Johnson ties Earnhardt on career win list

On the first official race of 2016 under NASCAR’s new low-downforce package, there weren’t a lot of drivers leading the field at the Folds of Honor Quik Trip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
But when those who did were engaged in the battle, it proved worthy of the race fan’s attention.
Try to ride comfortably? You risk getting blown away by the rest of the field. Mash the gas, risk losing your tires a lot sooner in a race run.
In the end, Jimmie Johnson made history in a wild finish, coming away with his 76th career victory to tie Dale Earnhardt for seventh on the all-time career list. And in the most appropriate moment of the season so far, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the runner-up.
Johnson’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports tweeted: “Congrats to my friend and teammate @JimmieJohnson on tying my father today in Cup wins. Proud to have ran 2nd on this momentous occasion.”
Not only was Johnson’s win momentous, but the racing was pretty darn awesome, too.
Although only eight drivers led laps at Atlanta, there were 28 lead changes among them. Passing was plentiful and caution flags were few, requiring pit crews to be on their quickest with the stops and crew chiefs to pay close attention to tire wear.
No yellow flags came out until lap 211. The second caution wasn’t until lap 324 for a Ryan Newman spinout, one lap short of the official distance.
Enter NASCAR’s new overtime rule. Once Johnson got past the official overtime line off the final restart, the race was over.
And the field didn’t get to the checkered flag before Johnson could take the white flag due to a four-car accident back in the pack. It left some fans up in arms, but the rule had to be put in place mainly because of the controversy surrounding restart issues on the green-white-checkered attempts of last season.
With Johnson’s win putting him in more elite company than ever before, it begs for truly legitimate questions. Will he get a seventh championship? Will he reach 100 wins?
Under the new Chase format, winning titles is the most difficult it’s been in NASCAR history. It’s not about riding around for maximum points anymore. Winning is rewarded handsomely, as Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick can certainly attest with their Sprint Cup crowns of the last two seasons.
There’s also good news and bad news about Johnson’s quest for 100 wins. The good: He got to No. 76 in his 509th career start, and that averages out to a win every 6.6 times Johnson gets in a race car.
The bad: Johnson is 40 years old and will hit 41 in September.
While the native of El Cajon, Calif., hasn’t gone winless in any of his 15 seasons as a Sprint Cup driver, time and normal wear and tear have a way of catching up to everyone.
Look no further than now-retired Jeff Gordon. Gordon may have 93 career wins, but he was shut out of the win column three times in his 23 seasons (1993, 2008, 2010) and was 44 when he stepped out of the car for the final time in 2015.
There haven’t been any rumblings about Johnson’s future yet or any signs he’s slowed his competitive pace. He led the fewest laps (558) of his career since 2005, but still won five races last season.
But none of us know what will really happen. As long as Johnson keeps winning, what’s to stop him from reaching for the highest heights possible?
Only Johnson himself – not fans, not social media, not media who cover the sport – will determine his place in the history of the sport.
Right now, Johnson’s place is heading toward the stratosphere. Let’s sit back, watch and enjoy it.

Tom Zulewski will be at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the 12th consecutive year starting Friday for the Boyd Gaming 300 and Kobalt 400. Follow him on Twitter @Tomzsports.

NEXT WEEK'S RACES

Las Vegas Motor Speedway (1.5-mile D-shaped oval).

-SPRINT CUP: Kobalt 400, Sunday, 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT, Fox (check local listings). Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local PRN affiliate.

Race distance: 400.5 miles, 267 laps.

2015 champion: Kevin Harvick

-XFINITY SERIES: Boyd Gaming 300, Saturday, 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT, Fox Sports 1 (check local listings). Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local PRN affiliate.

Race distance: 300 miles, 200 laps.

2015 champion: Austin Dillon

-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: Off until April 2 at Martinsville Speedway.

Race lineup for Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500

Not much to be said with this entry except: Below and here is the link to the running order for Sunday's Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway...
One interesting note: Kyle Busch was the original pole winner, but his qualifying time was disallowed. He'll be starting from the rear of the field, which has only 39 cars.
Going to be fun watching Kyle zip through the field. He won a race at Las Vegas (where the series heads next week...yay!) after starting from the back, so we know it can happen.
https://www.nascarmedia.com/news/stat_packages.aspx?LinkId=131876

Hamlin makes hearts skip a beat with Daytona win

Now that’s a way to start a NASCAR season.
Whether you watched Jeff Gordon make his debut with Darrell Waltrip and Mike Joy in the Fox TV booth or listened to the call via MRN on Sunday, what we saw in the Daytona 500 was special.
Denny Hamlin looked like he didn’t have enough left in the No. 11 FedEx Toyota to get his first victory in the Great American Race. Matt Kenseth, for all his struggle to get to the front after switching to a backup car, had his third career 500 win (2009, 2012) well within reach.
But when Hamlin got the push he needed from Kevin Harvick on the final lap and made the move that left Kenseth to fade back, the race to the finish was on.
And what a finish it was.
Hamlin, who was fourth as the field headed to Turn 3, somehow won the drag race to the line with Martin Truex Jr. and won his first Daytona 500. It was the first for Toyota and the final margin was a microscopic one-hundredth of a second.
Actual distance: 12 inches. And that may be too high of an estimate to the naked eye.
Not only did Hamlin win, he basically grabbed it from Truex Jr. over the final 100 feet, if even that much. Beating and banging without wrecking.
This was easily one of the best Daytona 500s in a long, long time. The finish was even closer than Harvick’s win by just .02 over Mark Martin in the 2007 race.
Hamlin admitted in his post-race news conference that he had no idea how he pulled the win off. Once he was able to get past Kenseth – one of his teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing – with a move to the inside that had serious potential to cause a huge wreck, it was gas-mashing time.
And Truex Jr. was the latest to be on the receiving end of heartbreak from another exhilarating Daytona 500 finish.
As the now-retired Jeff Gordon said in his debut broadcast with Fox on the finish, “I’ve got chills up my spine. That was amazing.”
It was the perfect capper to a Speedweeks that was chock full of storylines.
• Rookie Chase Elliott, who replaced Gordon in the No. 24, won the pole last week, but couldn’t avoid the infield grass early. He ended up 37th, 40 laps down.
• The consensus in the garage was that Dale Earnhardt Jr. had the car to beat, but he got into an infield wall with 30 to go and finished 36th.
• Despite qualifying on the outside pole and leading 40 laps, Kenseth ended up 14th when his block on Hamlin backfired.
Add in the challenges with the new charter system, fields limited to 40 cars, and a competitive Sprint Cup rookie class, and we’re just getting warmed up for the season to come.
The new low-downforce package is in play when the series gets to Atlanta next weekend. It will be intriguing to see how it performs on a mile-and-a-half track.
And after that, it’s Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the Kobalt 400 on March 6. It will be my 12th straight year covering the racing there, and I can not wait.
There are fun times and a fun season ahead. If you choose to call the racing boring, that’s your business, but it’s about time to push the focus on the positive.

Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter, @Tomzsports.

NEXT WEEK'S RACES

Atlanta Motor Speedway (1.54-mile quad-oval), Hampton, Georgia

-SPRINT CUP: Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT, Fox (check local listings). Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local PRN affiliate.

Race distance: 500.5 miles, 325 laps.

2015 champion: Jimmie Johnson

-XFINITY SERIES: Heads Up Georgia 250, Saturday, 1:30 p.m. ET/10:30 a.m. PT, Fox Sports 1. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local PRN affiliate.

Race distance: 250.25 miles, 162 laps.

2015 champion: Kevin Harvick

-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: GreatClips 200, Saturday, 4:30 p.m. ET/1:30 p.m. PT, Fox Sports 1. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local PRN affiliate.

Race distance: 200 miles, 130 laps.

2015 champion: Matt Crafton.

Chase arrives, but one change baffles

After two wildly successful years of NASCAR's knockout format for the Chase in Sprint Cup, there was a sense that the formula would trickle down to the XFINITY and Camping World Truck Series as well.
As of Tuesday, the vision of change turned into reality during NASCAR's annual preseason media tour at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

It won't be on as big a scale as it is in Cup, but the two lower-tier national series now have a Chase format to call their own in the race for the championship in 2016 and beyond.
Both the XFINITY and Truck series will do their Chase over the final seven races of the season. XFINITY will have 12 eligible drivers and the trucks will have eight. Across all of the series, round names have been eliminated. While XFINITY will eliminate four drivers after each three-race round, the trucks will only send two to the sidelines before the Championship 4 are set for the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
And all Sprint Cup regulars are not eligible to race in either the XFINITY or trucks finale, which is an outstanding development. No clutter, just the focus on who will win the title.
The XFINITY series will have an interesting new twist during the season with the introduction of four Dash 4 Cash races -- Bristol (April 16), Richmond (April 23), Dover (May 14) and Indianapolis (July 23). There will be two heats (with odd- and even-numbered starting positions) and a main, similar to a typical Saturday night at a local short track.
The top two XFINITY regulars (no Cup drivers) from each heat become eligible for a $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus. If a driver wins two of the bonuses, it's as good as a regular race win and all but assures a spot in the Chase.
The XFINITY Chase begins with the opening round at Kentucky (Sept. 24), Dover (Oct. 1) and Charlotte (Oct. 7). When 12 get cut to eight, those drivers will face their last chances to make the finale at Kansas (Oct. 15), Texas (Nov. 5) and Phoenix (Nov. 12).
The Camping World Truck Series Chase races its first round at New Hampshire (Sept. 24), Las Vegas (Oct. 1) and Talladega (Oct. 22). After two drivers are eliminated, the final chances to get to Homestead happen at Martinsville (Oct. 29), Texas (Nov. 4) and Phoenix (Nov. 11).
But while the Chase is a welcome change, the truck series has a new rule being used throughout the 2016 season that can only be described as baffling.
A "caution clock" will run and a yellow flag will be displayed every 20 minutes from the drop of the green flag. If a caution comes out before that time expires, the clock resets once the race restarts. With the exception of Pocono and the road course at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, the clock is turned off for the final 20 laps.
At Pocono and CTMP, the clock is turned off over the final 10 laps due to the larger size of the tracks.
Quite frankly, I simply don't get why this rule is being implemented. It will make fuel-mileage racing a distant memory.
One of my favorite truck races from 2015 was when John Wes Townley won the Rhino Linings 350 at Las Vegas. There were exactly three cautions over the 146-lap race and the last 94 laps were run under the green flag.
It led to fuel-mileage gambles that backfired. Matt Crafton's fuel ran out with six laps left, and Cameron Hayley followed soon after that. Townley stayed out of trouble and earned his first series win in a pretty cool moment.
In terms of time, the race was run in a nice 1 hour, 38 minutes. With this new rule, there would be four additional yellow flags thrown simply for the short-attention-span crowd, and that's terrible.
Only two of last year's 23 CWTS races were run in over two hours. There were an average of 5.9 cautions per race, and two had more than 10 (Martinsville 2 with 12, Eldora with 13). The average time it took to finish a trucks race was 1:44.
If we do the math with the 20-minute caution formula, we are potentially adding six more cautions to the legitimate ones that are simply a part of the racing.
That makes no sense at all. It's a dumbing down of the racing and creating unnecessary time and expense for the race fan. That is truly a shame, but the only way we'll know how well it works is to put it to the test on track.
Let's just say there won't be a ringing endorsement from the Gear Box staff anytime soon.
Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter @Tomzsports.

Goodyear test wraps up at Las Vegas

With the first official opportunity to work on the new lower downforce package, four past NASCAR Sprint Cup champions put the wraps on two days worth of Goodyear tire testing a cool, gray cloud blanket at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Kurt Busch (2004), sporting the fire suit of new sponsor Monster Energy, called the changes being made to the car "nothing too dramatic."

"We're trying to find the best possible combination of speed, handling and making the tire durable," Busch said during a lunch break between the morning and afternoon sessions on the 1.5-mile oval. "Most importantly, putting together a good product on track so the cars can race side-by-side more easily."

Matt Kenseth (2003) said the test at Las Vegas is only a small part of the work that lies ahead with the Daytona 500 only six weeks away.

"There's so much more that's done these days with computer simulation, the wind tunnel," Kenseth said. "It's nice to run those things at the race track to validate, but everyone's so much smarter with computers and engineering, everything's still going to be pretty close when you get to the track."

Kenseth came away from the Wednesday morning test impressed with the speeds, but cautioned to not read much into them.

"It's surprising how fast it's been, but we didn't do much with in-car stuff, just work on tire combinations," he said.

Six-time Cup champ Jimmie Johnson added that while his No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet was fast, the lack of tire falloff wasn't due to any issues with the lower downforce that should make the cars more challenging to drive.

"In the Kansas test (last season) with this package, we were able to create a lot of falloff with the tire," Johnson said. "With these cool conditions and the surface still so good, it's tougher to bring the falloff we're looking for. Bottom line...we were really fast."

Brad Keselowski (2012 champ) said last year's success with the low downforce package at Kentucky (6th-place finish) and Darlington (second) gave his No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion team plenty of reason for optimism heading to Daytona.

"Those were two of our best races last year," Keselowski said. "We're ready to work through the challenges."

In addition to the new downforce package, Ford introduced a new body style for the Fusion that Keselowski and the rest of their drivers will race in 2016. 

For more from the drivers at the Goodyear tire test in Las Vegas, head over to NASCAR Happy Hour or NASCAR History - 2003-current on Facebook. I welcome all followers on Twitter as well @Tomzsports.

Goals and dreams for the new year

As 2015 winds down to its last remaining days, I wanted to say a few things regarding what this blog has meant to me and how I hope to carry it forward into 2016 and beyond.
If you haven't heard my story before, I am a former employee of a small daily paper in the southwest corner of Utah who struck out on his own in June in search of his next big adventure when new powers that be came into the place and basically gutted everything.
If you had real talent and a passion for auto racing like I did, it didn't matter to them. If it wasn't getting clicks -- and I can say with dang straight certainty several of my pieces had clicks in the hundreds -- just shut it down.
Well, I decided that 10-plus years of relationships that had already been well-established weren't going to be shut down on my watch. It's all about moving forward, not three steps backward.
I am employed on a part-time basis by the community weekly in my hometown, and they have been a wonderful backbone of support in allowing me to continue writing about auto racing, a sport I love to cover and have gotten pretty good at.
And I know the audience in my home state is there -- from north or south. Just check the infield parking lot at Las Vegas in March and you'll see plenty of Utah plates on the motor homes and RVs.
This blog was born -- actually an extension from what I had produced in print and online at the old place -- in June, and this is the 58th piece I've produced, an average of around 12 per month.
Some have resonated with you more than others, but all have drawn a consistent audience. I'd love if the audience were bigger, but around 2,500 total page views in the space of those posts isn't half bad for starting from scratch.
I know I can do more, though. I'd love a little bit of help.
I've appeared on the radio in multiple venues to talk up racing with great people. I was a weekly regular on Racing Fan Radio out of Salt Lake City on 1320 KFAN for nearly 15 months and still appear on the air occasionally. I was a guest on Press Pass on SiriusXM with PRN's Mark Garrow and my friend and colleague Jerry Bonkowski of NBC Sports three weeks ago.
That's a national audience -- seriously cool stuff.
I've appeared on the Happy Hour Garage podcast -- www.happyhourgarage.com -- with friends Shannon Yochim and Maureen Kelly, and that feels like another good, logical step to help me continue building a brand as a member of the motor sports media.
The first essential need is some good podcasting equipment. I've learned that recording each show with no distractions or background noise is essential to the quality of the work, too.
I can work on the show details as each week comes -- journalists are masters of planning on the fly -- but don't want to break the bank in getting the show off the ground.
Any advice or knowledge is more than welcome. You can share with me on my Twitter, which will display at the end of this post.
As for the immediate future, I'm going to enjoy the offseason and let 2016 slide into place. I'll be around and return to full-on posting here as warranted through January, then hit the ground blazing as racing at the Daytona 500 gets closer.
Thank you all for reading this blog. I hope you and yours have an awesome, speed-filled season in 2016.
Followers and comments are more than welcome on Twitter @Tomzsports.

Surprise for Gordon caps memorable night at Sprint Cup awards

For the seventh straight year, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion’s Week celebration happened in various locations around Las Vegas, from the FanFest on Fremont Street in the downtown area to the official crowning of Kyle Busch as the 2015 champion Dec. 4 at the Wynn Hotel and Casino resort.

I was blessed beyond measure to bring the moments from Champion’s Week to everything from social media to radio, and now to print for an inside look at my favorites, starting with the NMPA Myers Brothers Awards luncheon. It’s why making the trip, even on my own dime, is worth it every single time.
-Busch was given a 24-carat gold 1/12th diecast model of his No. 18 M&Ms Toyota Camry. He gave credit to tire provider Goodyear, saying “it was a lot of fun to burn up and rip apart tires on the way to the checkered flag.”
Then came William Clement, who accepted the Champion Sponsor Award for the Mars candy company, primary sponsor for Busch.
After looking at the gold car for a moment, Clement turned toward the audience and said “the only thing better than one of those cars in gold is one made out of chocolate.”
Love the synergy that comes from something like that.
-One of the better underdog stories of the year came with Martin Truex Jr., who drives for the Furniture Row Racing team based out of Denver. Truex finished fourth in the final standings and spoke of how girlfriend Sherry Pollex’s fight against ovarian cancer shaped his attitude.
“With her determination, her fight and her spirit, she never let (her illness) get her down,” he said. “She never asked ‘why me?,’ never had a pity party. It was all about ‘what do I gotta do to beat this? I learned a lot from her that I was able to translate into making this season a successful one. Having a positive mental attitude is very important, and watching her go through what she did the way she did really helped me with that.”
-The red-carpet arrivals for the ceremony to honor Busch were loaded with celebrities, from show host Drew Carey (“The Price is Right”) to Sabrina Carpenter (“Girl Meets World”), Rachel Platten (who closed the show in awesome fashion with her hit “Fight Song.”) and even the red and yellow M&Ms characters.
Best wardrobe choice of the night belonged to Rutledge Wood of NBC Sports Network, who handled the pre-show interviews dressed in a red plaid suit with black-and-gold trim. It looked like something crossed between Bobby Knight’s 1970s wardrobe when he coached at Indiana to a test pattern on a TV screen.
I laughed openly when I got my first look at it, and that’s not a bad thing.
-As for the ceremony itself, the top 16 finishers from the Chase were all there except for Denny Hamlin, who is recovering from surgery. The favorite early highlight came from Clint Bowyer, who finished 16th.
“I’ve never finished last at anything in my life,” Bowyer lamented half-heartedly, calling the trophy a “participation award.”
When asked what he thought the family reaction would be like, good-natured humor was on the agenda.
“Even grandma’s gonna give me grief for this,” Bowyer said with a chuckle.
-Several Green Bay Packers fans are in the NASCAR garage, including Wisconsin natives Paul Menard and Matt Kenseth. As a Michigan native, Brad Keselowski counts himself – albeit quietly (a good call, by the way) as a Detroit Lions fan.
Following the Packers’ Hail Mary miracle on the final play Thursday night that beat the Lions, Kenseth related his reaction to it.
“I was looking at my phone and saw double-zero on the clock and thought the Lions had won,” Kenseth said. “My wife (Katie) came up to me and said ‘you know the Packers actually won, right?’”
Of course, Kenseth got to see the winning play soon after.
As for Keselowski, he described how he couldn’t find the CBS station that carried the game on the TV in his hotel room until he saw the fateful play.
“It was my fault,” he joked about the Lions’ loss.
-But clearly the biggest moment that made this ceremony so special came with the surprise introduction of Jeff Gordon by none other than actor Tom Cruise, who starred in a little racing movie in 1990 called “Days of Thunder,” two full years before Gordon had his first Sprint Cup start.
It was a moment to relish and savor. All that was needed was to see the tears in Gordon’s eyes and the genuine emotion that poured out in his speech.
At that point, the reality of the end of a sensational 23-year NASCAR Sprint Cup driving career settled in. We’ll always have Gordon’s 93 career wins – third on the all-time list – and four championships, but I got so much more from his work in the long-term.
There’s passion and joy that comes from bringing racing to readers each week. Racers like Gordon have helped make my passion come to life, and saying “thank you” for an amazing adventure in simple words isn’t nearly enough.
I may be writing in a small town for a publication that prints only once a week, but I know my heart for motor sports is in the right place every single day.
Thanks, Jeff. #24ever.

Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter @Tomzsports.