The racers ran out of gas at the end of Sunday’s Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway, just as they have at few other times this season, but fortunately for pole-sitter Brian Vickers it happened as he was heading to Victory Lane. The fuel management and timing of Jimmie Johnson wasn’t quite as precise on this day as he ended up running out of fuel for his race car with about two laps remaining of the scheduled 400 in this Sprint Cup Series competition. In fact, Johnson had been spending a lot of his race trying to conserve fuel for …read more

Just stay close and you’ll get your chance must have been what hometown boy Brad Keselowski was thinking as he stayed close to the pitch battle occurring between Brian Vickers and Kyle Busch below his car. He stayed out of the way of these dueling racers and when he chance appeared on the last lap he put his foot down and passed the pair using the outside line to take the victory in Saturday’s Carfax 250 Nationwide Series event ahead of two surprised gentlemen-racers. This intelligent-win is an excellent example of using your head on a race track instead of …read more

The winless streaks by drivers such as Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick have ranked amongst some of the biggest stories so far this season. They came into this week’s race at Watkins Glen as some of the odds-on-favorite to win, but alas, Kyle Busch shut the door on those plans yet again. This week’s “List of the Week” will feature the 10 longest winless droughts amongst the drivers inside the top-20 in points.
10. Matt Kenseth – 22 races – Last Win: Homestead-Miami Speedway, Fall 2007
9. Jeff Gordon – 27 races – Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Fall 2007
8. Greg Biffle …read more

With the cutoff for the Chase quickly approaching, a mere 5 races now separates us from the beginning of NASCAR’s playoff season. Yet, still, there is quite a bit of uncertainty in the air as to whom will be competing for a championship in the final 10 races and who will be racing to build momentum for the 2009 season. Only 80 points separates 7th place Kasey Kahne from 12th place Clint Bowyer, and only 46 points from Bowyer back to 14th place David Ragan. Even Brian Vickers all the way back in 16th still has a shot at this …read more

Rain played a large part in pretty much anything NASCAR tried to accomplish this weekend, and Sunday’s race at Pocono was no different. It was also one of the more interesting weekends in Carl Edwards’ professional racing career, that’s for sure. He had to squeegee the rain off his own windshield under caution during Saturday’s Nationwide Series race in Montreal (in which he finished 6th). Then, after both of the Sprint Cup practice sessions were rained out on Saturday, his team unloaded off the hauler on Sunday with a car that Crew Chief, Bob Osbourne, described as “experimental.” Then, they …read more

TZ’s Picks (Pocono):
1. Denny Hamlin – 23rd – No points
2. Kurt Busch – 38th – No points
3. Jimmie Johnson – 3rd – 41 points
4. Tony Stewart – 2nd - 41 points
5. Brian Vickers – 28th – No points
6. Kasey Kahne – 7th – 37.5 points
Lock of the Week – Denny Hamlin – Outside Top Fifteen – No points
Sleeper Pick – AJ Allmendinger – Outside Top Fifteen – No points
Steer Clear of – Kevin Harvick – Top Five – (Minus) 20 points
Roc’s Picks (Pocono):
1. Jeff Gordon – 10th – 38.5 points
2. Jimmie Johnson – 3rd – 41.5 points
3. Denny Hamlin – 23rd …read more

Coming off of a terrible weekend at Indy, you can bet that NASCAR’s feeling the pressure to make sure that everything goes as smoothly as possible at Pocono this weekend, and if the trip here back in June is any indication, then things should be just fine. It’s also a big weekend for the teams, as Pocono is only the second track on the schedule that the series has already traveled to once before this season, and this is about the time of year that you really begin to see how much some of these groups have been able to …read more

For those of you that had the misguided pleasure of watching this past weekend’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, chances are that you were extremely disappointed with the product that NASCAR and Goodyear brought to the table … and, the drivers and their crews were no different. Perhaps the closed door meeting from NASCAR a couple months back asking the drivers to keep the verbal car bashing to a minimum may have warded off some of the overly eccentric tyrades similar to what we heard from Tony Stewart when he bashed Goodyear following the Atlanta race, but nonetheless, many of the Sprint Cup …read more

With only two accidents and one blown engine, the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in Indianapolis Motorspeedway still managed to see 11 caution periods during the 160-lap event because of tire issues …. that’s the story of Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race, and unfortunately that story overshadows the one of Jimmie Johnson winning the pole award and going on to pick up his second career victory at the Brickyard.
NASCAR knew that they were likely to experience tire issues, but they weren’t sure just how bad it would be. They had a competition caution scheduled within the first 15 laps of the …read more

Before I get into this week’s topic, I would like to point out that Bruce Simmons, who normally joins us here in our weekly “Loose in Turn 3″ segment representing Bruce’s NASCAR Bits ‘n’ Pieces, will to be joining us this week as he is off in San Diego on a separate venture at the moment. He will be returning with us next week, but in his place today is our guest blogger, one of DYN’s very own loyal readers, Rocky Akins. I’d like to give a special thanks to Roc for filling the gaps for us this week, and as a bonus, he even …read more