Nascar Raceways

Kevin Harvick made just one mistake in two days of racing at Richmond International Raceway, but that was enough to send Dale Earnhardt Jr. to his first Nextel Cup victory of the 2006 in the Crown Royal 400.

"It feels great," Earnhardt Jr. said after his first victory of the year, which was his first win since his lone victory of 2005 at Chicagoland Speedway in July.

"I’m glad to be back in victory lane. This is really going

to help our team. We’re having a great season and we’re really enjoying ourselves."

Harvick, who won the Busch Series race that ended early Saturday morning at this 0.75-mile track, was enjoying himself, too, for much of Saturday night’s race. He took the lead on Lap 50 and was in absolute control until a pit call turned things around.

When Martin Truex Jr. lost an engine on Lap 281 to bring out a yellow, Harvick stayed on the track while his closest challengers came in for fresh tires. It took a while after the restart for that decision to have its ultimate impact, but by Lap 322 Earnhardt Jr. was rapping on the leader’s rear bumper.

As they battled, rookie Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Jeff Burton moved in to challenge, too. It was Hamlin, on Lap 330, who eventually made a strong move to the low side to surge into the lead.

But when Robby Gordon cut a tire and hit the wall to bring out a yellow on Lap 346, Busch and Earnhardt Jr. beat Hamlin off pit road.

It took Earnhardt Jr. just four laps to get around Busch, bringing more than 100,000 in the stands to their feet, to take the lead.

Harvick, now on fresh tires, too, clawed his way back up to second, but he couldn’t catch the No. 8 Chevrolet and fell to third behind Hamlin just before a crash involving Scott Riggs and Brian Vickers in Turn 3 brought out a yellow on Lap 386.

That lined the leaders up for a restart with 10 laps remaining, with Earnhardt getting a good jump on that green flag. But Burton, who’d erred by coming in when pit road was closed under a previous yellow and lost major ground, spun on the backstretch to bring out another yellow.

The green flew with seven laps to go, and this time Hamlin got a good restart. He pulled nearly alongside the No. 8 in Turn 2 on Lap 395, but Earnhardt Jr. powered away and pulled away.

Hamlin, who’s from only a few miles away in Chesterfield, Va., grabbed second with Harvick holding on for third. Greg Biffle, who’d been trapped a lap down when he pitted under green just before a caution early in the race, fought all the way back to finish fourth with Kyle Busch fifth.

"We had a great car," Earnhardt Jr. said. "The people back at the shop made this weekend easy because we were good when we got here. …When I come to the track I know I have the best I can ask for. …I couldn’t ask for any position on this team or in the shop to be better."

Harvick swept to victories in the Busch and Cup series races at Phoenix two weeks ago, and looked like he was going to do the same thing here. He led for 272 laps Saturday night, but the decision not to pit when his challengers did kept that from happening.

"We would have been short on fuel if we’d stopped there," Harvick said. "We got tight there at the end and just lost a little speed."

Harvick picked up two spots in the Nextel Cup standings, moving from seventh to fifth. Jimmie Johnson, who rallied from a lap down to finish 12th, held the lead by 55 points over Tony Stewart, who finished sixth.

Hamlin, who raced despite having 19 stitches in his left hand to mend a cut he suffered while goofing around with his team after a test Wednesday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, said he would have done anything he could to pass Earnhardt Jr. to try to win at the end.

"I went to victory lane and Dale Jr. asked me why I didn’t lean on him," Hamlin said. "I told him I would have if I had a good enough car to get to him."

Still, it was a big night for the 25-year-old rookie running in the Nextel Cup series at what is virtually his hometown track.

"I’d rather finish second here than in the Daytona 500," Hamlin said. "I heard the crowd cheering there at the end, and maybe they were cheering for Junior, but in my mind those cheers were for me.

"When I took the lead from the 29 car I could literally feel my heartbeat in my foot on the accelerator. This is by far the biggest race of my career. It’s special to have so many family and friends here. I can’t tell you how I feel. I will be riding this wave for weeks and months to come."

NASCAR officials were ecstatic with their midweek visit to Montreal and are moving forward with plans to expand the Busch Series into Canada - perhaps as early as next season.

 

The contingent of seven NASCAR representatives found the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, a temporary street course, to be in race-ready condition with very few alterations necessary, said Steve O’Donnell, managing director of events and operations. The only glaring need at this time is a short extension of pit road.

"The track and facilities were in great shape and really have a lot to offer to NASCAR," O’Donnell said. "And it meets a need for NASCAR, which has targeted road course races in the Busch Series as one of the areas we’d like to grow."

It’s possible to get Montreal onto the 2007 schedule as a third road course race for the Busch Series. It would join Watkins Glen and Mexico City, which hosted its second event in March and has proved that NASCAR can be a huge success beyond U.S. borders.

Normand Legault, promoter of the Montreal track, has long been lobbying NASCAR to move into Canada. He currently hosts two races a year at his facility, which is temporarily erected on a man-made island for each event.

The track can accommodate 125,000 fans a day, and about 95 percent use public transportation to reach the facility. Legault has maintained that few changes would have to be made to the setup, other than finding a way to house the large transporters that NASCAR teams travel with.

It’s not clear how NASCAR will find room on its schedule for Montreal. The Busch schedule already has 35 races on it, and adding another date would put it at the maxed-out number NASCAR considers its Nextel Cup schedule to be at.

So it’s possible that for Canada to get a race, another facility would lose a current Busch date.

I am psyched! Blood is pumping! Heart is racing!

Look out, everybody. That black machine is back on the track this weekend at none other than… Talladega, baby!

I cannot imagine anyone not getting chills thinking about it - thoughts of the intimidator. It’s mind-boggling. How many drivers had the fortune (or misfortune) of seeing that black machine in their rear view? How many spectators had the thrill of watching Dale win the Daytona 500? How many lucky people had the privilege of shaking Dale’s hand and hearing what he had to say in the garage area?

Not enough.

I could probably go on forever. Dale had a presence. An aura. There’s not ONE person who could ever replace him, as a human being or driver.

But, the unthinkable has happened, I believe. I see that black number 8 getting ready to race in Alabama, and I realize that there’s a new star rising, and it’s not just Junior. Junior has a lot riding on his young shoulders. He’s the legend’s son, and he carries the weight with finesse.

But the star is comprised of many, key personalities on, and off the track. It has given me so much hope in the past few weeks knowing that the spirit of stock car racing will strongly live on in the drivers who have really stepped up to the challenge of leadership - whether they know it or not.

Being a successful driver is not just about going fast. It’s about other things, like being strong, having courage, tethering wits, patience, racing intelligence, prayer, friends, gratitude, knowing when to shut up, AND going fast.

I see the current strength of NASCAR in so many faces now. They are, to name a few, Dale Earnhardt, Jr.; Kevin Harvick; Jeff Burton; Matt Kenseth; Tony Stewart; Jeff Gordon; Bobby Labonte; Joe Nemechek; Robby Gordon; Kyle Petty; Jeremy Mayfield; Elliott Sadler; and Michael Waltrip.

When I see that black number 8 out there this weekend, I will be reminded that Dale’s presence is always with us. I will also be reminded that the leadership in NASCAR is strong.

I hope all the younger (experience-wise) drivers see that black car and know that they are being watched and weighed - heavily. There’s not just a new sheriff in town.

There’s a whole posse! And, they’ve got itchy trigger fingers. (And apparently, softer bumpers.)

Junior, thank you for running that black machine. May you have wings this weekend. May you drive that hot rod home to Victory Lane at Talladega.

 

From AC/DC

Back in black, I hit the sack,
I’ve been too long, I’m glad to be back
Yes I’m let loose from the noose,
That’s kept me hangin’ about
I been lookin’ at the sky ‘cause it’s gettin’ me high,
Forget the hearse, ‘cause I’ll never die
I got nine lives, cat’S EYES
Usin’ every one of them and running wild

Black was never really gone.

Now that we know where NASCAR’s much-ballyhooed Hall of Fame is going to be built, the bigger question remains: Who will be the building blocks of its legacy?

 

It was announced this week that the $107.5 million hall, expected to lure hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, will open by 2009 in downtown Charlotte, the heartland of the stock car sport. It beat out Atlanta and Daytona Beach in the final showdown of big plans and big dollars.

But no one knows how the first class of inductees will be picked, or by whom. Whatever the process, there is going to be a debate of enormous magnitude.

 

After all, when the Baseball Hall of Fame opened its doors in 1936, not even Babe Ruth was a unanimous choice of the baseball writers.

 

The Bambino wasn’t even the top vote-getter of the five players in that first class: Ty Cobb was on 222 of 226 ballots, while Ruth and Honus Wagner each appeared on 215 ballots. Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson also made it into the horsehide shrine in that first vote.

 

Of course, things could be easier for the NASCAR voters.

 

I mean, how could any voter fail to mark an X by the name of William Henry Getty "Big Bill" France on that first ballot?

 

Without Bill Sr., there would be no NASCAR.

 

The somewhat redundantly named National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was invented in 1947 in France’s fertile mind - a way of giving the competitors a fair shake on purses and pursuing standards for racetracks.

 

The tough-minded, hands-on France oversaw construction of Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, the two tracks that personify the sport. His family continues to run NASCAR through a benevolent dictatorship that has seen the sport expand and flourish into a behemoth with an estimated 75 million fans.

 

So where do you go after picking a dictator?

 

How about a king?

 

Richard Petty is NASCAR’s Babe Ruth, a towering figure who dominated the sport for three decades. He won 200 races, seven championships and the undying loyalty of a majority of NASCAR’s early fans.

 

"Stock car racing wasn’t exactly a part of everybody’s household back then, especially since it wasn’t on TV a whole lot early in his career," said son Kyle Petty. "But, everywhere we went, people knew who he was. He was The King - and he still is."

 

It wouldn’t be much of a first class with only two members, though.

 

How about adding the driver who surpassed even Petty in popularity?

 

Dale Earnhardt came from a hardscrabble, lunchpail life to become not only stock car racing’s biggest star, but also its best salesman in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

The Intimidator was the first driver from the Southern-based sport to earn far more from souvenir and clothing sales than from winning on the racetrack. Before his tragic end in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, Earnhardt had won 76 races and matched Petty’s seven season titles.

 

And it would be hard to leave David Pearson out of the first group of inductees. "The Silver Fox" was Richard Petty’s nemesis. Pearson only won three championships, but his 105 race wins were second only to Petty and the debate about which was the better driver raged for years.

 

If, like baseball, the first class of inductees numbers only five, the next pick is by far the toughest.

 

How do you choose among longtime stars like Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, Neil Bonnett, Davey Allison, Donnie Allison, Buddy Baker, Harry Gant and LeeRoy Yarbrough?

 

Then there are some of Earnhardt’s contemporaries, driving greats like Darrell Waltrip and Benny Parsons, both now TV commentators and ambassadors for the sport. Add to that Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, Bill Elliott, Tim Richmond, Alan Kulwicki, Dale Jarrett and Terry Labonte, the sport’s all-time Iron Man.

 

We can’t forget the pioneers, like Petty’s father, Lee, the winner of the first Daytona 500 and one of NASCAR’s first real stars. Then there are more early luminaries like Red Byron, Junior Johnson, Buck Baker, brothers Tim and Fonty Flock, Glenn "Fireball" Roberts, Fred Lorenzen, Ned Jarrett, Bill Rexford, Herb Thomas, Joe Weatherly, Curtis Turner, Rex White, Tiny Lund, Bobby Isaac and Wendell Scott.

 

Even with all the names mentioned above, somebody is going to get mad because their favorite driver wasn’t included. Think about the ruckus when that same driver is left off the first ballot.

 

In baseball, a veterans’ committee was formed in the second year of its hall to make sure deserving old-timers made it in. Such a group will probably be a must for NASCAR’s hall, as well. Memories are sometimes short.

 

It’s too soon to put current stars like Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the ballot, but we can’t forget the great team owners, crew chiefs, car builders and series officials from the first half century-plus of NASCAR.

 

Don’t envy those first voters.