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.”

NASCAR penalizes three Nationwide Series teams

   Three Nationwide Series teams were penalized on Wednesday for rules violations stemming from last weekend’s race at Las Vegas.

   Chris Gayle, crew chief for the No. 11 Toyota driven by Elliott Sadler, was fined $10,000 and he and car chief Todd Brewer were placed on probation until Dec. 31 for having weight attached in an unapproved location.

   Greg Ives, crew chief of the No. 9 Chevrolet driven by Chase Elliott, was placed on probation until Dec. 31 after the front of the car was found to be too low. Jeremy Bullins, crew chief for race winner Brad Keselowski, was fined $5,000 and placed on probation until Dec. 31 for having a shock absorber that exceeded maximum pressure.

Tony Stewart: "I just want to be 100 percent"

 

   Three-time Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart is three races into his return from a serious leg injury suffered in a sprint car race last summer. While Stewart has been cleared to driver by doctors he has repeatedly said his leg is not near 100 percent.

 

   To add insult to injury, so to speak, Stewart is off to a tough start to the season. He has two finishes of 33rd or worse and best finish of 16th at Phoenix.

 

   Sunday's race is at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, one of the most physically demanding in the series. Stewart was asked if he had any fear in returning to racing and his thoughts heading into this weekend's race.

 

   Here is his complete answer:

 

   “The fear was not getting back out. Being out of my Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevy is what bothered me more than anything. I’ve had injuries before. I’ve had broken hands and raced dirt cars and stock cars. I’ve had broken bones that weren’t healed 100 percent and still went out and did what we needed to do. This was just a bigger setback. This was one that I didn’t have a choice of being in the car and fighting through it. This was one where the ante was up a little bit," he said.

 

   “Honestly, there hasn’t been one day or night where I’ve sat and questioned whether it’s what I wanted to do or whether it was something I could do. It was just, when can we do it? I just want to be 100 percent, and we’re pushing toward that. The passion and desire I have for the sport, that’s never wavered, and that’s what gets you through some of this stuff. 

 

   “People that want to compete, want to compete. They fight through injuries, they persevere, they work hard to get back where they want to be, and this is no different. There’s nothing about this process that has taken away my desire to do what I want to do. You don’t live for what could happen, you live for what you can make happen.”