2012 NASCAR thread

AJ Allmendinger tested positive for 'a stimulant' of some kind. He's requested that his B sample is tested, and has corralled together the contents of his medicine cabinet for testing to see if one of them is the cause.
 
Ah, come on sr4470. You've got to tell the full story.

Like how he left Roush racing:

ESPN said:
Roush Racing put up with Kurt Busch's reputation for reckless driving on the track. When the defending Nextel Cup champion was accused of doing it in his own car, the team had seen enough.

Busch was suspended Sunday for the remainder of the NASCAR season after his run-in with police, who said he smelled of alcohol and was belligerent during a traffic stop Friday night.

"It's the last straw for Roush Racing," said Geoff Smith, president of Roush Racing. "We're officially retiring as Kurt Busch's apologists effective today."
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This coming off the back of a 2005 season where he wound up juuuuuuuuuuust about everybody in stock car racing. And having made many enemies even before that season began (Jimmy Spencer for one!). It's rare enough that a very good driver (and Kurt undoubtedly is one) gets the sack from one team. But to get sacked twice? From two of the sports biggest names, Roush and Penske?

Just. Not. Smart.
 
sr4470 said:
I'm surprised you didn't comment on last weekend's Nationwide race at Chicagoland, JRS...or the Cup race at New Hampshire for that matter.
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I didn't watch them, so there wasn't a great deal for me to say! :) Should be watching the weekend races at Indy though.
 
sr4470 said:
Why not? You seem a lot more into Nascar than I am :p
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Lack of usable internet connection. Tried it out pre-race, but no dice - couldn't go more than a few seconds without skipping or buffering. Since then I've lit a rocket up Openreach's backside, and got my connection back up to ~3meg and better line quality.
 
sr4470 said:
Oh, I figured you'd have the TV channels to watch it.
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Nope, no TV channels. No TV! Just a Hauppauge adapter for the computer to watch Freeview, if I can even be bothered. Still haven't watched a GP live since before Bahrain (which I didn't watch on principle, the rest are just because I had something better to do), haven't even bothered with the BBC highlights for many of those races that they didn't want to meet their original contract for.

sr4470 said:
BT are a terrible ISP, I only use them for phone lines (and they do that well enough, I get a healthy ~9mbit despite being in the middle of nowhere relatively speaking). That said, my own ISP has gone a little downhill relative to their early excellence since O2\Telefonica purchased them.
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I'm with TalkTalk, which might well be terrible but at least they're cheap and terrible....unlike other ISPs, which are expensive and terrible. Unfortunately, since I live in the relative technological wilderness of Stretton, I'm limited in what I can actually get. Hell, my road hasn't even been updated with the rest of the village for FTTC yet, despite the live date for the Burton-on-Trent exchange being the end of last month....
 
sr4470 said:
Anyway, going back to NASCAR I notice that Kenseth is still holding onto the top spot despite his average race at Loudon...Junebug is getting closer in points though.
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Ah, but can they maintain their form going into the Chase? That's going to be the big question.

Jeff Gordon is pretty much certain to not qualify for the Chase now, so that's one big name out of it. Yes, there are seven races to go until the Chase (including this weekend at Indy) but his team's form is in the tank. Carl Edwards is 46 points away from 10th place, and would also (like Gordon) need to win at least twice to be in with a shout of getting a wildcard entry so he could well be out of it (not to mention having to change crew chief now since Bob Osborne is retiring on health grounds). Who else can displace someone now? Well, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano are both on a win each, so if either wins again and Kyle Busch doesn't then they could get a wildcard.
 
This weekend marks the first time that the Nationwide series has come to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. For 30 years or so up until last year, their event was held at a track called Lucas Oil Raceway. For a long time, this track was known as Indianpolis Raceway Park. It was called Indianapolis Raceway Park because it is in Clermont, Indiana as opposed to Indianapolis, Indiana.

Yes, quite. Never really got that one myself....

Aaaaaaanyway. The Nationwide drivers have had their first experience at running around this legendary piece of racetrack. Suffice to say, it has the potential to be a bit quick. No surprise that Kyle Busch has been the one to show the way in practice - say what you like about his lack of emotional maturity (and I frequently do), the kid can really drive. I once made a thread about the rumours of him wanting to test a Formula One car, and if he was given a drive then that would be me done with the sport. Now....I actually wouldn't mind seeing what he could do with a good F1 car.

Nationwide engines produce 650 horsepower, about 200 less than their Sprint Cup counterparts, and Thursday that speed difference was evident. In turns 2 and 4, [Justin] Allgaier said, drivers could keep the accelerator mashed all the way down, because they haven't built up as much momentum coming out of the short chutes at either end of the track. In turns 1 and 3, which follow long straightaways, they had to lift -- but not much. Just a little bit to set the nose of the car, according to [Sam] Hornish. "You'll definitely be pretty close to flat [out] once you get a good handle on a car," he added.

[Kyle] Busch seemed to have just that, pacing final practice with a speed of 175.836. Austin Dillon can't imagine Busch came off the throttle much, if at all. "He might be just barely [coming off], but he's close to it," the Richard Childress Racing driver said. "We're tight, and I think he's got his car pretty loose to do it. But yeah, I think you're going to see someone go wide open for sure to get the pole, or right at it, and some people are going to be touching that wall coming off the corner because you're just going to get a little bit tight."

That flat-out speed, though, doesn't mask the difficulty of this race track, particularly for drivers in a series that has no history at a place like Indianapolis. Long straights, sharp corners, zero banking, a tight pit road with a wall on either side, a narrow racing surface that puts a premium on track position -- they all combine to present a challenge unlike anything most of the Nationwide drivers have seen before. And then there's the fact that crew chiefs don't really have a notebook to fall back on. No, these guys aren't at little Lucas Oil Raceway anymore.
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Well, on the evidence of that race they should have sent the Nationwide series to IMS long before now....

Got to feel sorry for Eliott Sadler. He didn't jump that restart, just got a good run. And he's penalised anyway. Hope he can bounce back from that.
 
This is one of my gripes with the lock-in setup - under normal circumstances, if this guy rocked up at a track with a Cup car and attempted to qualify he wouldn't make it into the field. Too much talent around to squeeze him out. But because the #32 is locked in by dint of owners points, he gets to start.

God forbid he takes out a prospective Chaser....
 
Skeeter said:
So in NASCAR the car can qualify for a race regardless of who is driving it?
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If the car is locked into the race because the owner's # is in the top 35 in points, then they can put any driver they want in and they'll be in the field. And since this clown has the required experience to be allowed to race in Cup (despite less than stellar results), he's in. This is a guy who was arrested for DUI earlier this year as well....

Hopefully, the rumours about the upcoming death of the Top-35 rule prove to be true.
 
Cup got going a little later than planned. Kyle Busch's day has already turned to worms (walloped the wall on Lap 19). Junebug is pushing Brad Keselowski hard.
 
The hype has always been counter-productive. What's the guy supposed to do? He can't be Dale Earnhardt Sr. God ripped up the blueprints after that guy was built. All he can be is himself. And I notice that these days he's being referred to as 'Earnhardt' more than 'Junior' by the commentary teams and journos.

Fairly odd race compared with the season so far. Jeff Gordon actually had luck on his side for once, and duly took the win. Earnhardt didn't, and his transmission duly broke. Pocono is traditionally hard on gearboxes, so no-ones fault really. Just a bad deal. Both Busch brothers copped it in the end, after Kyle hitting trouble early on. Kurt's crash on lap 86 (I think it was?) looked like something from before the CoT era - lost a tyre, backed into the fence, and trashed the car from there.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand then there was this:

Whoops

It's Pocono. Whaddya expect? ;)
 
Mixed day at the office for the Hendrick engine department. Four motors go bad, two end up getting Top 5 finishes. Either quality control slipped, or they're pushing the envelope just a little bit too much.
 
Seems as though the return of the 'old' Bristol style racing surface had the desired effect anyway. Nine times in the Nationwide race the caution flag came out, someone invoking the 'bump-and-run' to improve their position right at the end (Stenhouse Jr. on Sadler)....just like old times.

Pleased for Danica getting 9th, that's her second-best Nationwide finish of the year IIRC. Not bad for starting 34th, and picking up a pit-lane speeding penalty along the way!
 
Biffle, JJ and Junebug are all now secured in the Chase.

Wild night, all told. Smoke obviously pretty unhappy with Kenseth!

NASCAR.com said:
"We weren't that great of a race car, but we were definitely faster than [Kenseth's car] after that restart [on Lap 329]," Stewart said while his car spent 25 laps in the garage for repairs. "I checked up twice to not run over him, and I learned my lesson there.

"I'm going to run over him every chance I've got from now till the end of the year -- every chance I've got."
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