Posts tagged MartinsvilleSpeedway at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway saw its share of spins and wrecks to contribute the races 18 cautions.

Aside from Matt Kenseth's antics, the biggest crash of the day involved 5 cars early in the 500 lap event. The melee, shown below, involved Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte, Aric Almirola, Scott Riggs, and Martin Truex Jr.


Almirola slid the nose of his No. 8 coming off of turn four into Bobby Labonte on the outside, turning the No. 43 and blocking the track for the rest of the field. Riggs then gets turned by Gordon as the accordion effect takes shape, damaging the nose of the No. 24.

So after some tom-foolery here on FanHouse this morning, here's today's real news:

Bobby Labonte, the 2000 NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion, looks to be more convincingly headed to Richard Childress Racing for the 2009 season with sponsor General Mills.

Yahoo! first reported some possibilities between Labonte and RCR, and with today's announcement from General Mills about moving to RCR for 2009, the Labonte rumor only heats up.

Here's some text from the General Mills announcement by way of the Charlotte Observer's David Poole:

General Mills will sponsor a fourth team at RCR, the No. 33 Chevrolets. No driver was named for that car, but there has already been at least one published report that Bobby Labonte will move along with the sponsor to RCR.

"RCR is honored to represent General Mills and its Cheerios, Hamburger Helper and many other brands in the NASCAR Cup Series," team owner Richard Childress said.

Labonte seems like an ideal fit for that ride, as he already is driving for Childress in the Nationwide Series. The move to Petty Enterprises for the champion hasn't panned out like he thought it would with a resurgence of success at PE.

You've got to think that Petty Enterprises has to be feeling a little bit of heat in losing a primary sponsor when Kyle Petty is having a tough time even making races and Labonte isn't able to perform at his level due to equipment.

Silly season each year in NASCAR just can't start soon enough anymore, can it?

Former NASCAR champion has made it a well-known fact that he doesn't get along with Martinsville Speedway.

Sunday, he made it very well known that he just isn't very good at wrecking people intentionally without getting caught. Catch the first replay at 0:10:



As you can see, Kenseth's yellow and black DeWalt Ford suddenly swiped up the track directly into the right rear corner of David Gilliland's No. 38. Naturally, the No. 38 quickly spun up against the turn 2 wall.

When Jeff Gordon got out of his No. 24 Chevrolet following Sunday's Goody's Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville Speedway, he was wondering why he had lost so much grip over the last 50 laps.

Then, he felt the pavement and saw just how moist it was, and immediately understood why.

Nearly all day, a heavy mist hung over the track -- wreaking havoc with on-board cameras, windshields, and FOX's rooftop cameras. Throw in temperatures in the low 40's, cloud cover, and a cool breeze and the conditions were just plain horrible.

But yet, nearly 60,000 race fans made it to Martinsville and stuck around for 500 laps of Sprint Cup action, and they should be applauded.

Let's face it -- sitting in aluminum grandstands elevated off the ground wouldn't be most people's cup of tea on a blustery, rainy, early spring afternoon.

If you're starting to shiver a little bit at your keyboard right now, then you're starting to get the feeling.

Denny Hamlin beat the rain, beat the cold, and beat Jeff Gordon's best charge to win Sunday's Goody's Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

The win was a first for the Virginia-native in his home state and the fourth of his career.

Hamlin held on to the victory despite Jeff Gordon breathing down his neck late in the event. Gordon steadily closed on Hamlin's No. 11 in the final ten laps, but soon ran out of time.

The race featured a comeback bid of sorts for Hendrick Motorsports with all four drivers finishing in the Top-10. Gordon was 2nd, Jimmie Johnson 4th, Dale Earnhardt Jr. 6th, and Casey Mears 7th. With the exception of Mears, the remaining three HMS drivers have found the Top-10 in points despite having what many have called a lackluster season.

18 cautions for 88 laps kept NASCAR officials on their toes, including former champion Matt Kenseth getting a two-lap penalty for wrecking David Gililland in the most of intentional ways possible.

Kyle Busch came to Martinsville with the point lead, but he slid to 5th in the standings after getting involved in a wreck on lap 23 and then breaking a rear end gear.

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:

Does anyone really care what Jack Roush has to say anymore? Or has the "irrelevant" tag finally landed squarely on his shoulders?

Honestly, at this point, if Jack Roush -- owner of Roush Fenway Racing -- were to be illustrated in a comic book, he'd be the guy with the bubble over his head saying "Toyota did this" or "I hate Toyota" or "My teams can't beat Toyota, so I bring up other issues". In other words, the guy that the good guy would destroy at the end.

But Geoffrey, why the hate towards ol' Jack?

Friday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway, Roush decided to head down that "Toyota is ending the world as we know it" path -- again -- to respond to a story that quoted him earlier this week talking about a part that Toyota either stole or mistakenly took, depending on who you talk to.

The part in question, according to Roush, was a sway bar that had proprietary designs to it made exclusively for RFR. Somehow, it disappeared during last fall's Sprint Cup event in Dover.

The culprit? A Toyota team that Roush wouldn't identify. Michael Waltrip, though, would later take responsibility, saying that it was a "mistake" and that his team called Roush and promptly returned it.

That being said, Roush tells a little bit different story -- like a person trying to drum up support against someone else would -- and has tried to persuade NASCAR to get involved in reprimanding the team (MWR) in question.

So what's all this talk about a drought for Hendrick Motorsports?

Team driver Jeff Gordon gave the racing media a chance to quit their barking about the HMS performance over the first five races by putting his No. 24 Chevrolet on the pole for Sunday's Goody's Cool Orange 500.

His seventh-career Martinsville Speedway pole -- yep, that's just one shy of the track record -- came quite solidly after picking up over two-tenths of a second from his fastest practice lap, enough to make his qualifying lap of 19.666 over a tenth quicker than 2nd-place Denny Hamlin.

The pole was Gordon's 65th of his career, 2nd of the season, and yada yada yada. In other words, Jeff Gordon is in normal form at Martinsville this weekend and barring a large concrete block hitting the front end of his car, he's gonna be tough as nails on the .526-mile track.

Aric Almirola, David Ragan, and Jamie McMurray rounded out the latter half of a top-5 that could easily be mistaken for a Nationwide Series lineup. The rest of Hendrick will line up 10th (Jimmie Johnson), 22nd (Dale Earnhardt Jr.), and 39th (Casey Mears).

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.

Nearly every site a NASCAR fan will visit this week has something about Hendrick Motorsports and its lack of winning ways in 2008.

People just can't get over the fact that five races in, there hasn't been a guy named Johnson, Gordon, Mears, or Earnhardt Jr. splashing Gatorade, AMP, or Pepsi around in victory lane.

Oh, the humanity!

This reminds me of the now-famous blow up that former Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Mora had after losing a game in 2001 in which the term "playoffs" took a whole new twist.

Five races? Five races?!

Despite the fact that there are 39 other drivers competing for race wins any given Sunday, apparently five races (five races!) signals that ultimate demise of Hendrick Motorsports. I understand that Hendrick was the dominant team last year -- 3 wins in the first five races -- but each race had a Hendrick driver running with some good luck.

The red color scares off some, and the remnants of it may find their way to a poor soul's shirt, but the "Famous Martinsville hot dog" is a true relic of the "good ol' days" of NASCAR racing.

The hot dog, a trademark at the half-mile paperclip track since who-knows-when, is one thing you don't mess with at a track known for heated tempers and bent sheet metal. The dog even has a Youtube video about it, which you can catch below the jump.

After all, $2 will get you a hot dog that easily clears most of the major food groups.

The dogs start with boiled Jesse Jones hot dogs, wrapped into what is more of a roll than a hot dog bun, and then topped with chili, mustard, onions, and vinegar-based slaw. The concoctions are then then wrapped in some wax paper and left in a steamer to keep in their warmth.

Fans, drivers, crew members and -- most naturally, of course -- media members dig the famous creations and a few years ago, disdain over a change to the normal recipe caused the top levels of NASCAR to get involved.

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.

Five weeks into the first full season with the next-generation race car in the Sprint Cup Series, and its hard not to surmise that the reaction is still quite mixed.

At Daytona, it was a great race car, creating more drafting and passing opportunities while also returning much of the handle to the drivers.

Since then, there really hasn't been much difference in the way the car races with the exception of Atlanta. However, the tire combination was also a significant factor in the race car there, so defining its performance at AMS would best be described as a "crapshoot".

Otherwise, "bland" might be a little better of a word for the car.

Due to the fact that Sprint Cup Series was off last weekend for Easter, the Fanhouse is digging deep for some past highlights from Martinsville Speedway, site of this Sunday's Goody's Cool Orange 500.

In this one from 1999, Tony Stewart and the late Kenny Irwin have their share of run-ins on the half-mile paper clip. Apologies in advance for the European broadcast commentary, I couldn't find the ESPN version.



The conflict got started early in the day when Stewart spun out Irwin in turn 4.

Tony would later call that a mistake, and with good reason.

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.

Can we blame probation? Toyota? Subway commercials? A new girlfriend?

I don't know which one to pick exactly, but for some God-awful reason, Tony Stewart has given up on his barber.

As you can see to the right, Stewart's hair has gotten to unbelievable levels. It looks waxy, unkept, and straight out of an Italian crime drama. And it could very well be part of the Tony Stewart we've seen in 2008.

One week, he's ripping Goodyear for its tire selection at Atlanta. He's the only one, so he says, that is willing to take such a decisive stand on a issue in the garage area.

The next, he's giving one of the oddest interviews of his career after getting out of his wrecked race car in Bristol. Instead of being livid, mad, and otherwise Tony Stewart-like, Driver No. 20 had a strange sense of sarcasm and a cool head, despite being wrecked with 2 laps to go.

For once, Stewart wasn't snappy with a reporter, didn't throw anyone under the bus, and played off a disappointing finish with a cool approach.

What does that have to do with his hair?

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.

What do you suppose DEI pulled out of the Garage Mahal and put under Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s hood this weekend?

Will he get an engine that lays all it's cylinders on the track up front and craps out before the halfway mark like in Fontana? Or will he get a teaser that takes him all the way to the end providing hope of a top 5 finish only to give up on the last lap like last weekend in Martinsville?

It's quite laughable that the #8 car was labeled still running in the Subway 500 results, but I guess that's accurate--it did, after all, sprint backwards from the fourth position to a 23rd place finish. But if the race had been even one lap longer, this would have been his eighth DNF of the season--seven due to engine failures.

Is it enough for conspiracy theories? Depends on who you ask. It's sure enough for Dale Jr. fans--and any other NASCAR fan whose got brain enough to recognize his talent and ability to put the car at the front of the pack.

Whatever it is they got him running in Atlanta was good enough for a top 5 start. But will it be good enough for a top 5 finish?