Darlington Raceway has apparently not lost a single bit of its dangerous edge.

At least three backup cars rolled off Sprint Cup haulers Friday afternoon after no less than 9 drivers had an incident in the practice sessions leading up to both qualifying on Friday night and Saturday night's Dodge Challenger 400. For the third week in a row, the cars will be impounded immediately after qualifying until the race.

Most notably of the four drivers heading to a backup car was Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson, who used his primary No. 48 in the early session, and then in the final practice, spun again. The damage to the backup will be repairable, though.

Additionally, Reed Sorenson and Paul Menard will head to a backup car before the qualifying session.

The wrecks came Friday on a weekend schedule for the Sprint Cup Series that differed quite a bit from the norm. Instead of simply practicing and qualifying on Friday and racing Saturday at Darlington, the teams were given extra track time Thursday afternoon and evening after the legendary speedway was repaved over the off season.

Last week's winner at Richmond Clint Bowyer, Kyle Petty, Denny Hamlin, David Ragan, and Robby Gordon all got a piece of the wrecking action as well on Friday. Numerous other cars earned a "Darlington Stripe" after scrubbing the wall. Hamlin ended the final session with the top posted lap speed.

Qualifying starts at 5:00pm/ET Friday live on SPEED.

Jimmie Johnson kicked all of those stories about Hendrick Motorsports struggling to find its way to the curb Saturday night at Phoenix International Raceway.

By outlasting the rest of the field, Johnson had enough gas at the end to take his first victory of the season during the Subway Fresh Fit 500.

A restart on lap 233 left 79 laps left until the checkered flag and forced teams to calculate their pit strategy according to how far they could run on fuel. Only Johnson and Clint Bowyer were able to conserve enough to avoid a pit stop.

Carl Edwards won his third race of the season Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway after crossing the finish line first in the Samsung 500.

Edwards, who has also won at California and Las Vegas in 2008, led 123 laps of 339 to score the win over Jimmie Johnson.

Late in the race, it looked like Edwards would cruise to the victory with a safe lead of over one second when Martin Truex Jr.'s No. 1 Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevrolet blew his engine with four laps to go. On the green-white-checkered restart, Edwards kept his No. 99 Aflac Ford in front and led the final two laps.

What: Goody's Cool Orange 500
Where: Martinsville Speedway, Martinsville, Va.
When: Sunday, March 30 1:30pm/et FOX (Green Flag Approx. 2:00pm/et)
Distance: 500 laps, 263 miles
Weather: Rain likely, mainly after 8am. Cloudy, with a high near 39. East wind between 7 and 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Ugh.
2007 Winner: Jimmie Johnson
Predictions: Keep Reading





Rain-proof race tracks, anyone? NASCAR again faces a big time threat of rain Sunday at Martinsville as the keen observers of FanHouse can tell from the title of "Weather" above. Two words about that:

Five races into the 2008 Sprint Cup season, the Fanhouse recaps the Top-5 lessons learned in 2008. Check back each day to get revved up for Sunday's Goody's Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

NASCAR on Fox has had a better start to its broadcast season over 2007, and no one is completely sure why.

The ratings have jumped 5.7% on average -- including the rain-plagued Auto Club 500 -- over last year's numbers. There isn't much that has changed in the sport that I'd think would increase ratings. A new car? More foreign drivers at the back?

Those don't seem like plausible reasons. Maybe it has something to do with Hendrick Motorsports being winless so far, or even the fact that Dale Earnhardt Jr. even has a legitimate shot to win races right now.

People tire quickly of watching the same winner in each race especially when its Jimmie Johnson winning two of the first five in 2007, or Jeff Gordon starting from the pole in two of those races.

Sure Carl Edwards has won two in 2008, but he's penalty after winning at Las Vegas kept people involved, not bored.

Although it would have been much more fitting for Tony Stewart to wax the guy's back who wrecked him during last Sunday's Food City 500, that didn't matter.

Stewart, in a stunt for charity on his radio show, got his back hair waxed to the smoothness of a baby's bottom thanks to over $100,000 in donations that will go directly to the Victory Junction Gang.

"Operation: Wax Smoke" was started last season over a bet between friends Stewart and Kevin Harvick. Stewart put up his back hair in return for fans raising $100,000 for the NASCAR-themed camp for disabled children. The fans put up quite a bit of the cash and "Happy" Harvick matched their donation with one of his own to secure the rights to Stewart's back mane.

Harvick and regular show co-host Matt Yocum provided the play-by-play.

"It looks like you waxed someone's dog," said Matt Yocum.

Stewart was in a little bit of pain from the process, which you can see a few pics of here.

"I'm telling you, I'd rather you kick me in the balls right now," said Stewart during the show.

Jimmie Johnson gave another $10,000 and J.D. Gibbs $15,000 during the show to bring the total to $125,000.

It wasn't a particularly good weekend at Las Vegas for former champions of the Sprint Cup series in the UAW-Dodge 400.

Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, Dale Jarrett, and Matt Kenseth all had trouble at some point during the event that saw a record 11 cautions.

Defending two-time champion Jimmie Johnson was just horrendous all day.

The highest-finishing past champ was Bobby Labonte in the 17th-position. The rest are counted down by their finishing position:

20th - Matt Kenseth, No. 17 USG Sheetrock Ford

Kenseth had a very decent run going Sunday and looked to be the more-dominant of the Roush Fenway group through the middle parts of the race. His trouble came after contact with Gordon off of turn 2 with four laps remaining.

What: UAW-Dodge 400
Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, NV
When: Sunday, March 2, 3:30pm on FOX (Green Flag 4:30pm/ET)
Distance: 267 laps, 400 miles
Weather: Sunny, with a high near 65. Breezy, with a north northwest wind between 20 and 28 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. (Source: National Weather Service)
2007 Winner: Jimmie Johnson (going for four-in-a-row at LVMS)
Predictions: Keep Reading

After nearly 50 haulers passed through the Las Vegas Strip on Thursday afternoon, the Sprint Cup teams got off to a fresh start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Friday.

And yes, the weather for the weekend looks much, much better than teams were treated to at Auto Club Speedway last weekend. Sun is the only thing in the forecast with highs Friday topping at 77 degrees, and a high of 68 degrees expected for Sunday's UAW-Dodge 400.

Though the weather seemed plenty nice Friday afternoon, several Dodge teams had some significant problems during pre-qualifying practice, according to Jayski:

#77-Hornish scraped the turn two wall early in practice; #10-Carpentier (pictured) spun off turn 4 and looped around a couple times; #42-Montoya slammed the turn 2 wall hard and will go to a backup car. #41-Sorenson spun off turn 4; #9-Kahne smacked turn 4, unknown if they have to go to a backup, but little damage. Late in the session, #43-Labonte lost it in turn 4 and spun around, slapping the wall with the left rear and drivers side, the team will go to a backup car.

So the list of teams who will head to a backup car include Juan Pablo Montoya and Bobby Labonte. Kasey Kahne could end up there.

The fastest laps of the practice session were turned by Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and David Reutimann. Busch's quickest lap of 179.946mph is just under five miles per hour slower than Kahne's pole-winning speed a year ago.

Qualifying starts with Travis Kvapil out first at 6:40pm/ET Friday on SPEED.

Rain couldn't do it. Water seeping through the cracks couldn't do it.

Nope, not even a next-generation race car could stop the Roush Fenway Racing from taking its third-straight win at the newly-renamed Auto Club Speedway of Southern California.

Carrying that banner was Carl Edwards, a pre-race favorite, who's No. 99 Ford Fusion came on strong during the sunshine of Monday's racing action to take victory of Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

Johnson led the most laps and Jeff Gordon blew his engine as the caution flew on the final lap when Dale Jarrett spun in turn 4, allowing him to hold his position because the field was frozen and he coasted his way to the finish line.

The Monday afternoon race ended 23 hours later than the scheduled start Sunday due to rain delays and problems with the track seeping water.
There were 33 lead changes -- a race record -- in front of what some reports said were roughly 10,000 spectators in attendance. The race started just after 1:00pm/ET with the 87 laps complete and finished around 3:25pm/ET with the full 250 laps complete.

The real troopers of the race though were Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin who both hung around after wrecking their cars heavily on Sunday to turn laps on Monday in a glorified test session.