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The image that you may need to carry with you this week is the one of Carl Edwards #99 Roush-Fenway Ford Fusion relentlessly running down first Jeff Gordon and then race leader Jimmy Johnson for a convincing win at Auto Club Speedway of California.  Or maybe that’s the vision that you want your competitors to lock on. It may convince them that Jimmy Johnson can be beat in Vegas.

The victory by Edwards convinced me that Jack Roush and his Ford Factory team has recovered from being snookered in 2007 , mostly by Hendrick Motorsports, in the testing and development of the, former, Car of Tomorrow. The new Fusion race car was dominant with Edwards at the wheel, but Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle and Jamie McMurray all looked strong in California. The Fords are back, I’m convinced.

But I’m not convinced that it will make any difference at the next track where Jimmy Johnson has won the last three races and has a NASCAR Loop Data Driver Rating of 133.7. In fact of the sixteen categories that make up the pre-race Loop Box Score, Johnson has category best ratings in ten. Five of the six items that he doesn’t lead are Passing stats - things like Passes Under Green, Quality Passes, Pass Differential. The thing is, he trails in the passing stats because he spent 93.2 % of all of his Laps in the Top Fifteen and has led 24.5% of all laps over the last three years. He didn’t have very many cars to pass, did he?

Couple the #48’s past Las Vegas success with the fact that Jimmy led more laps than anyone at California (76) and finished a strong second place means picking anyone but Johnson this week is probably a mistake.

Making your pick from the best of the rest

By comparison, Carl Edwards has a Loop Driver Rating of 78.3 and leads only the Green Passes category with 220. The Vegas track has been good for other Roush Ford drivers and Carl is the highest rated driver at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the track most similar to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But if you pick Carl, you’re basing it on last Monday at Cali. That’s not much to go by.

Jeff Gordon has the second best Driver Rating at 114.1. Gordon led 68 laps and finished third at California. For much of the race it was a two car affair between the #24 and the #48. Gordon has won at Las Vegas, but only once and he’s never won at the similar Homestead. He could win this week because Jeff Gordon can win any week.

Hometown hot-shoe Kyle Busch has a DR of 108.7. He’s been as hot as you can be without winning a Cup race. He leads the Sprint Cup points - and Craftsman Truck Series points as well - and seems to be able to drive this new car anywhere he wants to on the track. Don’t look to Homestead for support though if you are leaning to the Shrub. His average finish down there is 33 rd.

Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle have DR’s of 104.5, 100.9 and 95.5 but only Kenseth has ever won at Vegas - at least on the track. Matt has two wins and has led a Loop second best 147 laps - 18.3% the last three races here. He finished a solid fifth at California after a strong run in the  Daytona 500. Matt may be the better Ford choice than Carl Edwards for this week.

If I have to pick someone besides Jimmy Johnson to win this race, my choice would be between Jeff Burton and Mark Martin. Burton has been solid so far in 2008 sitting tenth in points. Jeff is another two time winner at Vegas and has a DR of 93.6. He has run 80.1 % of his laps in the top 15. Hanging around, giving himself a shot at the win in the end has worked well for Jeff in the Nationwide Series.

Martin is a past winner at Vegas. His Driver Rating is sixth best at 97.0. Nothing really jumps out and says,”pick me, I’m gonna win” but Martin has been very good at mile and a half tracks over the years.

When all is said and read though, how can you not take Jimmy Johnson this week? For a longshot pick any of these three Toyotas could be very good. Between Dave Blaney, Brian Vickers and David Reutimann, I like Blaney to finish this one in one piece and in the top ten.

Photo credit - Icon Sports Media, Inc.

Whether you love or hate NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series point structure you have to admit that it does create a playoff atmosphere.  With the first twenty six races comprising the Race to the Chase, which leads to the Chase for the Cup Championship final ten, NASCAR has created interest at the two thirds point of the season that wasn’t there in the old days.

Now we have an early season version of the same kind of thing and you can thank the much loved, top thirty five qualifyier rule.  I call it the Drive to Survive and the race is heating up.

Counting this weeks UAW Dodge Dealers 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway there are three races left before the top thirty five starting spots for each race will be set by this year’s  owner’s points.  For the first five races starters are locked in based on 2007 year end owner’s points. 

NASCAR’s top series is no place for a slow start.  If you want to make all the races, you’d better be on your game. A little luck doesn’t hurt either.  Here are the 30th through 40th place teams based on points so far this year.

• 30th - 158 pts  David Ragan
• 31st -  157 pts  Denny Hamlin
• 32nd - 156 pts  Robby Gordon
• 33rd -  152 pts  Sam Hornish Jr
• 34th -   140 pts  Jeremy Mayfield
• 35th -   136 pts  Dario Franchitti
• 36th -   128 pts  Travis Kvapil
• 37th -   127 pts  Dave Blaney
• 38th -   122 pts  Regan Smith
• 39th -   113 pts  Bill Elliott
• 40th -   110 pts  Kyle Petty

There are some big names in that very vulnerable group.  I’m betting that Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing weren’t worried about making the top thirty five when they won the second Gatorade Dual 150 race at Daytona two weeks ago.

Hornish has to be feeling heat over the possibility of wasting Roger Penske’s points from Kurt Busch’s Blue Deuce, doesn’t he?  Dave Blaney has run up front all day in both races, only to wreck out.  Dario Franchitti is probably about where you would expect while Mayfield, Kvapil and Smith are about where I would have looked for them too.  Robby Gordon got screwed.

There are three races to go and the Drive to Survive will keep fans of the also-rans on edge for a bit yet. 

Photo Credit: Icon Sports Media, Inc.

Hey Villeneuve fans. Maybe Jacques had a reason for crashing out of the second Gatorade Dual 150 back on February 14. Here’s a pic of that ol’ stock car driver, Jacques and the Peugeot Lemans Prototype Team in Paris on the 15th.

Rumors that this was actually a photo of the new Nationwide Series CoT test mule have proven unverifiable.

Photo credit - Icon Sports Media, Inc.

Okay so my apologies to Olivia Newton John for taking liberties with her song, Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.

But, it is a good lead in to this weeks BUZZ ON PIT ROW. The BUZZ was all about what NASCAR should do with California Motor Speedway–now known as The Auto Club Speedway of Southern California–or some such hooey. It is a safe bet that NASCAR will not totally abandon the race track now that they have gotten their sixty million dollars in naming rights.

What is clear is that something needs to be done with the race track to make it more racey, more fan exciting and less prone to the weeping problems that plagued it over the weekend. Nothing could be more frustrating for NASCAR, the fans and the TV networks than to be constantly drying the track and never being able to get it in to a point of being safe to run on.

These same problems occurred at Texas Motor Speedway which resulted in Bruton Smith totally demolishing the racing surface and rebuilding it. Similar drastic moves need to be made to Cali. What they have isn’t working on many levels.

As a caller on last nights ON PIT ROW show passed along, one thought was to increase banking to 33 degrees and run restrictor plates. I would be okay with that. It would help spread the R&D dollars used for restrictor plates over six races instead of four.

How about an Iowa like facility? Something shorter, racier and with seating to the sky. Maybe that would excite the locals and give them a reason to support their local races instead of taking the drive to Vegas.

On second thought maybe all Cali needs is a nice Indian gaming facility in the infield. Hmm; I see marketing possibilities.

Photo Credit - Icon Sports Media, Inc.

A big deal was made during the Daytona 500 weekend about the comparative horsepower results from NASCAR’s post Dual 150 dyno tests of Sprint Cup Series cars.

Most of the noise was - depending on which side you listened to -  either crowing or complaining about how the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas had up to a 30 hp advantage over the Chevy teams.  I never did see any definitive numbers for Dodge or Ford, but the quotes that I did see didn’t deny Toyota’s overall power advantage.

That impressive win at the Auto Club 500 by Roush-Fenway’s Carl Edwards seemed to be argument enough that Jack Roush’s Fusions are plenty strong though.

Mike Mulhern has a great articleon Jack Roush’s response to questions about Ford’s competitiveness with Toyota.  This time, instead of declaring war on the Camry’s, The Cat in the Hat gives a history lesson. 

In the lesson Jack explains that the basic engine that the Ford teams use is a design from 1993, that was at the time the “spec” engine for all NASCAR competitors.  Since 1993, all of the current competitors of Ford have had new - and updated - engines approved by NASCAR.  The Chevy teams have actually had three upgrades, each successive design incorporating the changes of all previous designs.

Still Ford has managed to win races and championships by, according to Roush, getting the most out of the now 15 year old design.  Sometime this year, Ford will submit its own new design to NASCAR.  Monday’s race result makes it look like the Blue Oval guys will be able to hold their own until then just fine.

Photo Credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR

Those two Hendrick Motorsports cars flying formation up front for most of the race could have been disheartening for the Hendricks Haters had the glimmer of a real Race for the Chase not shown itself. Jimmy Johnson and Jeff Gordon held the top two spots all night long and well into todays resumption of actual on-track action. NASCAR finally managed to complete the Auto Club 500 and Jack Roush’s Ford Fusions, led by Cousin Carl Edwards showed that this here Sprint Cup Series will include serious participation by the bearers of the Blue Oval standard.

Various Toyotas and Dodges ducked in and out of the top ten and when it was all over, every manufacturer was represented. Kyle Busch leads both the Cup and Truck Series and is breathing down the substantial neck of teammate Tony Stewart in the Nationwide Series.

Smoke will be going for three straight Nationwide wins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway after winning the postponed California event and Kyle will be trying to leave his Vegas hometown at the top of all three of NASCAR’s major leagues.

Ryan Newman followed his Daytona 500 win with a solid top ten and Kasey Kahne ran another encouraging race for Gillette-Evernham Motorsports. Yessir, looks like 2008 may be a barn-burner.

Photo Credit: Stephen Dunn-Getty Images for NASCAR

That was a pretty funny line, spoken just before the call of “gentlemen start your engines.”

All the rain delays for the Auto Club 500 gave the Fox Sports NASCAR team a chance to get a little loose with the Sprint Cup Series drivers as they tried to fill the long red flag periods with something other than Larry, Jeff and Jaws.

The star of those interviews was - surprise, surprise - Kyle the Shrub Busch. Fox kept coming back to him and he didn’t disappoint. The kid was funny. He took some ribbing along the way too. Like the comment by the now forgotten (by me at least) comedian before the starter’s call.

If today was any indication, the Shrub is developing an easy, casual rapport with the TV guys. It’s different from his more structured, word-track filled responses of his Hendrick Motorsports past. I’m sure some of the change is just Kyle’s maturity progression but I wonder if different coaching from the Coach, Joe Gibbs’ organization isn’t playing a part.

He’s pretty fast when he’s on the track, too.

The three hours of ESPN 2 coverage of the Auto Club Speedway Nationwide Series rain delay made for decent background noise around the Turner house Saturday night. The absence of actual racing was disappointing but the promise of a Sunday double-header was good compensation.

I tried to listen to most of it. It was tough. But the subject of the penalties that NASCAR handed down after Daytona got me thinking.

Quick review; seven Nationwide Series drivers and their car owners were docked points and cash. Six crew chiefs were fined, suspended for six races and put on NASCAR probation. OK, another example of “cheaters never prosper” I guess.

Rusty Wallace is one of the penalized owners and he was asked by Alan Bestwick about the effect of the penalties and the appeal process.

Wallace talked briefly about the process but he expounded on how the penalties will affect teams in NASCAR’s #2 series. The biggest impact is on sponsor relationships, according to Rusty. Companies don’t want to be associated with organizations that are perceived to be cheaters.

We heard the same story earlier this week in the aftermath of the more publicized sanctions of Robby Gordon and his Cup team. Gordon suggested that the penalties and negative publicity fallout from them, could be life-threatening to Robby Gordon Motorsports.

NASCAR seems to me to be walking a tightrope with the Nationwide Series. How do you attract sponsorship and still police the series? NASCAR needs more Nationwide Series teams - only 42 are entered for the California race. Some of the full-time Nationwide teams don’t know how they will be able to continue if NASCAR forces the use of the Nationwide CoT. The funds aren’t there.

And for the first time in awhile, competition for teams, talent and dollars is on the horizon. There is an argument that the growth of NASCAR’s Busch Series was helped by the failure of North American open wheel racing over the last decade or so. The recent unification of the pointy cars could provide sponsors with another viable alternative to NASCAR.

Rusty Wallace said last night, that Roger Penske once told him that the Penske companies employed 40,000 people and if any one of them was found to be cheating, that person would be fired. Wallace claims that he runs his operations with the same philosophy.

Robby Gordon claims that the violation his team was guilty of, was not the fault of Robby Gordon Motorsports or its sponsors. His main sponsor Jim Beam, rose to his defense with a letter that should chill someone in the NASCAR offices.

I don’t know how NASCAR can take these things into consideration when it acts as both the  referee and the promoter of its sport/business. I’m not sure that it should, as a sport. But as the promoter, I think it has no choice, if the survival of Nationwide-only teams is the concern that it should be.

The 2008 Sprint Cup season got off to a rousing start with Ryan Newman’s Daytona 500 win. The results of Speedweeks seemed to answer some of the off-season’s unknowns, but not all of them. Here’s a list of some of the questions that remain and may be answered at Auto Club Speedway this week.

• Dale Earnhardt Jr won the Budweiser Shootout and one of the Gatorade Duals. Finishing ninth in the 500 wasn’t bad either. It was a nice week but Junior’s had strong plate track performances throughout his career. He’s also performed comparatively poorly at the flatter tracks, like California. The other Hendricks drivers have been good at these tracks historically. How will Junior stack up?

• Dodges finished in 6 of the top 8 spots at Daytona. Was it real or restrictor plate madness?

• Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle have terrific records at California and its Michigan near-twin. Are the Fords going to be strong enough in 2008 for these guys to be good where they are good?

• The Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas led 140 plus laps in the big race and Denny Hamlin won the second Dual. It looked for all the world like one of them was destined to win the 500. Will they dominate at another fast track?

• The New Car earned exemplary grades for the Speedweeks races. But Daytona was the second restrictor plate track to host the former CoT. Will we all still love it after its first non-plate, superspeedway outing?

• Sam Hornish Jr. looked solid in the third Penske South Dodge at Daytona. Doubters want to know if it was for real?

Photo Credit: Todd Warshaw - Getty Images for NASCAR

Robby Gordon’s winter of discontent continues.

NASCAR came down on Robby Gordon Motorsports hard this week. Robby’s team installed and tried to practice with an unapproved nose on his new Dodge at Daytona. Officials found it to not be in compliance and once the penalties were handed down, Robby’s top ten finish at the 500 won’t carry top ten points.

The, now standard, 100 team and driver points deduction and $100,000 fines were enacted. NASCAR’s unwavering penalty for CoT violations seems a bit harsh considering some of the other violations from last year that received this same penalty. I have been a big supporter of NASCAR consistency and the concept of a standard for penalty calculations. But; somehow, NASCAR has to find a way to differentiate penalties in regards to intent and severity.

“This was an innocent mistake made by someone not even on my team. They accidentally supplied us the new Dodge noses that NASCAR hasn’t yet approved because of what amounted to a clerical error. It was discovered during technical inspection and corrected before the race. It was not even close to being an intent to create some competitive advantage, and the mistake was not even made by my team.”

Reading that quote from Robby, makes you feel sorry for the GEM employee squished by the bus that just rolled over them. Does this violation equal those from 2007 at Michael Waltrip Racing and their fuel violations? Not in my mind. but can fans or NASCAR be certain that what Robby says is the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

“To penalize my team the same amount when we didn’t even make the mistake”, Robby continued, “and the mistake was nothing more than inadvertent human error by someone else is just not fair. Other teams who have had similar issues to what happened with the nose on my car were only penalized 25 points.”

I have been a Robby supporter from the first time I met him. His determination and drive to succeed are unmatched. He carries the #7 proudly. He reminds race fans of the late Alan Kulwicki with his work ethic and single minded goals. I applaud that in him and felt bad for him when the Dakar Rally was canceled earlier this winter. That is a race he poured a lot of money, time and effort into with no results; a race he could win.

While the fines and penalties may not fit the crime in this instance, I will stand by NASCAR’s quest to standardize penalties. They may just need to add a couple of levels. Not every violation in the NFL results in “15 yard penalty”. Robby is appealing his fines and suspensions with NASCAR. It will allow him to continue with business as usual for a couple of weeks. But, just like Dakar, it’s a battle he can’t win–at least not this year.

photo: trucktrend.com

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