Sunday, April 20, 2008
Kyle Busch wins Mexico City, Robby Gordon Opens Strong in Dakar Rally, and Danica Patrick wins Japan
Kyle Busch celebrates his win in the Corona Mexico 200 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, his third consecutive NASCAR Nationwide victory
(Photo Credit: Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
By Mike Mulhern
For a NASCAR ‘Off-weekend,’ it was a very busy Sunday: Toyota’s Kyle Busch won the dicey Mexico City 200, his third straight Nationwide series victory, following wins at Texas and Phoenix. And GM’s Robby Gordon surprised a lot of Dakar Rally veterans by finishing second in the first stage of the seven-day ‘revamped’ off-road race from Budapest-to-Budapest through the Hungarian and Rumanian mountains.
Then, on the other side of the world, Danica Patrick made history by becoming the first woman to win an Indy-car race, taking the Japan 300 in Motegi.
The sweet scent of that first big win puts a big smile on Danica Patrick’s face
(Photo credit: Indy Racing League)
Busch, winning his first NASCAR road race and thus putting himself in contention for the Cup tour’s two events, at Sonoma, Calif., and Watkins Glen, N.Y., this summer, got around Scott Pruett in the final miles and held Marcos Ambrose at bay down the stretch.
Busch, just 22 years old, is determined to upstage both car owner Rick Hendrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr., the men who took his Cup ride at the end of 2007, and he has had an amazing spring on both the Sprint Cup tour and Nationwide tour.
“It’s pretty phenomenal job by these Joe Gibbs guys,” Busch said, with a nod toward crew chief Dave Rogers, who has had the hot wrenches on the Nationwide tour this season. “Everyone wants to come down to Mexico and win this thing. And we just did.”
The question now is, again, will Busch and Gibbs rethink their current plans just to run a partial Nationwide tour schedule? Will Busch go for the title? Three in a row has to make that question a big one.
“The championship? We’re still race-by-race,” Busch insisted. “I don’t want to let anything out of the bag yet…though there may not be much left to let out of the bag. I love winning.”
Robby Gordon kicks off Day One of the new Dakar Rally in Hero’s Square in Budapest
(Photo credit: Robby Gordon Motorsports)
Half-way around the world Robby Gordon gave General Motors’ execs something to cheer about, with a strong opening run in the international off-road race substitute for the famed Dakar Rally, which had to be changed from its Lisbon-to-Dakar January course because of terrorist threats.
The substitute event, a seven-day run, with nightly stops, is to be carried in the U.S. on DirectTV, as a nightly 30-minute package (7 pm EDT and 1230 am EDT). It concludes Saturday April 26th, leaving Gordon with a quick ‘round-the-world charge to make it to the starting line at Talladega Speedway next Sunday.
The new rally will cover 1,846 miles on a very technical route, under rules much more strict than the Baja 1000 and Baja 500, which Gordon has won a number of times.
“Timing is everything with this event,” Gordon says of the rally. “First, I’m very grateful to the ASO (the sanctioning body) for coming up with a solution for all the fans and sponsors. The schedule they selected has made it possible for us to compete.
“I also have to thank Chris Long at DIRECTV for helping televise this event.”
Here’s the shot from Robby Gordon’s dashboard cam:
Find more videos like this on Robby’s upRising
At least in this rally nobody will be trying to shoot out Robby’s tires.
(Photo credit: Robby’s Uprising)
And it didn’t take long for NASCAR promoters to size up Danica’s win and put their own ticket-selling spin on it....like this from Texas Motor Speedway’s Eddie Gossage:
“Danica Patrick’s historic first win in Indy-car racing is comparable in sporting and social history to Jackie Robinson breaking into the major leagues. While Danica did not have to suffer all the indignities Robinson struggled with, she has made a major breakthrough for women.
“Someone said Danica’s win compares to Billie Jean King beating Bobby Riggs in a tennis match in the 70s. I couldn’t disagree more. The Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs match was a novelty match, a woman against an old tennis pro. Danica beat
the best Indy-car drivers who are at the top of their game. Danica winning this Indy-car race is like a female tennis player beating Roger Federer or Andy Roddick at Centre Court at Wimbledon.
“Indy-car racing is on a roll: Danica wins, on the heels of her appearance in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated...two-time Indy 500 champ Helio Castroneves is on top of his game after winning ‘Dancing with the Stars’ during the off-season… and next-generation drivers carrying two of the biggest names in American Indy car history are proven winners in the Indy-car series, Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti.
“There is a great deal of positive energy going for Indy car racing, but none bigger than Danica’s win in Japan. No one can refer to her as a novelty - she’s a proven winner.”
Need we point out that good seats are still available for Danica Patrick’s run in the Texas Indy-car race June 7th....at Texasmotorspeedway.com?
For a moment Danica Patrick shows the emotional impact of winning her first Indy-car race, after four years on the trail
(Photo credit: Indy Racing League)
Robby Gordon loves the media attention almost as much as the racing
(Photo credit: Robby Gordon Motorsports)
For Kyle Busch green is certainly not bad luck in Mexico City
(Photo credit: Toyota Motorsports)
Dodge’s Scott Pruett, trying to avenge last year’s bitter Mexico City loss to teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, led late but didn’t have the best car this time around the flat, twisty 2.5-mile Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. “We just didn’t quite have the setup. So we gambled by coming in early, and our tires were used up at the end,” Pruett said after finishing third, just ahead of Carl Edwards and feisty Patrick Carpentier.
Adrian Fernandez, one of Mexico’s best-known sports figures, again disappointed, this time getting caught up in a wreck with 30 laps to go in the 80-lapper. He finished 15th.
Clint Bowyer and Scott Wimmer, car owner Richard Childress’ two men in the field, finished sixth and seventh. So Bowyer remains atop the Nationwide series standings, though by just a scant nine points over Edwards and 66 over Busch.
Ambrose, the promising but still little-known Australian who is trying to make a career transition into NASCAR, was crisp and had one of the fastest cars on the track. But it wasn’t his runner-up run that will be the big memory of his run here, but rather his run-in with Boris Said, just after a restart, when Ambrose tapped Said in the rear, in tight traffic, and sent Said into the wall and out of the race.
“We had to start at the back and then had a penalty, but we came back, and in a few more laps I would have gotten Kyle,” Ambrose said.
‘I do want to say ‘Sorry, Boris,’ I didn’t’ mean to get into him. If I could take it back I would.”
However it may take more than that to cool off Said, a world-class road racer.
“A cheap shot,” Said fumed. “It’s going to cost him a car some day. He either made a bad mistake or he’s incredibly stupid.
“For a guy to turn me around like that on a restart….I’m not going to get mad, I’m going to get even. I’m going to go apologize to his crew chief for the car he’s going to have to fix one day.
“He could have lifted at any time, but he didn’t; he just rooted me out of the way.
“What goes around comes around. He just better keep watching his review mirror.”
On the other hand, Carl Edward – one of the few who could challenge Busch – had some fun, at least until an untimely caution cost him track position.
“That’s the most fun I’ve had with my clothes on in a long time,” Edwards said. “It’s just too bad we got caught up in that caution.
“The good thing is this is two weeks in a row we’ve had a car that could win.”
Certainly no NASCAR car-of-tomorrow safety cage protecting Danica
(Photo credit: Indy Racing League)
Gordon has two identically prepared Hummers for his European rally run, with teammate B. J. Baldwin (23rd after Day One) in the second machine. Last year, in the Dakar Rally itself, Gordon won one of the stages and finished eighth overall, first in the Open class.
GM is backing Gordon fairly modestly, with about a $5 million budget, against European car giants that dedicate as much as $100 million for this thing.
The event kicked off from Hero’s Square in Budapest, with introductions; the racers then opened competition 40 miles away in Dabas, where Gordon and his veteran navigator Andy Grider took to the tight, twisting, tree-lined course.
“We attacked the course,” Gordon said. “This is a sprint race that is going to be won by minutes, if not seconds….so it is great we’re second after the first stage. This was fantastic for our team, because we are competing against some of the best teams in the world.
“We went hard today and still got beat by about 40 seconds, so we have some work to do. But overall I’m very happy.”
Day Two will cover muddy, rocky terrain in Romania, in two 50-mile sprints.
Robby Gordon, in second place by just nine seconds after Day One of the new Dakar Rally, shows again why he’s one of the world’s best off-road racers
(Photo credit: GM Racing)
Maybe Kyle Busch is the best racer in the Americas. He passed Scott Pruett with nine to go to win the Mexico City 200 Sunday.
(Photo credit: Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
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