Three observations heading into Sunday's NASCAR race at Fontana

   Observations

   • Four different winners in as many races in the Sprint Cup series this season has suddenly added fuel to the idea there well could be 16 or more different winners in the first 26 races of the season, somehow diluting the idea a win all-but guarantees a berth in the Chase. Well, when was the last time this phenomenon happened? Uh, last season, when the year began with five different winners in the first five races. By race No. 26, there were still only 13 different winners. Rest easy, folks. Win and you’re in.

   • In four races so far this season, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has one top-five and two top-10 finishes, including a career-best second last weekend at Bristol, Tenn. In all of last season – his rookie year in Cup – Stenhouse had one top-five and three top-10s. Clearly, he is a good example of a driver making progress the more time he spends on the track.

   • Something I don’t quite understand: Each time Fox broadcasts knockout qualifying sessions it typically ends up about 12-15 minutes behind live action simply because it insists on showing every minute of on-track action in each round. Yet on race day – which is far more relevant than qualifying – the network has no problem breaking away from live action in the race in order to run commercial breaks. What gives?

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/03/22/4786787/nascar-sprint-cup-series-raceday.html#.Uy8TToJhh6s#storylink=cpy

Tire problem at Bristol not "our fault," Jimmie Johnson says

 

 

   Jimmie Johnson’s chance at a victory or good finish in last weekend’s Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol, Tenn., was cut short after his left-front tire shred and came apart midway early in the event, putting him several laps down.

 

   Goodyear officials said at the time the car setup contributed to the problem. Johnson discussed the issue Friday at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.

 

   Q: Last week, (crew chief) Chad Knaus made the comment on the radio, something like 'I suppose that is our fault, too.' What was that about?

   Johnson: “Definitely frustrated and then if you look at how things transpired from there when Goodyear had a chance to respond it was our fault. That is what Chad was preparing us for. That of course it was going to be our fault. I went in the truck and sat down and talked with (Goodyear's) Rick Campbell and I get along with Rick great and we had a great conversation about the wear on the tire and what potentially could have happened. From a team standpoint we are still very adamant that the wear on the tire was not the issue. A lot of guys had left-front wear and issues with the left-front and some stuff going on there. We are very confident, and the tire was still intact. Just a half inch strip came unwound from the inside corner of the tire and it was some 60 feet long. We laid it out from the front of the truck all the way to the back of the trailer. We could see every wear hole on it. It wasn’t worn out. That is all Chad was kind of referencing is that it would be our fault in the end and it was blamed as our fault.”

 

   Q: Did you get any answers that made you feel better about it from Goodyear?

   Johnson: “At that point there is not a lot that you can do. We just try to learn from it and try to give them the tire and all the information we can so they can make a better product. They tested there in October or something last year and the temperatures were far different. It became apparent to everybody early in practice that the temps weren’t the same and the tire wasn’t acting the same. It’s not an easy job that they have, but I think we can come back with a little better tire there.”

Miss Sprint Cup, Brooke Werner, resigning for 'personal reasons'

 

 

   Miss Sprint Cup Brooke Werner posted the following message on her Facebook page announcing she was resigning from the Miss Sprint Cup program for 'personal reasons':

   Here was the message:

   "Hey fans, difficult decisions are always tough to communicate to people you love so much…like you guys. I recently made the hard decision to resign as Miss Sprint Cup for personal reasons (all good!) and hang up my firesuit. It's been one of the greatest times of my life and I have you all to thank for that. I'll miss you all very much but I know that you'll all be excited to meet the new Miss Sprint Cup soon! " -BW

   Werner is one of three women who serve as Miss Sprint Cup throughout the NASCAR season. Kim Coon and Madison Martin are the others. This is Werner's second season in the program.

 

Three observations from Sunday night's race at Bristol

   Three observations from Sunday's race:

   - Long after Sunday night’s race was over, NASCAR’s vice president of competition, Robin Pemberton, provided a thorough, clear explanation of why caution lights inexplicably came on with two of 500 laps remaining. Unfortunately, Pemberton’s explanation wasn’t the only one offered by NASCAR after the race. Even if the original explanation – a mechanical malfunction – was honestly thought to be the correct one at the time, NASCAR should never issue statements or explanations until it is certain it has the right one. The best of intentions can easily be overshadowed by a mistaken perception of a cover-up, or even worse, incompetence.

   - If there is one sport whose fans should always be wary to assume a particular outcome, it’s NASCAR. How many of the sport’s most famous race finishes came about because something unexpected happened on the final lap of a very long race? Dozens. It is silly to suggest ‘the right driver’ won Sunday night’s race simply because it was the same driver leading before the caution miscue. We know who won because of a mistaken caution and subsequent downpour. We have no idea who would have won had the race remained under green.

   - On the surface, both Jimmie Johnson (19^th) and Joey Logano (20^th) had average finishes in Sunday night’s race. It would have been interesting to see how the outcome may have changed if both had not suffered issues during the race – Johnson with a shredded tire and Logano with broken power steering. Both were very fast early in the race.

Rain delays are interrupting Sunday's NASCAR race at Bristol

   Periodic rain in northeastern Tennessee is playing havoc with Sunday's Food City 500 Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

   The start of the race was delayed by nearly two hours before it was halted on Lap 125 of 500 by rain once again. Matt Kenseth was leading the race.

   Rain is forecast into the evening. At least 250 laps have to be completed for the race to be counted as official. If not, the remainder of the race will be completed on Monday.

   You can check out the National Weather Service's forecast here.


  

  

What Carl Edwards found scary at Las Vegas last weekend

 

   Roush Fenway Racing as an organization struggled a lot last season on 1.5-mile intermediate tracks and worked hard in the offseason to help improve their race package. 

   Sprint Cup Series driver Carl Edwards said when the organization again struggled on a 1.5-mile track last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he found the situation very "scary."

   "We did struggle in the Chase and we struggled at the mile-and-a-halves at the end of the year last year," Edwards said. "We basically changed everything and worked really hard, and that’s what was so scary about struggling at Vegas because it was like, ‘Hey, this is the problem we’ve been addressing.’ 

   "Now, once we went back and looked at the race and thought about it a little bit, towards the end of the race on that last restart I had the fastest car on the track for eight or 10 laps. We just kind of lost the balance there and I think we need to understand that, so there’s a big glimmer of hope and some evidence that we can do it, we just have to understand a couple of things the car is doing a little bit better."

Dale Junior and Kyle Busch can reach NASCAR milestones this weekend

 
   BRISTOL, Tenn. - Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are on the verge of reaching a pair of significant NASCAR milestones this weekend.

   If he can lead at least 140 laps in Sunday’s Food City 500 – something he’s done four times previously – Busch will become the 15^th driver in Sprint Cup Series history to cross the 10,000 laps led threshold for his career.

   “There’s a lot of things that I want to accomplish still that I haven’t,” said Busch, who has five Cup series victories at Bristol Motor Speedway. Whatever things come along the way that we’re able to accomplish is awesome – it’s fun.

   “It means you are a namesake in the sport and that hopefully things continue to go down that path.”

   Earnhardt can join an even more exclusive club on Sunday should he finish first or second. Only one other driver in Cup history – Richard Petty – has finished second or higher in the first four races of the season (He did so in 1974). Earnhardt has finished first, second and second in the first three races.
  
   “Anytime you’ve done anything that Richard has done and you put yourself in the conversation with him to do with any statistic, it’s a pretty awesome accomplishment,” Earnhardt said. “He’s such a fixture in the sport still today.”