Month: July 2017

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway will be a hot, slick, challenging racetrack for the 40 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series drivers competing in Sunday’s 24th annual Brickyard 400. But, there are few tracks where raising the trophy at the end of the day means more than it does at the 108-year-old Indy oval.

Clint Bowyer knows a win Sunday afternoon would top the list of his career accomplishments in the Cup Series. Only 13 drivers have their likeness on the Brickyard 400 trophy permanently housed in the track’s infield museum. The Emporia, Kansas native will drive the No. 14 most recently driven at Indianapolis by Hoosier racing legend and Bowyer’s boss Tony Stewart, who retired from NASCAR competition last year.

“I love going to Indianapolis,” said Bowyer, whose No. 14 Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) will carry the Mobil 1/Rush Truck Centers paint scheme this weekend. “The history and tradition behind it is very special. It’s a huge opportunity, and a privilege, to be able to race on it. I understand the significance of Indianapolis. I enjoy not only the city, but also the racetrack. Knowing Tony’s thoughts about Indianapolis only makes it more important we do well this weekend.”

Indy is a difficult track for the stock car crowd, whose cars lack the downforce of their open wheel counterparts in the IndyCar Series. The rectangular oval track includes two 5/8-mile straightaways and four nearly identical quarter-mile turns connected by short, eighth-mile straightaways. The turns are banked about nine degrees – far flatter than the 30-plus-degree banking at tracks like Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, and others that are part of the NASCAR schedule.

“Indy is just so unique,” said Bowyer, who has posted two top-five and three-top 10 finishes in 12 starts at Indianapolis. “You’re going so fast. The corners are so flat. You’ve got to have that baby flat to the floor, all the way around. It’s just a hard, hard track to get around.”

He said the key to racing success there is managing risk behind the steering wheel.

“The challenge is trying to be patient,” Bowyer said. “You just have to be patient. You push it to the edge there. You come off of them corners and you’re like, ‘There’s no way. I’m gonna hit the wall. Whoo.’ By the way, I gotta do that 400 more miles.”

Bowyer has more incentive than just winning at the world’s most famous racetrack. He and his No. 14 team led by crew chief Mike (Buga) Bugarewicz are battling for one of the final berths in NASCAR’s 16-team playoffs. Bowyer arrives at Indianapolis 15th in the standings, just 54 ahead of the cutoff for the final playoff spot. A win would secure a berth and make for a much more pleasant summer stretch, but Bowyer knows that without a regular-season win, accumulating every available point is mandatory.

He’s done a good job of that in 2017. The No. 14 team has scored the 10th-most points of any team. It’s a significant accomplishment for Bowyer and Bugarewicz in their first season together and first season with Ford Performance. The Roush-Yates-powered team has posted three second-place finishes and eight top-10s this season.

Last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, Bowyer rallied in the closing laps for a seventh-place finish. It marked his third top-10 in the last four races. Bowyer has scored the third-most points of any driver in the last four races that included second-place finishes at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway and Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.

“We go into each weekend thinking we need to win to make the playoffs,” Bowyer said. “Indianapolis is no different.”

If successful this weekend, he’ll join a handful of drivers who’ve won at the Brickyard, secured a 2017 playoff berth and taken a place in the history books.

That’s a lot of incentive.

CLINT BOWYER, Driver of the No. 14 Mobil 1/Rush Truck Centers Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What makes winning at Indianapolis so special?

“Oh, I think it’s the racetrack, man. It’s the history behind it. It’s a hard race. It’s a hard place to get around, as a driver. But it all comes down to the history, the people who have won that race and won at that racetrack before you. That’s why you want to win there so badly.”

Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Beer Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), kicked off his Tuesday-night SiriusXM Radio show “Happy Hours” by announcing that he and wife DeLana are expecting to add a daughter to their family around the first of the year.

The surprise announcement comes as the NASCAR Cup Series heads to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, where Harvick is the most recent Cup Series winner on the 1.058-mile oval.

In September 2016, things didn’t go as planned for Harvick and the No. 4 team at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet to kick off the NASCAR playoffs. The 20^th-place finish at Chicagoland had the team ranked 13^th in points, trailing SHR teammate Tony Stewart by one point with two races before the cutoff for the Round of 12.

Harvick started 19th in the 40-car field at New Hampshire and quickly made a charge to the front, cracking the top-10 within the first 50 laps around the track. By the halfway point, he had become a fixture among the top-five. The last restart of the race turned out to be the game changer for Harvick and company.

The 2014 Sprint Cup champion was in second place for the restart with six laps to go. He charged into the first turn alongside race leader Matt Kenseth and maintained the inside position on the track as the field raced down the backstretch into turn three. He emerged as the race leader at the exit of turn four and started to stretch the lead during the final laps en route to the victory.

The victory allowed the No. 4 team to automatically advance to the Round of 12 in the 2016 playoffs and continue its pursuit of Harvick’s second championship.

As the second half of the 2017 season continues, Harvick and the No. 4 team are ranked fourth in points with a win to their credit and eight playoff points. The goal moving forward is to score as many playoff points as possible in the remaining seven regular-season races.

The best way to gain playoff points is to win races and win stages. Harvick and the No. 4 Busch Beer team will attempt to do both this weekend at New Hampshire as he continues his march toward a second NASCAR Cup Series championship.

Harvick is hoping the good news continues with a win on Sunday.

KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Busch Beer Ford Fusion:

Harvick on his family expecting the arrival of a baby girl around the first of the year:

“(Son) Keelan (Harvick) obviously broke the news this week but, I think for us, we had a birthday party with DeLana’s birthday being on Friday of Kentucky weekend and Keelan’s birthday on Saturday, so we had a big birthday party at the house for DeLana and Keelan. We had all of DeLana’s family, we had my mom come out, and we had everybody in the yard. We figured, ‘You know what? It’s just a good time to tell everybody.’ So, we weren’t going to tell anybody else, and then this week I did my call-in at the shop and my good ole buddy Clint Bowyer, who has known for a long time everything that has been going on, and he said, ‘Well, how’d it go?’ And I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ So he says, ‘Well, did you tell everybody at the party? You know, you were going to tell everybody at the party.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, yep, told everybody.’ So he was like, ‘Well, tell everybody else!’ So I had to tell everybody in the competition meeting. Then we walk outside on Tuesday morning to go to Pocono for an appearance, and Keelan is going with me, but he sees the pilot when we get to the airport and he says, ‘Guess what, Mr. Chris? I’m going to be a big brother.’ I was like, OK, so I told DeLana, ‘Keelan is going to tell everybody because he seems to be pretty excited about the situation and everything that’s going on.’”

What does it take to be successful at Loudon?

“I’d say the most important thing at Loudon is track position just because it’s hard to pass. You want to be up front and on the right strategy no matter what you do. If the caution flag falls in the wrong spot and you lose track position, it usually becomes a longer day than it could have been.”

The first time Kurt Busch raced at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, he won. It was July 8, 2000 and Busch was a rookie in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Wheeling a Ford F-150 and coming off his first career win the week before at the Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, Wisconsin, Busch qualified fifth at New Hampshire and then led the final 35 laps around the 1.058-mile oval to earn his first Granite State victory and his second Truck Series win in a row.

Busch only spent one season in the Truck Series before jumping to the elite Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. At just 22 years old, Busch entered the 2001 season as a rookie competing with the best drivers in the world. He didn’t make it to victory lane that year, but moments of brilliance flashed, including a pole-winning effort at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and a fifth-place finish in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

When Busch came back to New Hampshire in 2002 as a sophomore in the NASCAR Cup Series, he knocked down an eighth-place finish in July and followed it up with a second-place effort when the series returned in September. It was the beginning of what has become an exemplary Cup Series record at New Hampshire.

The now 39-year-old has three wins, two second-place finishes, seven top-threes, eight top-fives, 13 top-10s and has led a total of 541 laps in his 32 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at New Hampshire. His average start is 11.8, his average finish is 15.8 and his lap completion rate is 96 percent.

Busch’s three NASCAR Cup Series wins at New Hampshire ties him for the most among active drivers, joining Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Ryan Newman.

And while every win is cherished, those first two New Hampshire triumphs carry significant importance.

The year was 2004, which any New Englander who knows the names Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone remembers vividly. That’s because it was the year the Boston Red Sox finally vanquished the Curse of the Bambino, winning its first World Series since 1918 by sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals. Well before this October Classic of All Classics, Busch swept the NASCAR Cup Series’ races at New Hampshire in 2004. He overcame a 32^nd-place qualifying effort in July to lead twice for 110 laps en route to his first win Cup Series win at the track. His second win came in September when he led three times for a race-high 155 laps. Busch went on to win the 2004 NASCAR Cup Series championship.

Coincidence? We think not.

When Busch won at New Hampshire in September 2004, he became the first driver to win a race in NASCAR’s playoffs. The victory placed Busch in a tie with Dale Earnhardt Jr. for first place in the championship standings. Busch also became one of only two drivers to have swept the slate of NASCAR Cup Series races at New Hampshire. The other is Johnson, who swept the pair of Cup Series races in 2003.

Busch’s most recent win at New Hampshire came in July 2008 when he won the rain-shortened NASCAR Cup Series race. He only led 10 laps, but they were the final 10 of the 284-lap contest.

Busch has captured the magic of the Magic Mile before, and as the driver of the No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Ford Fusion returns to New Hampshire after back-to-back DNFs (Did Not Finish) at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway and Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, he’s looking to recapture that magic.

With a win in the season-opening Daytona 500, along with two top-fives and eight top-10s in the 18 races prior to the Overton’s 301 on Sunday, Busch is plenty capable of earning a fourth victory at New Hampshire to solidify his playoff standing and take sole possession of having the most New Hampshire wins among active drivers.

With the Red Sox back in first place in its division, Busch looks to take a page from 2004 and grab another first-place trophy in New England on Sunday.

KURT BUSCH, Driver of the No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Your record at New Hampshire is pretty stout. Why is that?

“It’s a track that has been pretty good to me since I started racing in the top series of this sport. I raced there for the first time in the Truck Series and won that race. Then, it’s a track where I have three wins in the Cup cars and, when you’re able to go to a track where you’ve had that kind of success, it just gives you confidence. Because of the wins and everything, it’s a place we go to where I feel like I especially know what it takes from the car and the driver to be successful.”

Are the challenges at New Hampshire the same as always, or does the track change over the years?

“It seems like it has changed a little bit toward the end of the race with a lot of aggressive restarts. That is when you gain positions, or it’s easy to lose positions. Everybody is out there elbows out, pushing hard, and you hope to not have trouble.”

What do you need your car to do really well at New Hampshire to have a chance to win?

“It’s got to be able to cut in the center of the corner, cut underneath guys, look to get to that bottom lane and drive up off the corner and get side-by-side with guys. That way you have position on corner exit.”

With New Hampshire being a tight and flat one-mile oval, it has some short-track characteristics in that there’s close racing and sometimes contact is made. If you inadvertently get into someone, do you try to right that wrong so it doesn’t come back to bite you later?

“It depends upon the circumstances, but yes. Usually, you’re trying to keep your eye on the main prize, which is victory lane at the end of the day. If you have a run-in early on in the race, that guy is going to be trying to find you or you’re looking over your shoulder. So if you can sort of hit a reset button and right a mistake, you do that, but not at the expense of taking yourself out of position for the win.”

Event:               Overton’s 200 (Round 17 of 33)
Date:                 July 15, 2017
Location:          New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon
Layout:             1.058-mile oval

Cole Custer Notes of Interest

• The Overton’s 200 will mark Cole Custer’s 22^nd career NASCAR XFINITY Series start and his first XFINITY Series start at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon. 
• While the Overton’s 200 will be Custer’s first XFINITY Series start at New Hampshire, it will be his fifth overall start at the 1.058-mile oval. Custer has three NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts and one NASCAR K&N Pro Series start at New Hampshire. Between Custer’s four starts at New Hampshire, he has two wins, two poles, three top-10s and has led 208 laps.
• In Custer’s first ever start at New Hampshire in 2013, he captured his fourth K&N Pro Series win from the pole after leading 60 laps.
• In 2014, Custer made his first Truck Series start at New Hampshire. It proved memorable, as he won the pole and then won the race to earn his first career Truck Series victory. At 16 years, 7 months and 28 days, Custer became the youngest race winner in NASCAR national series history.
• If Custer wins the Overton’s 200, he will have earned his first victory in his first career start at New Hampshire in three different NASCAR divisions – K&N Pro Series East, Truck Series and XFINITY Series. 
• In 21 XFINITY Series starts, 42 Camping World Truck Series starts and 29 K&N Pro Series starts since 2015, Custer has five wins, six poles, 14 top-five finishes, 23 top-10s and 919 laps led at tracks currently on the NASCAR circuit that are approximately one mile in length or shorter. 
• Custer’s best finish in the 16 XFINITY Series races run this season is fourth, earned in the 11^th event June 3 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. It was his eighth top-10 and third top-five and it equaled his career-best finish in 21 career XFINITY Series starts.
• Custer’s best qualifying effort in the 16 XFINITY Series races run this season is third, earned in the seventh race of the season April 22 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. Custer has nine top-10 starts and three top-five starts this season.
• Custer is third in the XFINITY Series Rookie of the Year standings, 53 points behind leader William Byron and four points behind second-place Daniel Hemric. Custer has earned five Rookie of the Race awards this season.
• Custer is sixth in the XFINITY Series driver standings, 210 points behind series leader Elliot Sadler.
• Custer has earned two top-five finishes, six top-10s and has led 29 laps in the 2017 XFINITY Series season.

Cole Custer, Driver Q&A

Describe the feeling you had after winning your second race at New Hampshire, where you became the youngest winner in national series history.

“It was so special because it was a special place for our team with a lot of crew guys from the Northeast. We came there with a fast truck and we were fast in the K&N car the year before that. It was just phenomenal to get my first win there and it kind of solidified myself in that series. It was definitely a day to remember. It probably put my name out there a bit more and gave me more confidence going forward.”

What does it take to run a successful lap around New Hampshire?  

“You just have to try to max out your entry speed and roll through the center to get a decent exit. It’s tough when your car isn’t perfect.”

Are you more confident at tracks that are a mile in length or shorter?

“I think we’ve had really good cars in the past at short tracks and I think it’s more natural to me than a mile-and-a-half. It’s probably like that for most guys. We just grew up running short tracks and didn’t have to deal with aero as much.”

Explain the impact that Ford has made on your season thus far.

“They’ve put a lot into our program and they’ve helped a lot with getting us going. They’ve got a lot of awesome tools at the Ford Performance Center. Also, our motors have been awesome with the Roush Yates power under the hood. We’ve definitely had a leg up there and it’s coming along great. We just have to fine tune our Haas Automation Mustangs a little.”

Jeff Meendering, Crew Chief Q&A

How do you feel going to a track where Cole has won from the pole twice and became the youngest winner in national series history?

“I’m excited about going to Loudon. Cole is very good at that track and I’ve been fortunate to be a part of several good teams that have won at that track. We are bringing the same Haas Automation Ford Mustang that we finished fourth with at Dover and a really good run going with it at Bristol before being caught up in a wreck at the end of the race. We haven’t had the runs we hoped for the past couple of weeks, but I feel like we can easily get back on track this weekend and continue to move up in the point standings.”

On Wednesday night, Danica Patrick, driver of the No. 10 Aspen Dental Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), will trade in her firesuit for formal wear as she serves as a presenter at The ESPYS in Los Angeles. The 25th annual celebration of the best moments from the year in sports is scheduled to air live at 8 p.m. EDT on ABC and the night will mark the 13th consecutive year that Patrick has been a part of the event.

After the star-studded festivities conclude in Los Angeles, Patrick will travel to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon and return to her firesuit, helmet and racing shoes for Sunday’s Overton’s 301 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series event.

The gates first opened to what is now known as New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 1990. Built as a 1.058-mile oval, the track soon earned the nickname “The Magic Mile.” Now, as NASCAR Cup Series teams head to the track for Sunday’s race, Patrick and the No. 10 Aspen Dental Ford team will be ready to find some magic of their own at the track.

Patrick has made eight NASCAR Cup Series starts at New Hampshire with a career-best 14th-place effort there in July 2016. In two Xfinity Series starts, she finished a career-best 14th in July 2012. Patrick also earned a sixth-place result in the 2011 IndyCar Series race at the track.

After a top-15 run last July, Patrick returned to the track in September and scored an 18th-place finish, which marked her second-highest NASCAR Cup Series finish at New Hampshire.

This weekend, Patrick heads to New Hampshire fresh off of a 15th-place finish at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta. The effort marked the team’s second top-15 finish of the season. While Patrick has earned a top-10 at “The Magic Mile” in open-wheel competition, she’s yet to find the same success in stock cars. As the No. 10 Aspen Dental Ford team looks to build on the momentum from its run at Kentucky, the weekend ahead could provide a great opportunity for Patrick to finally find some magic at the track in the form of her first top-10 finish in a stock car there.

DANICA PATRICK, Driver of the No. 10 Aspen Dental Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What are you looking forward to as you return to New Hampshire this weekend?

“I love the area. I do. I love the track, too, because I love short-track racing. When I come to Loudon, I love the lobster. I go to this place that does this amazing, humongous – like way-too-much-food – stuffed lobster dish. And I love the lakes. I’m reminded every time on Saturday, when I drive into the local town, that there’s a farmer’s market, or what looks like one during the day, so I’ve got to try and catch that this year. The summers in the north are so beautiful. I grew up near Chicago, so I really appreciate that. I just enjoy the area, but the racing is great because, again, it’s short-track racing. It’s a little bit interesting because of the different banking throughout the track from lane one to lane two that makes for good racing.”

How challenging is New Hampshire Motor Speedway?

“It’s flat and tough to get around, sometimes. You just have to make sure you get through the corners OK and are able to get on the gas quickly on the straightaways. It’s tough but, if you have a good car, you can pass and move up through the field. But it can be challenging if it’s not working in your favor.”