Daily NASCAR

Jimmie Johnson currently has the fifth-best career winning percentage, but remember, those stats fade in the less-successful years toward the end of driver’s career. (Photo: Getty Images)

HAMPTON, Ga. - Predictably, incomplete statistics were trotted out this week to extol the virtues of Jimmie Johnson, who gets enough credit already without having to concoct misleading statistics.

Yes, Johnson’s victories in the past two races leave him with a career winning percentage of .167, which, right now, is fifth best in NASCAR history. For the record, the winning percentages are: (1.) Herb Thomas .211, (2.) Tim Flock .209, (3.) David Pearson .183, (4.) Richard Petty .169, (5.) Johnson .167, and (5.) Fred Lorenzen .165.

The trouble with that list is that all the other drivers have completed their careers and Johnson hasn’t. Winning percentage isn’t relevant until a driver’s career is over, simply because almost every driver’s percentage falls off as he gets older.

For instance, NASCAR’s all-time leader in victories, Richard Petty, failed to win any of the final 241 races of his career. The runner-up, David Pearson, ended his career with 55 fruitless starts.

At the end of Jeff Gordon’s greatest streak - three championships and 47 victories in the 1995-99 - his career winning percentage was .220. In fact, at the point where Gordon won his 49th race - Johnson’s current total is 49 - his winning percentage was significantly higher than Johnson’s.

Gordon’s present winning percentage is .140, which is 11th best all-time.

* * *

THE TRICK–Jeff Burton has twice won Nationwide Series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway but never finished better than fourth in a Sprint Cup event. He hasn’t finished better than 10th since 2007.

"The biggest challenge is the way the speed falls off so much," said Burton. "It’s like the track has two personalities. You have to be aggressive and drive hard for qualifying and then, when the race starts, you race it like you used to race Darlington. The place gets really slick and real slimy. It’s amazing the amount of grip you don’t have here.

"You have to have a car that makes more grip than your competitors, and making the most out of that is what will put you in the winner’s circle. Even the best handling car here in the last few years has handled awful, so finding a way to do it better than your competition in a low, low grip arena will be the biggest challenge."

* * *

YOU SURE?– An Atlanta radio reporter asked Clint Bowyer about the future of the track’s two annual dates … but not exactly the way wanted.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a question.

"There’s a lot of talk about Atlanta losing one of its race dates," he said. "And those of us down here sure hope so."

Bowyer answered as if the reporter had said what he meant.

* * *

NO NEED TO WORRY … YET — Only five of the 12 Chase drivers of 2009 are presently in the top 12. The missing include Jeff Gordon (13th), Brian Vickers (18th), Kurt Busch (19th), Denny Hamlin (22nd), Kasey Kahne (23rd), Juan Pablo Montoya (26th) and Ryan Newman (32nd).

Newman was 35th after the first three races last year but went on to make the Chase anyway, and Hamlin it’s early for anyone to be overly concerned.

"We’re just missing by a little," said Hamlin, "but we’re working hard, and we’re focused. The results will start coming."

Go to the original story

The number of engineers involved in NASCAR has multiplied over the past few years.

What’s next? How about racing genealogists?

The teams are developing family trees.

Richard Petty Motorsports is descended from the King, George Gillett, Ray Evernham, the Montreal Canadiens and Liverpool FC (I’m assuming that’s "football club," and I’m pretty sure that "football" is "soccer").

Earnhardt Ganassi Racing’s heritage came together from Dale (and Teresa) Earnhardt, Chip Ganassi and Felix Sabates.

Roush sprouted into Roush Fenway, thus adding elements of the Boston Red Sox, and Richard Childress just brought in the Arizona Diamondbacks by accepting some sort of partnership with the former owners of Hall of Fame Racing, which supposedly went out of business just a few months ago. Stewart Haas Racing has cousins at Hendrick and time in prison. Yates blended into Roush and bled into RPM. Teams, even the struggling ones, are tied together at the roots with larger operations.

Penske is derived from Penske, and that’s a righteous thing.

But the sport is more centralized than ever. Five years ago, when NASCAR chairman Brian France said he was going to throttle down the teams to four cars, tops, it was justified in part as a means of "leveling the playing field" (which actually is a race track) for the family teams like Petty Enterprises and the Wood Brothers.

That was never the intention. NASCAR’s just trying to make room for all the bigshots.

One of these days, there are going to be two dozen different alleged teams, and behind the scenes and all the legal paperwork, four billionaires are going to own every damn one of them.

Go to the original story

Bass Pro Shops and Kasey Kahne don’t seemingly have a lot in common, but with the season now in full swing the two are about to have a very similar decision to make: do they stay where they’re at or look for greener pastures elsewhere.

It’s well known Kahne and Bass Pro are in contract years, and given the tension they’ve had with their respective organizations in the past their futures might seem clear; but with recent success and transition both could make surprise moves.

For Bass Pro the transition from DEI to EGR was less than a happy one. It was quite apparent last year that they weren’t putting much into their long standing deal. Even worse, when Martin Truex Jr. left, EGR had to do a lot of convincing to get the company to sign off on Jamie McMurray.

In just a matter of a couple of months though Bass Pro went from skepticism of their new driver, to celebrating with him in victory lane at the Daytona 500. As a sponsor do you stick with the current iteration of a team you’ve been with for years or go elsewhere? Arguably McMurray isn’t the best representative of the company, but if he continues to perform is there any reason for them to move on?

For Kasey Kahne the decision to leave Richard Petty Motorsports is equally murky. He joined Evernham Motorsports in 2004 and in that time racked up 11 wins, including two last year. Since 2004 though, the organization has gone through two mergers and all but lost Ray Evernham’s guidance.

In September, Kahne was among those publicly and privately questioning who was in charge at RPM.

“There are not a lot of answers out there right now. I don’t know if it’s because we’re in the middle of a lot of things, we just don’t have a person in that position. I think Robbie Loomis is supposedly going to be that guy, but I don’t think that he is yet. Is it Foster? You can’t get anything out of Foster. So it’s hard to say who that is, and I think that’s because we’re in a lot of different things right now. But when you’re in things, you still need to keep your team and your guys, your company behind you knowing what’s going on, and we don’t have that. Hopefully, we’ll get it soon. The sooner we get that, the better everybody will be.”

Since that time though Kahne seems like a guy much happier with and much more sure of his situation. That said as one of the sport’s most popular and talented drivers, does he stick with a team that needs him more than he needs them? If Kahne enters free agency he’s sure to be the hottest driver on the market. He’ll likely be able to write his own ticket.

Certainly continued success is going to be important for all parties involved to consider staying where they’re at, but if that does happen is there a reason to move on? And how much success do Kahne and McMurray need to have?

No matter what happens from here on out, I think both have to consider the options available to them. Either one may choose to stay where they’re at, but with plenty of teams looking for sponsors and the likelihood of any number of available seats, Kahne and Bass Pro would be crazy to not see who’s interested.

So what do you think? Will Kahne and Bass Pro stay put? What will it take for their respective teams to keep them? If they do move on where do you think they’ll they go?

Go to the original story

- This year the title is NASCAR NMPA Hamburger Helper Most Popular Driver. Voting is already open for the award won by Dale Earnhardt Jr. seven years in a row. Once agin the competition will include a 10-week playoff at season’s end, with the top 10 vote-getters vying for the final prize. Fans can visit www.HelpersMostPopularDriver.com and vote once a day for their favorite NASCAR Sprint Cup driver.

- The good news is that Richard Petty’s Driver Search was created to help bring racing talent, training and opportunity together. The bad news is that it costs $15,000 to participate. Named for the most successful driver in NASCAR history and designed as a unique training camp and competition for aspiring race car drivers looking for an opportunity to advance their careers, the inaugural Richard Petty’s Driver Search will take place April 26-29 and be limited to 12 participants. At the end of the four-day training camp, one competitor will be awarded a fully supported opportunity to qualify for and compete in the ARCA Racing Series event June 5 at Pocono Raceway. The actual camp will take place at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Concord Speedway and Carolina Speedway in Kershaw, S.C. Complete information and driver applications can be found at www.pettydriversearch.com.
 

Go to the original story

by Holly Cain

Filed under: Daytona Int’l Speedway

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — According to her husband, Lynda Petty all but pushed him out the door.

“She was jumping around and she said, ‘Get up and get out of here, go on to Daytona’ — so she’s doing pretty good,” Richard Petty told reporters three hours before the start of Sunday’s Daytona 500 — a race he’s won a record seven times and where a team bearing his name will field four cars in the race.

It was the first news from Petty since he revealed last week that his wife of 51 years, Lynda Petty, has Central Nervous System lymphoma — a type of brain tumor. She has been undergoing treatment at Duke University School of Medicine..

“It is a very rare form of cancer. It’s very aggressive, but it’s very treatable,”’ a subdued Petty said. ” We feel like we’ve the got best people in the world looking after the deal. She’s already had a couple of treatments and she’s looking real good .

“They feel like they can completely wipe the cancer out.”

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Go to the original story