NASCAR’s Saturday tour, the Nationwide, still needs a stronger identity: Like, the tour leader is?
Now all Kyle Busch needs to complete the Dale Earnhardt image is a black car (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
By Mike Mulhern
Quick, now: who’s leading NASCAR’s Nationwide tour, at the midpoint of the season?
That’s the country’s second-most-popular motorsports series now, remember.
a. Carl Edwards?
b. Kyle Busch?
c. Clint Bowyer?
d. Tony Stewart?
Here’s a hint: Kyle Busch has won five Nationwide events.
Here’s another hint: Tony Stewart has won five Nationwide events.
Tony Stewart: Five ‘Saturday’ wins, but still Zip on Sundays (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
And here’s another hint: Denny Hamlin has won three Nationwide events.
Note: Busch, Stewart and Hamlin are all teammates running for Joe Gibbs.
Nine of those Gibbs’ wins have come in Dave Rogers’ Toyota, with four different men at the wheel over the season.
And the answer to who’s leading the tour?
Clint Bowyer.
On the driver’s side of the standings.
With one win, in the 21 starts.
If Dave Rogers is the top crew chief on the Nationwide tour, with far more wins than anyone else, why isn’t his team leading the championship race?
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Confusing?
Well, yes.
On the team owner’s side, Joe Gibbs is running away with things – 12 wins in 21 races, a remarkable average.
And crew chief Rogers is the series’ winningest crew chief, with nine victories.
So who gets the big trophy at the end of the season, if things stay like they are?
Well, this just goes to show how confusing the NASCAR system is – one set of standings for drivers, a separate set of standings for team owners.
Why?
Good question.
Stealth leader: Clint Bowyer (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images)
NASCAR’s Saturday series has had an identity crisis for several years now – Cup Lite, dominated by Cup team owners and Cup drivers.
And this is just more fodder for those complaining, and wanting NASCAR to define more clearly just what this series really is.
However, given the shaky state of the U.S. economy, don’t expect any shakeup any time soon.
And after all NASCAR racing really is more about the drivers than all that other stuff.
And Carl Edwards’ win Saturday night in St. Louis was memorable not for Jack Roush’s main man logging his second win of the year but for the man he beat – Joey Logano, who continues to tease the NASCAR faithful with the promise of what he might be able to do whenever he finally gets in a Cup car.
Mark Martin has been shouting Logano’s praises for more than six years now. But Logano really wasn’t able to make a statement in this division of the sport until after he turned 18 in May, because NASCAR rules kept him out of the seat till then.
Since, though, Logano has been very impressive: in his last three NASCAR Nationwide starts Logano has won at Kentucky Speedway and run second at Milwaukee and Gateway, after debuting on the tour with a sixth at Dover May 31st. And in his five Nationwide starts Logano has qualified top-10 each time, including poles at Nashville and Kentucky.
So, Joey, think you can handle the big guys on the Cup tour next season?
(Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)
Logano is expected to get a couple of Cup rides later this season, and there is considerable talk that he might be the man to take over Tony Stewart’s Cup ride next year when Stewart leaves the Gibbs.
There are also indications that NASCAR executives might like Logano to stay in the Nationwide series in 2009, and give it some of his star-power.
At the moment, though, Logano is getting close scrutiny from Cup drivers and NASCAR executives, as well as Joe and J. D. Gibbs, to see if he really is ready for the big leagues.
Saturday night at the East St. Louis track Logano led 42 of the 200 laps, in Roger’s car. And he never ran lower than fifth.
“We had a pretty good night,” Logano said. “We made a lot of adjustments during the race, and we could run well at both ends of the track. We could turn the center well, but had no forward bite…or we were too tight in the center and had good forward bite. We couldn’t really get it right where we wanted to.
“But it seemed like Carl Edwards got it right where he wanted to.”
Mark Martin has been singing Logano’s praises for more than six years. With a win and two seconds in his last three Nationwide starts, Joey Logano may well be overqualified for his current day job and ready to move up to Cup.
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
One critical area for Logano to study – pit stops. “We gained a lot of spots in the pits…but I lost a lot of spots in the pits with me driving. But that’s part of the learning curve as a rookie.”
In fact Logano may have lost the race in the pits. He was leading when the last caution came out with 50 miles to go, but he stalled the engine on his pit stop and restarted fourth.
“I screwed up coming out of the pits, and I tried passing on the restart and the car got free and lost a spot,” Logano said. “By the time we got back by all of those cars, I was about 15 car-lengths back, while Carl gradually started pulling away. Before I knew it, he had a straightaway lead on me.
“I never gave up, but he had such a big lead that even if I was a half-second quicker at the end I was never going to get there. My only hope was a caution and then something happening—because even with a caution I don’t think we were fast enough to get by him.
“I had clean air; I just couldn’t go anywhere. There were times he was way faster, and times that I found a few things that could make me a little faster. But my fast laps were still a tenth-and-a-half or two-tenths off his fast laps. Carl’s car was just remarkable.
“We were a second-place car, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Car owner J. D. Gibbs, here with Joey Logano, soon has to decide if Logano, at 18, is really ready for Cup.(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Stock car racing’s big judge: NASCAR appeals board chairman George Silbermann (Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images)
THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK
NASCAR’s appeals board Monday rejected arguments by Dale Earnhardt Inc. over a body template violation at Daytona earlier this month and upheld the penalties: the loss of 150 points for car owner Teresa Earnhardt, the loss of 150 points for driver Martin Truex Jr., a $100,000 fine, a six-race suspension for crew chief Kevin Manion, and a six-race suspension for crewman Gary Putnam.
The sanctioning body said the penalties “concern Section 12-4-A of the NASCAR Rule Book ‘Actions detrimental to stock car racing;’ Section 12-4-Q: ‘Any determination by NASCAR Officials that the car, car parts, components, and/or equipment used in the Event do not conform to NASCAR rules,’ and Section 20-3.8A: ‘Roof of the car does not conform to the specifications of the NASCAR Rule Book.’”
The penalties had been deferred until this hearing, in front of a three-man board of standing chairman George Silbermann, track promoter Russell Hackett, and Jack Housby, who runs Housby Trucking, a long-time NASCAR sponsor. Silbermann is also NASCAR’s managing director of racing operations.
NASCAR, in its statement, said “The Appellants did not contest the rules violations, but argued that the penalties were too severe for the infractions. The Appellants explained that rigorous checks and balances in the fabrication process were in place at DEI and could offer no explanation as to why the roof failed to meet the inspection templates. They argued that the infractions were minor in nature, not deliberate, and that the resulting lowered roof was a disadvantage according to their wind tunnel findings.
“The Commission found that the infractions were clear-cut. The roof was low across a broad area. Accordingly, the penalties that were issued are warranted.
“Therefore it is the unanimous decision of the National Stock Car Racing Commission to uphold the original penalties assessed by NASCAR.”
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Appeals committee upholds hefty penalties against DEI and Martin Truex Jr., all but dooming their title hopes (Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)