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Welcome to the Cup Scene Daily for
Vol. III,No.VIXII FINAL EDITION
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Quote of the day: "We don't make the rules; We just race with whatever they tell us."- Tony Stewart 7 DAY ARCHIVE SundayMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday INSIDE TODAY'S ISSUE: Stewart not changing his strategy Jeff Burton hopes to celebrate again this weekend Ward Burtons' crew chief is on his game NASCAR overlooked in list of 'Ten Toughest Athletes' IROC testing session a drive for perfection Crew Chef Challenge to highlight events at Pocono Raceway this summer The USAF Thunderbirds to do rare flyover for UAW-DaimlerChrysler Wallace will have nice fish tale NASCAR hostess takes two wheels to the track Nadeau's journey prompts pension debate NASCAR Top 10: Las Vegas So Some Seats Were Empty! What's the Big Deal? Cup Scene readers speak out about the new point system
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Happy Birthday: Dave Marcis, Travis Kvapil, Jim Horton The only engines heard on a track in a major series this past weekend were those of the IRL as it fired up it's season at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, the facility where the Nextel Cup series will finish after 18 consecutive weeks of racing until the season ends with the Ford 400 on Nov. 21.
NASCAR features the longest schedule of any major sport in which each competitor participates in every event And with such an expansive and demanding schedule, drivers realize the importance of time off. "It's a grind," said four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon. "Everybody has learned how to deal with it. The teams have hired more people and everybody tries to give their employees as much time off as possible. But it's still a grind." Last season, with 36 races and two weekends of special events, the Cup teams went from the first week February through the third week of November with only three free weekends. This year, including this past off weekend, they will get Easter weekend off in April, as well as the weekends of May 8-9 and July 17-18. The season's first off-weekend comes after just two races, and the second break of the season falls after only five more. And while everyone longs for a break toward the end of the year to interrupt the grueling 18-week stretch that concludes the season, others are all too happy to take this break -- the placement of which has been widely attributed to the leap year -- sooner rather than later. "It's early, but it feels like we've been at it for months," driver Ricky Rudd said. "I think we're [all] ready for a break." And although it may seem early in the year, for most of the Nextel Cup teams this off-weekend was right on time. After Daytona a season unto itself it seems, some charge forward with momentum and others cling to hope, all eager to see how they will fare in their first test of "real racing" at Rockingham (N.C.), so tired and worn they work feverishly to prepare. Matt Kenseth won that battle and now another test comes this week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The Series will rest twice more, but not at all after the 17th race of the year. And this year more than ever, that could have a huge influence on the outcome of this points race. After the first 26 races of the '04 Cup season, NASCAR will pit the top 10 drivers against one another for the championship. The 10 will start at virtually the same point count, and everything -- including fatigue -- will be a factor. While many have been complaining about the final multi-race stretch for years, there is even more hesitation this year. But, as driver Tony Stewart put it, there's nothing any of the drivers can do to change it. "We don't make the rules," he said. "We just race with whatever they tell us." And the powers that be say we race with an off-weekend in February. And rather than concern themselves too much with when they might rather have an off-weekend, the teams are busy taking advantage of this one. After a short break, the teams went to work on Las Vegas, coming up this weekend. "We'll take weekends off whenever we can get them," said Stewart's crew chief, Greg Zipadelli. "I'm sure it'll help most teams. I know it'll help us because we have a few decent cars built but we don't have as many as we'd like to. Having this off-weekend will allow us to get a lot done in the shop before we go to Las Vegas." As daunting as that 18-race finish seems, the teams do see a tradeoff. After all, you have to be among the top 10 to compete for the title this year. And these early breaks will keep drivers and crews rested and prepared to make a run for the top 10 through the first 26 races. With 40-some drivers and hundreds of crew men and women, there's just no way to keep everybody happy. So the boys and girls will take what they get and move forward. "Like I said, we'll take all the off-weekends we can get," Zipadelli said. "It's hard to space out those off-weekends the way we'd like them to be. If it were me, I'd just look at the schedule and space them out as evenly as I could. But I don't have to deal with racetracks and weather. "So we'll take this early gift, enjoy it, and in another couple of weeks, we'll have another one. We've got a few of our off-weekends early this year, so we'll take advantage of them and hopefully they'll get us rested for the fall." One issue this weekend will actually be a non-issue, because unlike at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, there appears to be no shortage of entrants for Sundays' UAW/DaimlerChrysler 400. Preliminary entries for the 400 stand at 48 -- the 38 full-time teams and 10 part-time teams. The part-time drivers who will attempt to qualify for the race are Las Vegas native Kyle Busch, Johnny Benson, Bill Elliott, Kirk Shelmerdine, Larry Gunselman, Andy Hillenburg, Morgan Shepherd, Carl Long, John Andretti and Larry Foyt. Benson and Elliott both have started each of the previous six Nextel Cup races at LVMS and both drivers have posted three top-10 finishes here. Benson finished fourth in the 1998 and 2001 race and Elliott best finish at LVMS was fourth in 2000. Andretti also has competed in all six Cup races here; his best finish was 12th in 1999. Foyt made his Las Vegas Cup debut last season and finished 35th. Gunselman (1998) and Shepherd (1999) failed to qualify for the race in their only attempts while Hillenburg, Shelmerdine, Long and Busch will be making their first Nextel Cup visits at Las Vegas. The top 38 drivers in Friday's qualifying session will earn spots in the 43-car field for Sunday's race. The remaining five spots will be filled via provisionals based on the 2003 car owners points standings and, if applicable, a past Nextel Cup champion who did not qualify on time. Entries for next Saturday's NASCAR Busch Series Sam's Town 300 have reached 52, including nine "Busch-whackers." The full-time Nextel Cup drivers who will attempt to qualify for the Sam's Town 300 are Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, Johnny Sauter, Jamie McMurray, Robby Gordon, Michael Waltrip, Joe Nemechek, Greg Biffle and Kasey Kahne. Biffle and Kahne also are running full Busch Series schedules this season. FitzBradshaw Racing, which is owned by Armando Fitz and Terry Bradshaw, will field three cars in Saturday's race. In addition to the No. 12 (Tim Fedewa) and No. 14 (Casey Atwood), the team is fielding the No. 82 Chevrolet for Busch Series veteran Randy LaJoie. Another interesting issue regarding the Vegas race, is that the brothers Busch, Kurt and Kyle, hope to be racing against each other at the Nextel Cup level for the first time. The Busch brothers, by the way are natives of Las Vegas.
“The best one is that we always had only one go-kart growing up as kids. Our dad never wanted to have both of us on the same track with two go-karts, but as we got a little older, we eventually got a second one and had our share of match races. We’d go out to a local parking lot and just set some cans up, to indicate where the corners were, and race. One of the go-karts was always a little quicker, and I can remember a day when I happened to be in front of him with the slower kart. “I was blocking and holding Kyle up when our dad started counting down the laps. He gave us five to go and then two to go, and when we got to the final lap, all bets were off. I was making that go-kart as wide as I could. Kyle got a good run going down the back straightaway, but I ‘chopped him down.’ When we started to roll through (turns) three and four, Kyle just gassed it right in the center of the corner and climbed up my left rear. He knocked the carburetor off my go-kart so I never had any power coming off turn four and he beat me back to the line. He said he beat me fair and square, but he was still under power while I didn’t even have a carburetor on mine.” "I didn't expect to be racing against Kurt so soon, but I'm excited to do it, especially at home," Kyle said. "That is going to be a special weekend for me and my entire family." Kyle would have been in NASCAR sooner if not for a ruling late in 2001 that a driver had to be 18 to compete in its top three series. He turned 18 last May and spent the rest of the year running part-time schedules in ARCA and Busch. Kyle finished second twice and had five top 10 finishes in seven Busch starts in 2003, as well as winning two of seven ARCA starts. So far this year, he won the ARCA race in Daytona, was in the top 10 in the Busch race in Daytona before an overheating problem relegated him to 24th, and finished a solid seventh in the Busch race last weekend in Rockingham. Now, Kyle is looking forward to taking a shot at the big boys on the familiar Las Vegas oval, just a few miles from his old high school. Asked if he is feeling any pressure starting his Cup career on his home track, Kyle grinned and said, "What pressure? "It's just another race and another racetrack," he added. "It's to gain experience. We're not going to necessarily race for the checkered flag. We're going to go out and try to gain what we can. We'll have seven Cup races this year and that will be experience for the future."
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