By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

In a really vicious wreck on the track, the best thing a race car can do is come apart. A multiple-barrel-roll thrill-ride featuring a car that’s dumping flaming debris and fluids all over the track might look really scary, but it usually means the driver’s just fine–by contrast, when a car is brought to an abrupt but unspectacular halt after hitting a guard wall or a dirt embankment and the window net doesn’t come down, it’s usually a sign of big trouble. Same as in highway crashes, the old truism holds that energy dissipated through flying car parts and rending sheetmetal is energy that the driver’s body will not have to absorb. In stock-car racing’s past, many of the fatal wrecks are those that don’t really look all that dramatic at the time–Dale Earnhardt’s tragic last-lap crash at Daytona in 2001 comes to mind. And perhaps ironically, it was this very incident that changed the sport’s entire approach to driver safety, and paved the way for cars that now crash very differently from the way they did even a few years ago. Read more…

Continue reading "Surviving A Wreck That Would Have Been Fatal: Luck Or Engineering?" »

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Amidst a massive last-lap wreck, Denny Hamlin took took the win on a green-white-checker restart after dominating the final part of the race at Pocono. Meanwhile, as eight smashed and smoldering race cars limped or were hauled back to the garage, a normally good-natured Joey Logano stormed into the No. 29 pit and got all up in Kevin Harvick’s face, and a bunch of pushing and shoving ensued. While all hell was breaking loose at the end of an otherwise pretty peaceful race, I was way out in the grass on Turn 1. Did anyone see what happened on TV?

NASCAR coverage brought to you by Valvoline Engine Guarantee–the first and only motor oil in the industry that will guarantee your engine up to 300,000 miles. *Registration required, some limitations apply.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

NASCAR the sanctioning body loves throwing curveball rule changes at its race teams, and just last weekend when I was in the garage at Charlotte, NASCAR announced that teams would be limited to a 3.89 rear gear package for the Pocono race. That gave teams only a week to adjust the car’s entire setup for softer acceleration, different shift points, and slower top speeds. At Pocono, with its runway-like frontstretch, the longest straightaway in NASCAR, the change is comparable to restrictor plating the cars. I wonder why NASCAR wants slower race cars at Pocono so badly. Are they worried about them getting airborne?

NASCAR coverage brought to you by Valvoline Engine Guarantee–the first and only motor oil in the industry that will guarantee your engine up to 300,000 miles. *Registration required, some limitations apply.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

For Denny Hamlin, Pocono is a feast or famine kind of track–he runs “either really good or really bad” here. Yesterday he was third fastest in both the first and the final practice, but 18th fastest in the second practice–which kind of proves his point. But he likes Pocono, he won the last race here, and he tends to do well at flat tracks–all points in his favor for Pocono. While Denny will be starting 5th, Kyle Busch won the pole for today’s race in qualifying, which makes the Joe Gibbs Toyotas the team to beat on this difficult track. However, Jimmie Johnson has been strong here too, but has had a string of bad luck over the last several races, including a near-DNF last week at Charlotte during which his team had to replace his car’s entire front clip outside the race in the dark. The No. 48 team may finally catch a break this weekend at Pocono, but between the Gibbs cars, Jimmie will have his work cut out for him.

NASCAR coverage brought to you by Valvoline Engine Guarantee–the first and only motor oil in the industry that will guarantee your engine up to 300,000 miles. *Registration required, some limitations apply.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

It seems like we’ve had a few weeks of rental-car sedans and hybrids as pace cars (no offense, Toyota Camry hybrid), so it’s cool to see that Pocono Raceway is going to be running the safety lights on this bright white Camaro SS here at this weekend. It seemed like there were Camaros at every race for awhile in there, but I guess they seem to have gotten more sparse now that the novelty has worn off. It’s going to be cool to see a Camaro out leading the pack once again!

NASCAR coverage brought to you by Valvoline Engine Guarantee–the first and only motor oil in the industry that will guarantee your engine up to 300,000 miles. *Registration required, some limitations apply.

Continue reading "Finally, A Cool Pace Car" »

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

NASCAR has been putting together some nice hightlight reels from the races that they’re calling Sights and Sounds. Here’s the latest one from Sunday’s awesome race at Talladega, posted on NASCAR’s Facebook page this morning.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Last night, Jimmie Johnson became the first driver in NASCAR’s 61-year history to win four consecutive Sprint Cup championships. Any way you cut it, that’s pretty impressive–Jimmie and Chad the entire Hendrick organization absolutely deserve to revel in the victory they’ve earned. At the same time, Jimmie (perhaps unfairly) has come to represent to a lot of folks everything that is bloodless and corporate about modern stock car racing. There’s a good chance that his run of wins will turn a lot of people away from the sport, as the abysmal ratings of this year’s Chase for the Cup have already suggested–especially old-school fans who crave the firey personalities and distinguishable cars and cut-throat driving of yesteryear’s NASCAR. People forget that Jimmie grew up in a trailer park, and that just like everyone else he earned his salt in motorsports, rising through the ranks of motocross and off-road and the minor leagues of ASA and NASCAR to get to where he is today. But regrettably, despite his obviously prodigious driving skill and team dedication, he often comes across as simply a corporate racebot who’s just had everything handed to him. How about you–what are your feelings on Jimmie’s fourth championship victory? And how will it affect how you watch NASCAR in the 2010 season?

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

As you probably know, the racecars that compete in NASCAR’s top series are subject to ongoing, nearly constant inspections from the moment they roll off the trailer at any given track. When I was in Dover last weekend, one of the things I was especially curious about was the post-race teardown, where inspectors nab the winning car and a handful of randoms and then break them down into nothing but a heap of components, going through the car with a fine-toothed comb to rule out cheating. So as soon as the race was won and the Victory Lane celebrations were over, I high-tailed it over to the garage area to watch Greg Biffle’s No. 16 Ford, still sticky with Gatorade and confetti, get transformed from a race-winning Sprint Cup car to a rolling shell and a rubble of car parts. Read more…

Continue reading "NASCAR Post-Race Teardown" »

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Today was huge for the Roush-Fenway Fords, with Greg Biffle scoring the win at Dover following a harrowing battle with Roush teammates Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards. Those two finished second and third, respectively, but not before spending the final 25 laps trading paint and nearly giving team owner Jack Roush a heart attack. As Greg Biffle reflected after the race on what it must’ve been like for his boss to witness his Fords’ kamikaze three-wide antics, "I would have crapped my pants watching those three cars run into each other." But all the beatin’ and bangin’ paid off, of course, with a 1-2-3 finish for the Roush Fords, a sweep that some speculated might’ve even been 1-2-3-4 if Jamie McMurray hadn’t been caught up in a wreck after leading the race early on. The win seemed to come as a bit astonishing to Biffle, who said his car had been off and on all day and who had been second-guessing his suspension setup until well into the race. Biffle hadn’t scored a win all season prior to his back-to-back victories in these first two races of the Chase for the Cup. Congratulations!

See a few of my pics from today’s finish.

Continue reading "Somewhere Under All That Confetti Is Greg Biffle" »

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Kyle Busch, tailed by ESPN pit reporter Jamie Little, leaves his No. 18 Toyota following a catastrophic engine failure that sent his car to the garage. If you were watching, you’ll know that the car started billowing smoke out the exhaust at around lap 140, before it settled down to puffing smoke in bursts in time with the RPM. It hung on that way for several laps, but finally expired and was pushed into the garage. There, the team drained the oil and started tearing the motor down. That splatter of oil on the underside of the hood doesn’t look like a good sign, and there was more down the right-hand fender—but at the time, the crew was talking burned or bent valves and thinking maybe they could get the car back out on the track to avoid a DNF. Even if they do, however, the buzz is that this incident is going to be catastrophic for the former points-leader’s championship standings: Kyle will be lucky if he can hang onto the bottom rung of the Chase ladder. But Busch isn’t the only Chase Toyota having drivetrain problems today—Denny Hamlin had to go into the garage to swap out his rear end and axles after having burned them up, and is back out on the track, 37 laps down. See some shots of the No. 18 in the garage.

Continue reading "Kyle Busch Heartbroken Following Engine Failure" »