Motor Sports Weekly News

By: Drew Hierwarter

Carl Edwards drove his race car into victory lane Sunday after winning the wreck-marred UAW-Dodge 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but NASCAR officials will be bringing the car back to their technical center in Concord, North Carolina for further investigation of a possible rules violation. During the routine post-race inspection, officials found that the lid on the box that contains the car’s oil tank was open. It is believed this allows air to pulled out from under the car at speed helping to increase downforce. Several cars were discovered to have employed this same trick at the season’s opening race at Daytona and each of them was fined 25 owner points.  NASCAR will not make a decision about Edwards’ car until they can examine it more closely later in the week.  In any case, the win at Las Vegas will stand.

The race itself set a record for the number of yellow flags as a combination of a slippery track, high winds, a car that is difficult to drive on the edge, and blown tires, caused a large number of crashes. From the beginning of practice on Friday morning to the end of the race Sunday afternoon, 28 cars found the Las Vegas crash wall.  Kyle Busch destroyed both of the team’s Nationwide Series cars on Saturday, one in qualifying, and the back-up car during the race. In Sunday’s Sprint Cup race Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart each suffered blown tires that ended their day.  Both drivers were fine but Stewart needed help to get out of his car and walk to the ambulance for the ride to the infield care center. What was easily the worst crash of the day happened with only four laps to go as Jeff Gordon was racing hard with Matt Kenseth for second and third. Gordon’s car slid up slightly and touched Kenseth’s car. The resulting spin sent Gordon into the retaining wall on the inside of the back stretch in what Gordon himself described as “. . . the hardest hit of my career”. Gordon then criticized Las Vegas Motor Speedway for not having soft walls back there, a situation that will probably be corrected before the Sprint Cup Series returns there next year.

The win was Carl Edwards’ ninth of his career and second in a row. He was followed across the line by a fading Dale Earnhardt, Jr., the highest finisher of the vaunted Hendrick Motorsports team that was so dominant last year. Teammate Jeff Gordon was competitive before his crash that relegated him to a 35^th place finish and Casey Mears was 13^th. But the biggest surprise was Jimmie Johnson.  The Johnson/Knaus led team that was so hot last season struggled at Las Vegas to only qualify 33^rd.  Things were no better during the race as they never found the key to the car’s handling and Johnson barely hung on to finish 29^th.  It got so bad toward the end of the race that crew chief Chad Knaus told the team to just consider this “. . .  pit stop practice”. 

Several drivers cited the difficulty of driving the new style NASCAR race car as being part of the problem on Sunday. Teams are still learning how to make this car work and drivers are dealing with a variety of handling issues. But perhaps Jeff Burton summed it up best when asked about driving the new car. He made reference to the fact that the NASCAR Sprint Series is the top level of stock car racing simply by saying, “It’s supposed to be hard”.  

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 8:44 am and is filed under Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series, Las Vegas, Earnhardt, NASCAR, Nextel Cup, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.