Motor Sports Weekly News

By: Drew Hierwarter

Here’s a little test for you. Clap your hands two times as quickly as you can. That’s about a half a second and that’s how much time separates the run of Kasey Kahne, who is on the pole for tomorrow night’s Food City 500 at Bristol, and Tony Raines, the slowest qualifier. Forty two cars separated by just a shade over one half second! That’s how competitive things are in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup Series these days. One little slip, just a little bit of tire spin coming off the corner, and you go from starting near the front to being in the back, or worse, missing the race altogether. Take part-time driver Stanton Barrett as an example. He posted the slowest time of all the cars who attempted to qualify. But the term “slowest” is really relative. Barrett was only .669 seconds slower than Kahne’s pole winning time! Winning the pole is a bright spot in Kahne’s decidedly dark season. It’s his first pole in 20 races, the last coming at Las Vegas back in March. The number 9 team is winless so far in 2007 and mired down in twenty seventh in the points standings. Second place qualifier Juan Pablo Montoya missed the pole by a mere .048 seconds and said; “This is a nice disappointment. Some days you are disappointed when you qualify thirty fifth, and now I’m disappointed because I’m second.”

As the Busch Grand National race got underway at Bristol Friday night, the question was; would we see the same two-wide racing that we saw in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck race on Wednesday? The answer was no, we would see three wide racing! Not since the old days when the track was asphalt could the drivers run on the bottom, in the middle, or up high. Gone was the single file racing we’re used to seeing, replaced by cars passing on the outside. At one point Jeff Burton was running up next to the wall, in traffic, passing cars, and turning faster lap times than the leader. It was pretty neat!

But Bristol is still Bristol and twelve caution flag periods did slow the pace somewhat. But even the reasons for those yellow flags were a little different from the “old” Bristol. There were several single car spins. But because they weren’t all running nose to tail, they didn’t just pile into each other. There’s more room now to avoid a spinning car and a driver can go high, if he needs to, to miss a wreck.The race did come down to an exciting finish between Ryan Newman, Jason Leffler, Kasey Kahne, and David Reutimann. Newman was leading with twelve laps to go when he found himself in the middle of a three wide battle for the first position with Kahne on top, Leffler on the bottom, and Reutimann lurking right behind the three of them. Everybody was on old tires and Newman got squeezed out and hit the wall. That left Kahne, Leffler, and Reutimann to fight it out. Leffler’s tires were giving up and try as he might he just couldn’t stay underneth Kahne and get around him. Coming out of turn four to take the checkered flag, with Kahne just barely in front, Leffler had to check up and Reutimann got into the back of him and sent him spinning across the line for second. It was a big day for Kahne and the whole team.  Winning the Nextel Cup Bud Pole award in the afternoon, and the Busch race at night. This team may be turning the corner and coming out of the dark. 

 If tonight’s Busch race is any indication of what we can expect when the Cup cars hit the track on Saturday night, there’s going to be plenty of action, plenty of close racing, and plenty of excitement! Be sure you don’t miss it!