t something that happened in the last 24 or 48 hours. It was over a few months and I
think when we weighed the plusses and minuses of the opportunity, it was apparent to us that we need to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship and we have been trying to do it alone. I think with a certain amount of sponsorship available to us and we were fielding
two, three cars and then some in the Nationwide, but having the opportunity to benchmark with someone like Roush, who has been world-class, you could see the performance this past weekend with Kenseth and how good their cars are, we thought that it was the time
for us to evaluate other options. Chevrolet, obviously, when you look at that lineup, we’d have a hard time getting in that line with the teams that are already associated with Chevrolet, and I felt that the relationship in Detroit that we had with Ford, Chrysler and Dodge is very important to us, but at the end of the day, we had very good conversations with Ralph Gilles and Beth Paretta and the SRT brand is very important. In fact, the good news is that if you saw the activation at Daytona, they’re fully committed and I know they’ll move out on the racing circuits, not only just in NASCAR, but in other areas as we go forward. So it was a tough decision for me, but, on the other hand, I think it’s the right one.

   Q: Does this deal require a certain number of Cup cars and Nationwide series cars?
   Penske: We have committed to run a minimum of two cars in the Cup Series and we’ll be running two cars in Nationwide. At some point, once we have been able to stabilize from the standpoint of the changeover, we could move one of those Nationwide cars to run in the
Cup Series. So I think we have a very viable plan with Ford, one that has some elasticity so we can change from two to three and, obviously, we’ve been able to build a lot of good people through the Nationwide programs when you look at Paul Wolfe and Chad Walter and certainly Todd Gordon are the people that we have today that have come up
through that wing, and we expect to continue that, so you’ll see us performing and running in both series.

   Q: Is there a disincentive in performance for Dodge given they are now in a lameduck situation as far as developing their 2013 car?
   Penske: They’ve got a committed group of guys there and I know for a fact in having several conversations with key management around this discussion that both of us said we are going to do our utmost to perform, not only for the Penske Racing team, but for the Dodge brand and certainly SRT as they’re growing that brand throughout the world. I think that they have an option now to look at the different teams and other areas that they can invest in motorsports. They’re fully committed and I think this might incent them even more to do more. They’ve done a lot with us on the 2013. This wasn’t just thrown over the wall to us. They’ve been involved and I’m sure they have the ability to carry it on to get it to be competitive for whatever team they might choose in the future. Obviously, when you look at the Challenger, we developed that vehicle together with Dodge and you’ve seen the success with Brad and the way Sam ran this past weekend, so there are some good bones that they have to work with. Certainly, we’re going to live up to our obligations on our contract with them throughout 2012.

How NASCAR helped solve cold case

   The following press release was distributed on Wednesday:

   NASCAR driver Kevin Conway learned this week that through his involvement with the ‘ExtenZe Local Hero’ race program, a four-year-old unsolved homicide hit-and-run case has finally been solved. The Joliet Police Department informed Conway and a member of his executive team at eXclaim Marketing via email the suspect in the Melissa Lech case that was featured on his No. 87 NEMCO Motorsports car for the September 17, 2011 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Chicagoland Speedway finally turned himself in this past Sunday, February 26.

   Authorities say that 27-year-old David McCarthy of Naperville showed up on the doorstep of Melissa Lech’s sister’s house on Sunday morning to finally come clean about the hit-and-run accident he caused that took Melissa’s life in August 2008. Lech’s sister also told authorities that McCarthy admitted to her that he would think about the night he hit Melissa every time the case was in the news with the most recent significant impact coming in September 2011 when Conway’s car featured Melissa’s photo and a plea for information in a nationally televised NASCAR race at Chicagoland Speedway.

   “We feel confident that the extensive media coverage in the Melissa Lech investigation helped bring this case to a successful conclusion,” said Chief Michael P. Trafton, Joliet Police Department. “The Joliet Police Department would like to give special thanks to NASCAR Driver Kevin Conway, eXclaim Marketing, and the NEMCO Motorsports racing team for keeping this case in the spotlight.”                       

   In 2010 Conway, through his company eXclaim Marketing, wanted to create a cause-marketing campaign tied back to his race program that would really give back to the communities and markets NASCAR races in. From support from ExtenZe the ‘Local Hero’ program was formed. At first the campaign paid tribute to people who had gone to great lengths to make a difference in their communities and those selected typically had faced danger, sacrificed their own safety for others or in some way displayed leadership that changed their community for the better.

    It was the September 2010 Kansas race where the program took a bit of a different turn and started featuring unsolved homicide or missing persons cases on the car’s rear decklid. In total the program has featured nine unsolved cases across Kansas, Martinsville, Fontana, Nashville, Daytona, Bristol, Chicago, and Homestead-Miami with the Melissa Lech case out of Chicago being the first one solved due to the efforts of Conway and eXclaim Marketing.

   For more on the story, read this.