Daily NASCAR

photo: John Clark/NASCAR This Week

HAMPTON, Ga. - The skies are clear, the weather is warming and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is starting the Kobalt Tools 500 on the pole.

One effect is that Atlanta Motor Speedway is expecting some walk-up ticket sales that might have seemed likely until Earnhardt, stardom’s prodigal son, lapped the 1.54-mile track at 192.761 mph on Friday.

"A lot of things can change over a period of time, and we’ve seen race teams completely change their identity, almost, in off-seasons before," said a hopeful Earnhardt. "I hope that’s what we’ve been able to do. Hopefully, that off-season and the changes we made are definitely what we needed."

After finishing a fast-closing second in the Daytona 500, Earnhardt was one of many drivers who thudded back to earth in the succeeding races in Fontana, Calif., and Las Vegas, Nev., finishing 32nd and 16th, respectively. The Kobalt Tools 500 marks the third consecutive race the intermediate tracks that serve as the foundation of the Sprint Cup schedule.

"It’s just a matter of time," said Earnhardt. "If we keep performing like this (i.e., winning the pole), it should start leaking over on our performance on Sunday, and we can get to where we want to be as a race team. We’ve made a lot of changes. We tried to make the right ones in the off-season. We tried to sort of forget about what happened last year and try to come into this season with a renewed sense of confidence, and you try to get rid of the bugs from the year before, and it really has a lot to do with how confident you are in what you’re getting ready to do."

"We just got beat down last year, and we figured we would have a chance to start new this year. It’s just a better race team, and they’re working really well together, and they are a really good group of guys and I just hope that we can have some success because they deserve it."

The goal is to build on the promise of qualifying and run well from beginning to end of a 500-mile race.

"Every race is sort of different in how it goes," said Earnhardt. "When people say there are teams or players that are the total package, or whatever, that’s just really where we’ve got to go as a team. We’re not the total package. We’ll either hit on it, or we’ll try our tail’s off to make it happen.

"We’ll either do it … or we won’t."
 

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by Holly Cain

Filed under: Mark Martin, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Hendrick Motorsports

A revitalized and resurging Mark Martin won the back-pats and gotta-luv-it grins of NASCAR nation with his incredible five-win, championship runner-up effort in the 2009 season.

And he enters Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway ranked third in the Sprint Cup championship, looking every bit the contender at age 51 that he was at age 50. And age 40 and age 30, for that matter.

He won the pole position for the season-opening Daytona 500 and has two top-five finishes in the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet through the first three races, proving he’s still competitive on the race track even as his contemporaries have moved into the broadcast booth.

This isn’t a trek into the tired, age ol’ debate of whether NASCAR drivers are athletes. It’s an acknowledgment that Martin is and that others in NASCAR may be finally catching on.

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Juan Pablo Montoya, driver of the #42 Target Chevrolet, and Jamie McMurray, driver of the #1 McDonald’s Chevrolet, spin out of control after an incident on track that eliminated each other during the Shelby American at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on February 28. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

Juan Pablo Montoya vs. Jamie McMurray: The Earnhardt Ganassi Racing teammates eliminated each other in a Vegas crash, and Montoya took direct aim at the Daytona 500 winner afterwards. "He’s not doing himself any favors," said Montoya of McMurray. "I’m sure (McMurray) is going to say, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that.’ … He is just trying to prove to people he can drive a race car, and I guess he isn’t doing too many favors on this team." McMurray, taken aback, suggested that Montoya’s remarks were made in part because, in the heat of the moment, he was frustrated.

My take: To paraphrase the country song, who picks up the pieces every time two teammates collide?

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Yes, yes, yes, there have been only three races and there are 33 more.

The available evidence, however limited, is that very little has changed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Jimmie Johnson’s already won twice. The surprises of Daytona have predictably faded back to obscurity. Attendance is still down, and, for more than three months, Danica Patrick isn’t going to be around to hype and magnify.

Surprises? What surprises?

Kevin Harvick won the Budweiser Shootout? He did that last year. Jamie McMurray won the Daytona 500? He won the previous restrictor-plate race, too. Johnson winning two in a row? Oh, that’s only happened seven times since the Era of Jimmie began in 2002.

Hendrick Motorsports is on top. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is at the bottom of the top. Gibbs and Roush Fenway are in merry, if so far insubstantial, pursuit. Juan Montoya hasn’t won. He and McMurray are squabbling. No one’s seen Teresa Earnhardt. Nothing kills the momentum of Daytona like the apparent apathy of Southern California.

The season has seen one legitimate surprise to date. Richard Childress Racing has improved, throughout and across the board. That’s significant.

Richard shouldn’t ever have tried to run four Chevys in the first place.

It’s time for someone to step up. Gordon tried to close the deal but didn’t have the rubber. Harvick has finished second in the last two races, which would seem more significant if Johnson hadn’t finished first in both.

Tony Stewart! Carl Edwards! Matt Kenseth! Yes, Junior, by gosh! Montoya! Kasey Kahne! Denny Hamlin! Joey Logano! Somebody! Anybody!

Nothing against Johnson and Chad Knaus, but that story’s getting old. I mean, I’ll keep writing it. I’ve got it down. Johnson, Knaus and Rick Hendrick don’t actually say the same things after each victory, but it sure seems that way sometimes.

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by Holly CainHow ironic that 1986 Daytona 500 winner Geoff Bodine may look back at his storied racing career and decide his single greatest glory came in a race he didn’t even drive in.

Standing alongside the Olympic sliding track Saturday night in Vancouver, Canada, with the four-man American bobsled team one final run away from its long-coming gold medal, the racing veteran who was the driving force behind their American-made “Night Train” sled gave the team all he knew to give.

“I’m a racer, I know you need to concentrate, so I just looked at them and relayed the confidence,” Bodine, 59, told FanHouse on Tuesday. “I knew how difficult it was. I knew they had it in them.

“Afterward, when they won, they let me take a photo with the gold medal around my neck and let me tell you, it felt good.”

That gold medal felt good for the entire country, too. Amidst a sea of sleek, muscled athletes, here was stocky, balding Steven Holcomb, sort of an Olympics everyman, flying off the starting line with his teammates in blazingly fast starts, piloting his sled through the harrowing “50-50 curve” with aplomb and setting track records on a course infamous for its crashes.

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