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Vol. III,No.VIXII POST RACE EDITION
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Welcome to the Cup Scene Daily for Vol. III,No.VIXII POST RACE EDITION |
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Quote Of The Day: “As soon as I got out of the car, (crew chief) Tony Eury Sr. said to me, ‘Now don’t cuss.’ I’m glad he reminded me.” – Dale Earnhardt Jr. Happy Birthday: Ed Berrier, Jim Inglebright, Teri MacDonald 7 DAY ARCHIVE SundayMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday INSIDE TODAY'S ISSUE: NASCAR will investigate Harvick, Kahne encounters Stewart puts on a happy face after eighth place finish Charting the top ten after Phoenix Mears strong run ends early More trouble for the number 8 team after inspection Oil and water had teams seeing red Johnson's streak ends Slower pit stops on the horizon Evernham wants to tweak point system It's tough to be a hero but somebody's got to do it Hendrick mom has faith, no regrets Cup Scene readers speak out
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TODAYS FRONT PAGE<
DOMINATION IN THE DESERT
NASCAR couldn't have scripted a better ending to yesterday's Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. It was a Dale Earnhardt Jr. vs. Jeff Gordon overtime showdown, with the results playing a crucial role in positioning both for the last two races of the sport's new playoff-style championship format.
The two-lap showdown between Earnhardt and Gordon — run under a new-for-2004 overtime provision designed to prevent races from finishing under a caution flag after officials are forced to slow the cars down to clean up late-race accidents — didn't provide immediate fender-to-fender gratification. Earnhardt squirted away on the restart to win convincingly, and Gordon was passed by Ryan Newman to finish third. But the good finishes by Earnhardt and Gordon ensured that NASCAR officials will be able to deliver on the promise they made when they introduced the Chase for the Nextel Cup at the beginning of the season: Going into the last two races of the season, several drivers have a realistic shot at the championship. Earnhardt and Gordon gained ground on points leader Kurt Busch, who finished 10th Sunday despite spinning out and running out of gas during the race. With two races remaining in the season, Busch leads Gordon by 41 points and Earnhardt by 47. Jimmie Johnson, who won the last three races to charge back into the championship picture, finished sixth Sunday. He goes into Sunday's race at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway fourth in points, 48 behind Busch. "It gets intense, and more and more intense, every weekend," Gordon said. Said Busch: "We still have the advantage. Obviously, they've got to catch us." Before entering victory lane, Earnhardt Jr. got a friendly reminder from his crew chief, Tony Eury Sr., "Now, don't cuss." Earnhardt appreciated the reminder; last month, his otherwise-refreshing tendency to forget that he isn't talking to his buddies in a bar when he's doing an interview got him in trouble. In one of the most talked-about events of the 2004 season, NASCAR penalized Earnhardt 25 points for using profanity during a live television interview at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
"I was really scared that I might slip up because I have a lot of bad words in my vocabulary," Earnhardt said. "I will always from here on out be nervous about that. Tony Sr. came up to me before I got out (of the car) and said, 'Now, don't cuss.' I was glad he reminded me because you get excited." Going into the final two races of the season, the penalty plays a fairly prominent role in the championship picture. With Sunday's victory, Earnhardt is third in the standings, 47 points behind leader Kurt Busch and six points behind second-place driver Jeff Gordon. Had Earnhardt managed to keep the restrictor plate on his tongue at Talladega, he would be in second place. But at the same time, Earnhardt fans who were outraged by the penalty could just as easily play the what-if game with what happened in the previous Sunday's race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Earnhardt appeared to be on his way to a top-five finish in the closing laps when he tried to slide in front of rookie Carl Edwards and misjudged his distance, causing his car to tap Edwards' nose and spin out. Still, Earnhardt knows fans will focus on the swearing penalty after the season — especially if he and the No. 8 team end up losing the championship by fewer than 25 points. "People are going to talk about it," Earnhardt said. "What are you going to do?" Said Busch, "I hope that it doesn't come down to that, and it really isn't much of a relevance right now, and I hope that after Homestead we still have that advantage."
In winning Sunday's race, the No. 8 team was able to rally from the disappointing race at Atlanta. Several times this season Earnhardt and his team have rebounded from poor finishes to perform well the next week, keeping them in championship contention. Still, Earnhardt knows wild performance swings from week to week is not the ideal way to pursue a title. "It's not a habit I want to continue or want to become a habit," Earnhardt said. Earnhardt pulled away from Gordon in a two-lap showdown to end the race, the second run under NASCAR's new-for-2004 "green/white/checkered" rule that allows officials to add laps to the end of the race to encourage green-flag finishes after late-race accidents. Noting Gordon's stature as one of the sport's all-time greats, Earnhardt said respectfully, "I don't think there's anybody else I'd rather beat." Busch appeared to have a strong car at the beginning of the race. Although he realized he was fortunate to finish 10th, given the fact that he spun out and ran out of gas during the race, Busch was frustrated "just because we weren't able to reach our full potential."
Things also weren't easy for Gordon, who began the race with an ill-handling car but managed to lead 100 laps and finish third through good strategy decisions and adjustments by his crew chief, Robbie Loomis. "I kind of like the position I'm in right now, because (Busch has) got to be more cautious than me," Gordon said. Earnhardt, who had a dominant car through most of the race, was in third place, trailing Gordon and Casey Mears when a caution came out on lap 282 of the race scheduled to go 312. Junior argued with crew chief Eury over the radio, lobbying to pit for tires, but Eury made him stay on the track and maintain his position. Eury, known as Tony Sr., said he insisted Earnhardt stay out because it was so hard to get past lapped cars on the 1-mile oval and "it was just better to keep track position." Earnhardt was a bit sheepish when asked about the argument. "Yeah, I was just getting worried, man," he said, grinning. "I cannot control myself inside a race car. I want tires, this that and the other. I didn't want to lose. "I told Tony Sr., 'The car's covering the field the best we ever did.' We've had good race cars and won races but nobody could run with this car today and I didn't want to lose this race." After staying out during the caution, Earnhardt wound up passing Mears for second place on lap 298, moments before another caution came out for Jamie McMurray's wreck. On the restart on lap 303, Earnhardt swung his No. 8 Chevrolet to the inside of Gordon's car, pulled alongside and shot into the lead. "Gordon was a sitting duck there at the end," Earnhardt said. "His car was terrible. He was lucky just to get what he got." Gordon agreed. "Junior had a dominant car all day long and we needed it to go green the whole way to have any chance," he said. Earnhardt began to pull away when Mears, with a tire going flat, spun into the wall, bringing out yet another yellow flag on lap 307. Moments later, Robby Gordon's engine failed. NASCAR stopped the cars on track on lap 310 as safety workers cleaned up the debris from Mears' crash and the oil from Gordon's engine breakage. Once the race resumed, NASCAR ordered one extra lap of caution, then finished with only the second green-white-checker overtime since the rule was adopted earlier this year to assure fans of seeing a racing finish. Earnhardt easily pulled away once the green flag waved, running off to his sixth win of the season and second straight Phoenix victory. Kevin Harvick finished fourth, followed by rookie Kasey Kahne, Jimmie Johnson, Rusty Wallace, Tony Stewart, Bobby Labonte and Busch. Most of the title contenders struggled during the race. Newman and Johnson lost laps when they pitted for what they thought were flat tires. Said Johnson: "We went down a lap and got it back and we were able to get a good finish. If we'd had a few more laps there at the end, we might have had something for them. Once we got going, we were fine. We just ran out of laps." "It's a big-picture day," Busch said. "[Earnhardt] won, [Gordon] was third and we were able to put together a 10th-place effort to maintain. . . . It's a great way to breathe in some fresh air and move forward." The series heads to Darlington this week for the final Southern 500. |
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