Posts tagged SprintAllStarRaceXXIV at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

While he didn't race it, Dale Jarrett finally hopped into the big, brown UPS truck Saturday prior to the Sprint All-Star Race XXIV during driver introductions.

Watch below as Jarrett takes the mammoth vehicle for a low-speed lap around the speedway:



I suppose you could say this is my way of honoring the former Sprint Cup champion who finished his career with an impressive 32 race wins in NASCAR's top series. Among those, were wins at Daytona, Charlotte, Darlington, and Indianapolis -- some of the sport's crown jewels.

Frankly, I know for a fact that I just simply couldn't write a a story about Jarrett that matches with some of the best stories that NASCAR writers can do, so I'll take my humble dose and let them tell the story of his incredible career.

Here's a few of my favorites from around the Web:

"Patience Has Its Rewards, Jarrett Finds"
- David Poole, Charlotte Observer

"Final Run: Jarrett Expects Emotion Outing"
- Rea White, NASCAR Scene

"Jarrett leaving behind Hall of Fame Career"
- NASCAR on FOX crew, FOX Sports

Here's to you, DJ.

...then this blogger is worried about Sunday's Coca-Cola 600.

Face it, NASCAR fans. The introduction of the Car of Tomorrow into full-time use for 2008 has produced some less than desirable racing at the 1.5-mile tracks that are near cookie-cutters of Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Tony Stewart first blamed it on the tires at Atlanta in March, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a subtle criticism a week ago at Darlington when he said after the race that passing other cars was as bad as its been in a long, long time at the Lady in Black.

My favorite comment, though, about how the new car is behaving on-track in race mode came from Matt Kenseth after Saturday night's Sprint All-Star Race XXIV when he referred to clean air as "magic" for the handling of the car.

Clean air -- undisturbed air that allows full downforce on a race car -- started to become a quick antidote for bad handling race cars with the previous version of the Sprint Cup car. The addition of a wing and splitter on the next-generation race cars used full time this year was supposed to decrease the effect of that variable.

Instead, it seems to have made it much, much worse.

On a night that dominant cars couldn't finish what they started, Kasey Kahne utilized his fans to help him find victory lane.

Kahne, who had not previously been made eligible for Saturday-night's Sprint All-Star Race XXIV, won the fan vote to be included in the main event race, and made the most the of it by winning his first career All-Star event. In doing so, Kahne guaranteed himself a spot in the race for the next ten years and a cool million bucks.

(Note: The picture on the right is from 2004. Yes, it freaks me out too. Thank you, Getty Images.)

If you remember back to one year ago, Kurt and Kyle Busch weren't exactly the happiest set of brothers in the NASCAR garage.

That's generally what happens -- brothers or not -- when you wreck each other while racing for $1 million. I will give credit where credit is due, of course, and say that Kurt Busch easily had one of the best lines of all of 2007 when he said "I definitely won't be eating any Kellogg's any time soon."

Since then, though, the relationship in the family between the two hasn't been the greatest. For much of 2007, a quote from one or the other came out about how they weren't talking or hadn't discussed things.

In other words, they just didn't want to kiss and make up.

Then Grandma stepped in:

Kyle said the two made amends after their grandmother asked them to work out their differences for the Christmas holiday.

"It was a little edgy to begin with because that was about the first time we'd ever sat down together," Kyle said of Christmas dinner.

"The more it kind of went, the more it kind of got back to normal and friendly and whatever. By the end of the night we were playing games and everything anyway."

Well isn't that just ... precious.

If nothing else, Kyle Busch is proving that his 2008 success at Joe Gibbs Racing is a total team effort.

The 23-year-old driver drove to the pole for Saturday night's Sprint Cup All-Star Race XXIV at Lowe's Motor Speedway, just ahead of former teammate Jeff Gordon and brother Kurt Busch.

The qualifying format for the All-Star event is much, much different than a time trial for any other race on the Sprint Cup Series schedule. Instead of a driver making laps on track alone, in the All-Star format the driver has to complete three laps and the pit crew has to perform a four-tire pit stop.

Kyle Busch's crew dropped a four-tire stop of 13.4 seconds, and that combined with his laps gave Busch an elapsed time of 121.956 seconds. Gordon had the same speed of pit stop, but was about a half-second off of Busch's time.

A few penalties were assessed including Dale Jarrett, Kevin Harvick, and Casey Mears earning five-second penalties and speeding on to pit road were Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards, earning each of them a 20-second penalty.

Jimmie Johnson's time was disallowed after missing a lug nut on the pit stop, pulling ahead, and then having service done outside of the pit box area by the Lowe's crew.

Kurt Busch's Miller Lite crew busted out a 12.9-second pit stop which was the fastest of the night. Harvick's team had the same time, but the penalty was a killer.

The Sprint All-Star Race XXIV is scheduled for Saturday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway. As the teams prepare for the winner-take-all non-points event, stay with the FanHouse all week for plenty of All-Star coverage.

"The Winston" in 2004 was the beginning of the end, you could say, for Kurt Busch at Roush Fenway Racing. The elder Busch from Las Vegas would go on to win the championship that year, but his antics in the all-star race sure didn't make him any friends.

Greg Biffle, his teammate, was likely at the top of the list as he got wrecked by Busch to set off a massive crash in turn one. Watch below at 0:46:



One lap after a restart, Busch got a big run down the frontstretch behind Biffle. By the time they passed the start/finish line, Busch was trying to push Biffle ahead, but instead, lifted Biffle's wheels off the ground. Biffle couldn't hang on, and lost it.

The ensuing crash took out many of the race's contenders including Biffle, Busch, Jeff Gordon, Robby Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Ken Schrader, Sterling Marlin, Bobby Labonte, Michael Waltrip, and Joe Nemechek.

Biffle's comments afterward definitely summed up Busch's move to the fullest extent.

In case you missed last Saturday night's Dodge Challenger 400 at Darlington Raceway, Greg Biffle was fully dominating the first half of the Mother's Day weekend Sprint Cup event.

After sitting on the pole, Biffle led 95 laps -- the second-most to race winner Kyle Busch -- before being relegated to finish of 43rd due to a broken timing belt. Upon exiting, Biffle was nothing short of heated with the performance put forth by the efforts of his Roush Fenway Racing team.

"It is really frustrating, but, you know what, I've just come accustomed to expecting it because it's just week after week it's something. Something breaks. Something falls off. We've got wheels loose. We had wheels loose twice tonight," said Biffle.

Biffle has become so used to his problems in 2008 -- like these myriad of issues at Texas -- that it's obviously starting to drain on the driver who's up for a new contract after this season. In other words, could greener pastures be on Biffle's horizon?

The FanHouse spoke of this possibility last year, but now more than ever, Biffle seems to putting himself in line to leave the security blanket of racing known as Roush Fenway Racing. Remember, just one week prior to Darlington, Biffle said that he wasn't talking to other teams, and he's told the media that he was 90% sure he'd be back with Roush.

So what's with the harsh words, then?

The Sprint All-Star Race XXIV is scheduled for Saturday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway. As the teams prepare for the winner-take-all non-points event, stay with the FanHouse all week for plenty of All-Star coverage.

Buddy Baker in the TV booth sure summed up Davey Allison's win in the 1992 edition of The Winston by saying "he won the race, but sure paid the price." Indeed, he did.

Watch below as Allison battles Kyle Petty and Dale Earnhardt for the final lap.



Heading to the white flag, Earnhardt was leading in the first event at the then-Charlotte Motor Speedway to be run under the lights. Earnhardt led until Petty mounted a charge down the backstretch and got to his rear bumper in Turn 3.

Jeff Gordon ran a very respectable third on Saturday night in the Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Raceway.

The only problem, though, was that Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch was much, much faster and cruised away with the win for the third time in 2008 to tie Carl Edwards for the most this year.

It was Gordon's highest finish since his third-place result at California in February and showed that the extensive testing work that Hendrick Motorsports' teams have combined to do has started to pay some dividends for the new race car.

It still, in Gordon's mind, wasn't enough:

"I wish I wasn't so darn competitive because you have no idea," said Gordon. "I am happy that we have a top-five and we are third, but also how frustrated I am because of how far off we are from winning races right now. We did the tire test here at Darlington and the No. 18 just kicked everybody's tails tonight."

Tails kicked, indeed.

Four of the 2008 season's first 11 races have gone to Joe Gibbs Racing and just one to Hendrick by way of Jimmie Johnson's win at Phoenix. Stats like that are a far cry from 2007 when Hendrick picked up seven wins up this point a year ago.