Daily NASCAR

by Holly CainJohn Force has no trouble pinpointing his life-changing experience, even if he can’t remember it.

“God woke me up at 1,000-feet in Dallas, Texas, and he crushed me with a hammer,” the drag racing legend explains of a horrific 2007 accident at the Texas Motorplex.

“Nearly getting killed was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

As with most things in Force’s technicolor life, the accident was spectacularly frightening and especially cruel coming in a season where his young protege and teammate Eric Medlen had already been killed and his daughter, Ashley Force-Food survived a terrifying accident.

Force was airlifted from Dallas that October afternoon with serious injuries and here he is less than three years later — at age 60 — leading the National Hot Rod Association’s Funny Car championship — its most competitive division — as the NHRA holds its version of the “Daytona 500″ this weekend, the U.S. Nationals.

It is the first of six races in the NHRA’s “Countdown to 1″ playoffs to crown the season champ. It would be an unprecedented 15th series title for Force completing one of the most remarkable comeback stories in auto racing and providing the exclamation point on a racing resume that will never be equaled.

But as feel-great as this feel-good story is, it’s not history Force seeks. It’s redemption.

“What hurt the most after that accident, was having people you raced, look at you and feel sorry for you,” Force said.

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by Holly Cain

Filed under: Jamie McMurray, Juan Pablo Montoya, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, NASCAR

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Soaked in champagne and still grinning from ear to ear, NASCAR team owner Chip Ganassi was walking over to a Corvette convertible for his second victory lap around Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the last two months when Tony Stewart stopped him in his tracks.

They shook hands, shared a laugh and Stewart, NASCAR’s only owner-driver, patted Ganassi on the back, offering his congratulations.

“That was a moment between car owners,” Sunday’s fifth-place finisher Stewart said with a smile and a nod. “Can I appreciate what he’s done here? Oh yeah.”

What he’s done is make history as the first team owner in auto racing history to win the Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 at Indy in the same season. But it came with a twist.

One of Ganassi’s drivers, Juan Pablo Montoya, dominated practice, qualifying and most of the early race until crashing with 15 laps to go Sunday while his other driver, Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray beat Kevin Harvick on the ensuing re-start, held the off the field for 11 laps and ultimately delivered the triumph to Ganassi instead.

In all, Ganassi drivers led a race-best 102 of the event’s 160 laps, but McMurray’s 16 laps out front (including five earlier in the day) is the second fewest ever for a winner. Not that it matters.

“To win all those (races) in one year is remarkable,” Harvick said of Ganassi’s organization. “It will probably never happen again.”

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by Holly Cain

Filed under: Juan Pablo Montoya, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, NASCAR

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — It was of little surprise that Juan Pablo Montoya won the pole position for Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This is one of the two biggest events on the NASCAR schedule and when the stakes are highest, Montoya’s team owner, Chip Ganassi, brings the A-game.

A victory by Montoya or his teammate, Jamie McMurray, on Sunday, accompanying Ganassi team wins in the Daytona 500 (McMurray) and the Indianapolis 500 (Dario Franchitti) earlier this year, would give Ganassi one of racing’s most rare and impressive trifectas.

He already is the first owner to win the Daytona 500 and Indy 500 in the same season. No team owner has ever won both the NASCAR and IndyCar races at Indianapolis.

“I wish I could put my finger on it,” Ganassi said this week. “Our drivers get up for big events, they seem to like those places.

“So many times you have drivers who are good a particular type of track. Fortunately, our guys are good at the tracks that have the big races. Believe me, that’s a big help, and it’s no small thing.”

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by Holly Cain

Filed under: Juan Pablo Montoya, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, NASCAR

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — It was of little surprise that Juan Pablo Montoya won the pole position for Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This is one of the two biggest events on the NASCAR schedule and when the stakes are highest, Montoya’s team owner, Chip Ganassi, brings the A-game.

A victory by Montoya or his teammate, Jamie McMurray, on Sunday, accompanying Ganassi team wins in the Daytona 500 (McMurray) and the Indianapolis 500 (Dario Franchitti) earlier this year, would give Ganassi one of racing’s most rare and impressive trifectas.

He already is the first owner to win the Daytona 500 and Indy 500 in the same season. No team owner has ever won both the NASCAR and IndyCar races at Indianapolis.

“I wish I could put my finger on it,” Ganassi said this week. “Our drivers get up for big events, they seem to like those places.

“So many times you have drivers who are good a particular type of track. Fortunately, our guys are good at the tracks that have the big races. Believe me, that’s a big help, and it’s no small thing.”

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by Holly Cain

Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Daytona Int’l Speedway, NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — He did it for his fans. He did it for his dad’s fans. But ultimately Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s emotional victory Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway did the most for himself.

There was a collective pause among the thousands in the grandstands and millions tuned into the television as Earnhardt drove the No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet across the finish line in the Nationwide Series race — the car’s blue-and-yellow retro paint scheme a tribute to his late father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., who drove the No. 3 to six of his seven championships before he was killed in an accident on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

As Earnhardt made his victory lap Saturday, absorbing and cherishing the crowd’s emotion, his crew chief and first cousin, Tony Eury Jr., put his head into his hands and cried openly on pit road. Then his dad’s former team owner and best friend, Richard Childress, met him in the victory circle for a congratulatory hug and to assure him his dad would be proud.

Proud not because Earnhardt won another race — he’s won eight of them on Daytona’s high banks — but because he took the tougher road and prevailed.

Proud because he voluntarily took on the heavy burden of driving “his father’s car” and even with all the unfair expectations and heightened emotion heaped upon him in the last nine years, he prevailed.

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