Month: September 2018

It seemed a little warm during last week’s race at Las Vegas. But to Kurt Busch, a native of Las Vegas, it was not hot enough.

Perhaps that’s why his No. 41 Ford for Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway is sponsored by State Water Heaters and Haas Automation.

In 1946, State Water Heaters was founded by Herbert Lindahl as a small entrepreneurial company producing coal- and wood-burning stoves in a garage in Nashville, Tennessee. In the years that followed, State expanded and became a leader in the water-heating industry through steadfast commitments to seeking new materials, new technology and innovative engineering techniques.

Busch is hoping that State Water Heaters can bring him more heat – and some luck – as week two of the 10-week NASCAR Cup Series playoffs are taking place. The No. 41 team is in sixth place, 24 points to the good with two races to go before the 16-driver playoff field gets cut to 12.

Busch was running in the top-five for much of Sunday’s Las Vegas race, but a late accident not of his making placed him in 21^st. He would very much like to pad his lead over 13^th place before next week’s Round of 16 finale on the new “roval” at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.

In 35 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Richmond, Busch owns a pair of victories, the in September 2005, when he started fifth and led 185 laps en route to the win, and the second in April 2015 driving a Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR)-prepared racecar. He dominated the latter event, leading six times for a race-high 291 laps and holding off teammate Kevin Harvick to score his first win 2015.

In addition to his success in NASCAR’s top series, Busch also won in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Richmond in April 2012.

Busch is hoping to take the No. 41 State Water Heaters/Haas Automation/Monster Energy Ford Fusion for SHR to victory lane for a third time at Richmond in the Cup Series.

And he would be “warmly” greeted in victory lane.  

KURT BUSCH, Driver of the No. 41 State Water Heaters/Haas Automation Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing:

How important is Richmond with the uncertainly of the new “roval” next week at Charlotte?   

“There will be a lot of anxiety, a lot of unknowns and a lot of interesting, unique things that are going to come out of the road race with it being a cutoff race. It’s a very important race to have a smooth day. And, based on testing, nobody’s had a smooth day getting around that track. So it puts emphasis on Richmond and, right now, I think everybody’s looking at Richmond like, ‘Man I want to win that one, that way I don’t have the stress of the roval.’ Plus, it’s great that we have State Water Heaters on our car for Richmond along with Haas Automation, Monster Energy and Ford. State Water Heaters will be with us at Texas, as well. They are a great partner.”

Talk about the upgrades to Richmond Raceway.

“It’ll be great. Every track that redoes the garage area – places like Daytona and Vegas – they seem to make it very fan friendly. The way our atmosphere around our races has changed, everyone wants to be in the pits and, yet, you don’t want too congested of a workspace and so, to create the viewing areas and the different platforms and different places to get food and drink, it’s great for our fans to be near our workspace.”

Your thoughts about the track since you starting running there in 2002?   

“It’s a cool short track. It really challenges you to make sure you have the drive off as far as the forward bite off corner exit. But, there are a lot of restarts where you just have to haul the mail and cut through the center of the corner hard and lay down the hard lap times, those fast lap times. It’s a fun, challenging track. You have to be ready for a lot of things at Richmond.”

What is the hardest thing to figure out at Richmond? 

“For me, it’s turn four. The races I’ve won there, I had a good car on the exit of turn four. Races I’ve lost or ran poorly, my exit of turn four wasn’t that good. It’s really a tough corner to get good traction put down.”

Event:               Go Bowling 250 (Round 27 of 33)
Date:                Sept. 21, 2018
Location:          Richmond (Va.) Raceway
Layout:             .75-mile oval

Cole Custer Notes of Interest

• The Go Bowling 250 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway will be the first race of 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs. The playoffs begin with 12 eligible drivers and are divided into three rounds with the first two rounds consisting of three races apiece and a final, single-race round at the Homestead-Miami Speedway season finale. Four drivers are eliminated after each of the first two rounds to ultimately establish four finalists at Homestead. Drivers automatically qualify for the next round with a win in the current round with the remaining spots determined by the point standings. At Homestead, the top-finishing driver among the four finalists wins the championship.
• Custer will begin the 2018 Xfinity Series playoffs from the fourth seed with 2,011 points, 28 behind leader Justin Allgaier.
• Custer is no stranger to victory lane at Richmond. In 2014, he took the checkered flag after leading 52 laps in the K&N Pro Series East race. In Custer’s five combined starts at Richmond in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East (two races) and NASCAR Xfinity Series (three races), he has a win, two top-five finishes, three top-10s and 76 laps led.
• In 64 career Xfinity Series starts, 42 Camping World Truck Series starts and 29 K&N Pro Series starts since 2015, Custer has five wins, seven poles, 16 top-five finishes, 32 top-10s and 1,077 laps led at tracks that are a mile in length or shorter.
• Custer’s second-place finishes May 26 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway and Sept. 1 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway are his best in 26 races this season.
• Custer’s average starting position of 6.2 and five pole awards in the 2018 Xfinity Series season lead all Xfinity Series regulars. He has earned 19 top-five starts and 24 top-10 starts this season.
• Custer’s 21 top-10 finishes is tied with Elliott Sadler and Allgaier for most among Xfinity Series regulars.
• Custer has also earned 11 top-five finishes and has led 240 laps this season.
• Go Bowling will serve as the primary sponsor of the No. 00 Ford Mustang at Richmond for the first time this season. comis the go-to site for consumers to learn more about the sport of bowling, including information about the more than 1,700 bowling centers around the country. The site helps fans find local bowling centers, promotional offers, video bowling tips and other bowling information. To learn more about Go Bowling, visit GoBowling.com.
• Custer will attend Wednesday’s Professional Women’s Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour Championship in Richmond’s historic Old Dominion Building. The event will be televised live by CBS Sports Network.
• In Custer’s most recent start at Richmond April 20, he earned his fifth pole award of the season and led the first 43 laps of Stage 1. He raced in and around the top-five until the team was handed a penalty on pit road for an uncontrolled tire. He started the final stage from the rear and rallied the No. 00 Ford to a sixth-place finish.
• Last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Custer raced inside the top-five for the majority of the race after leading the first three laps and earning a third-place finish.\
• Custer will pull a double-duty weekend by making his third career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series start in Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond.

Cole Custer, Driver Q&A

This is your second straight appearance in the NASCAR Xfinity Series playoffs. Is your mindset different than last year, when the Go Bowling Ford team started from scratch?

“My mindset is different from last year. We proved to ourselves that we had a championship-winning team at Homestead. Going into the playoffs this time, I’ll have to bring the intensity and focus up. If we start to get all of the little things right, I think we can compete with anyone for the championship. We’ve shown the speed. Now we need to execute every time. ”

Richmond is a unique track. What does it take to get around the .75-mile track faster than anyone else?  

“Richmond is tough because of how much tire falloff we get. The biggest thing there is to make sure you balance your short- and long-run speed. We ran well there earlier this year and I think we learned a ton for this weekend. As long as we don’t make any mistakes like we did on pit road earlier in the year, there’s no reason why we can’t win or have a solid finish.” 

Jeff Meendering, Crew Chief Q&A

What have you learned from Richmond and what will it take to make it to the next round of the playoffs?

“We really hit on something good earlier in the year and led a good amount of laps. We just have to work together to manage the short- and long-run speeds and manage the tires. We’re always going to compete for a win, but making it into the next round each weekend means no mistakes. The pit crew got a penalty on pit road last year that put us to the rear of the field. If we were able to start back in the front of the field, we could have competed for a win.”

Who’s the most important member of a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series team? Some will say the driver and others might argue the crew chief. Cases could be made for mechanics, pit crew and spotters, but No. 14 ITsavvy Ford driver Clint Bowyer suggests someone who probably wouldn’t make the list of most race fans – the Information Technology (IT) guy.

He’s serious.

“Stewart Haas Racing (SHR) is a four-car team and we have tons of extremely talented folks, but I’m going to tell you the number-one guy that we can’t do without on a race weekend or, especially at a test, is our IT guy,” Bowyer said. “If he’s sick, we’re all sick and that racecar is going to be sick. It’s unbelievable how much we lean on that side of things, on the technology side.”

It’s fitting that, this weekend at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, Bowyer and SHR debut ITsavvy (pronounced I-T-savvy) as a new primary sponsor in the Cup Series. The Addison, Illinois-based company is one of the fastest-growing resources for integrated IT products and technology solutions in the United States. ITsavvy has catapulted from a Midwest start-up to a national leader in IT products and solutions, very rapidly.

Founded in 2004 by Mike Theriault and Chris Kurpeikis, ITsavvy has been consistently recognized as one of the fastest-growing businesses of its type. ITsavvy is a single-source, end-to-end IT partner. The company combines a comprehensive, value-added reseller business of more than a million computer, hardware and software products with an industry-leading advanced solutions group. ITsavvy has access to $8 billion in daily inventory in 46 distribution centers around the country with the ability to ship in-stock items the same day they are ordered.

ITsavvy will also serve as the primary sponsor on Bowyer’s No. 14 Ford at ISM Raceway near Phoenix later this season. Bowyer hopes the relationship will provide a competitive advantage to the No. 14 team and his SHR teammates.

“If you walk through our race shop and throughout the garage, you’ll see how our racecars and our entire industry rely on technology,” Bowyer said. “From engine diagnostics to fuel-mileage calculations, our business is dependent on technology solutions. The senior-level introductions our sport can make will lead to new business opportunities for ITsavvy. Every company needs what ITsavvy provides, and we’re excited to facilitate those introductions.”

ITsavvy appears on the No. 14 at a critical time in the 2018 season. Bowyer heads to Richmond 11th in points after finishing 23rd in the playoff-opening race Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. To advance to the second round of the playoffs that begin in two weeks, Bowyer must be in the top-12 among the 16 playoff drivers after the Richmond race and the new road course “roval” event at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.

Since the winner at each track automatically advances to the next playoff round, Bowyer has come up with a simple solution to any potential drama at Charlotte.

“You want to get your work done this weekend in Richmond,” Bowyer said. “You want a big enough cushion going into the roval at Charlotte because that’s going to be one of the biggest wildcards in the playoffs. We really wanted to finish well last weekend in Las Vegas and this weekend in Richmond because nobody knows what’s going to happen in Charlotte. Nobody wants to go there knowing they have to have a great finish to advance to the next round. We want to go win Richmond and then go to Charlotte and watch all the other guys sweat.”

Bowyer has won twice at Richmond and posted 13 top-10s in 25 start at the three-quarter-mile oval. In April, he led 45 laps and finished second in Stage 2 before finishing ninth in the race. There would be no better time than Saturday night in a playoff situation at Richmond to add a third win to his 2018 resume.

If he does visit victory lane, the Emporia, Kansas native will have a long list of corporate partners, crew members and supporters to thank – especially the IT guy.
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CLINT BOWYER, Driver of the No. 14 ITsavvy Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What are your thoughts on Richmond Raceway?

“It’s just a perfect racetrack. It’s always been that way. Ever since I started in the Xfinity Series with Richard (Childress), it’s always fit my driving style. It’s that short track and I’ve always said that I wish we had four or five of these all across the country. They certainly hit the mark when they were making Richmond. I have a lot of fun there – prerace and everything else. The fan base there has always been good. It’s a good vibe and a good feel for a racetrack being that it kind of reminds you of pulling into the old fairgrounds at a dirt track. There are houses across the street and this is what short-track racing is all about.”

Can you win the championship?

“I think we’ve got to go out and live up to our capabilities. If we do that, we’ll have a shot to go to Homestead. Everyone thinks they can win. I do. I really, truly do. It’s not smoke and mirrors. I believe I’ve seen enough out of our race team that I’m confident in our opportunity ahead. If we can go out and get those mistakes behind us, I’ve said over the last month and a half, we’re capable of winning. There is only one thing that makes you confident and that is success, and we’ve had that success to enable me to be confident.”

Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), heads into the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoff-opening South Point Hotel Casino 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a team operating like a well-oiled machine.

The 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion finished the 26-race regular season as the series leader with seven points-paying wins, 19 top-five finishes, 22 top-10s, 1,220 laps led and 50 playoff points, but second in total regular-season points. He starts the playoffs as the second seed but is tied with leader Kyle Busch for the most points at 2,050 after the regular-season standings were reset for the 16 drivers who qualified for the playoffs.

One of Harvick’s seven wins through the first 26-races came in the season’s third race at Las Vegas in March. However, this weekend’s race will be a new challenge as it is the first time the Cup Series has visited Las Vegas in the playoffs, and hot temperatures combined with a slick racing surface will make things much different for drivers and teams than they were during the 400-miler in March.

To help combat this weekend’s harsh conditions, Harvick and the No. 4 team expect to benefit from SHR’s technology partnership with Mobil 1, which is a unique combination of experience, expertise and innovative thinking that strives to consistently deliver performance-enhancing results on the track.

Mobil 1 works to reduce engine temperatures and to increase engine efficiency. The products allow the No. 4 Ford to reduce rolling resistance, which contributes to increased acceleration on restarts on the way to reaching top speed. Mobil 1 continues to perform rigorous testing with the SHR teams to improve on-track performance, including the reduction of frictional loss in the engines to maximize fuel mileage, increase horsepower and turn more rpm.

The Mobil 1 products reduce friction in the suspension components, as well, providing maximum tire grip and helping to reduce steering compliance to give precision control and improved handling for Harvick behind the wheel.

More good news for Harvick and the No. 4 team is that they enter the playoffs with 50 playoffs points. Those 50 playoffs points will be a huge benefit as the team attempts to advance out of the Round of 16 and into the Round of 12. In fact, the playoff points could be beneficial through each of the rounds as long as the team advances.

Additional race and stage wins would give Harvick nearly a full-race cushion as the team tries for its second championship in four years. Therefore, the goal remains the same – win races and stages as often as possible to reach the season finale at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway in 10 weeks.

KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You’ve had a great regular season. How do you carry that into the final 10 playoff races?

“We had a good first 26 weeks. Obviously, you want to win all the races that you can and we were fortunate to win seven of them in the first 26, so it’s been a good regular season. But, now it’s crunch time. You have to go out and perform and try to do the exact same thing that we did through the first 26 races of the season in the last 10 races – that’s winning races. That is the focus and the mindset we need to have because there is no guarantee that you get to the next round. The bonus points and playoff points are nice, and you can continue to accumulate those, but there are no guarantees as we saw last year with Kyle Larson. He had a lot of bonus points but still didn’t make it into Homestead. We just have to take it one week at a time – that’s my mentality and we’ll try to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

Do you try and step up the intensity or add motivation to the crew prior to the start of the playoffs?

“I would rather not because I would hope that we’re prepared. A lot of the guys on our team have been to the playoffs, won a championship; they’ve been there with their backs against the wall having to win races. The more you can make it like just another week – and with the intensity level it’s not just another week, but the more you can make it like every other week that we’ve been racing with a playoff atmosphere – the better off you’re going to be. When you go there and try to do something with more intensity, you start making mistakes pressuring the pit crew guys or crew guys trying to do things that they haven’t been doing. It has to be a part of the process. It has to be a part of how you think and the things you do to prepare going into this race need to be the same as how you went into the last race. I just believe the playoff points structure and how the points are structured – you have to go to the Daytona 500 and start collecting bonus points. Martin Truex Jr. proved that last year with the things he did and the way that they went about their regular season. It just kept building all the way through the year. Those playoff points are important and the race wins are even more important. There is nothing that builds more confidence than race wins.

You won at Las Vegas earlier in the year. How is this race going to be different from that one?

“As we go to Las Vegas this week, we know we went there and won the race at the beginning of the year. Now we want to go back and do the same thing. But, you have to adapt to all the things that have changed over the last 23 weeks and the weather conditions. There are going to be differences because of the track surface temperature, ambient temperature. All of the heat that goes through the racecar affects everything. It affects how big the hole is, how you cool the gear, how you cool the driver and how much tape you have to take off to cool the engine. The brakes are going to get hotter and the tires are going to build pressure faster. Are you going to move up the racetrack earlier because you’re looking for grip? I don’t know. The one thing about this weekend is you have the trucks there, the Xfinity cars there, so the track is going to be pretty rubbered up and different than it is in the spring.”

Playoff time is finally here and it couldn’t come soon enough for No. 14 One Cure Ford Fusion driver Clint Bowyer.

The first round of NASCAR’s 10-race, 16-driver playoffs begin this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. For Bowyer, who’s making his first playoff appearance since 2015, it’s the moment he’s been waiting for since joining Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) in 2017.

“We have such a long season with so many races that it’s easy to get in a routine, especially after you get a win and you know you are in the playoffs,” said Bowyer, who finished second in the playoffs once and in the top-five three times during his career. “But, there’s nothing routine about what starts this weekend in Las Vegas. The pay window is open and it’s time we start racing for a championship. It’s why we are here and why I joined this organization.”

Bowyer begins the playoffs fifth in the reset standings with 2,015 points thanks to a seventh-place finish in the final regular-season standings, a stage victory Monday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, plus victories at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in March and a June victory at Michigan Speedway in Brooklyn. To advance to Round 2 of the playoffs, Bowyer needs to remain in the top-12 in points through Round 1. That makes running well Sunday at Las Vegas, Sept. 22 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, and Sept. 30 on the new road course at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway imperative to a chance for the title.

“I’ve always thought the first round is the toughest,” he said. “You have to be ready to go right out of the box. You can’t have any mistakes. You sure as heck can’t afford to get behind.”

Bowyer’s No. 14 Ford will carry the green-and-white colors of One Cure this weekend in Las Vegas. One Cure is a project led by the Flint Animal Cancer Center at Colorado State University. The One Cure program is founded on the principle that cancer affects all creatures and that treatment breakthroughs come through collaboration between scientists and doctors working with people and animals. This approach is known as comparative oncology and it is the guiding concept of One Cure and the Flint Animal Cancer Center at Colorado State. The center works to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer in pets, and teams with the human medical field to translate research findings that will help people with cancer.

The center, located in the university’s James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital, sees more than 1,500 new animal cancer patients every year, with approximately 130 patients enrolling in carefully monitored clinical trials specific to their cancer type. The canine and feline patients are helping pioneer cancer research, moving cutting-edge treatments out of the laboratory and into clinical practice, ultimately providing hope to the next generation of animal and human cancer patients.

“There isn’t much difference between dogs and humans when it comes to cancer,” Bowyer said. “What they get, we get. We’re both in the same environment, drink the same water and react the same way. So, One Cure is researching cancer in dogs and other pets not only to treat them, but to apply that research in the hopes it will lead to curing cancer in humans, as well.”

SHR first featured the One Cure initiative on its No. 10 Ford in 2017. This year, it has appeared on Bowyer’s No. 14 Ford in March at Las Vegas and in June at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway with the goal of encouraging race fans to visit www.OneCure.com, where they can learn about the research and offer financial support.

Bowyer hopes he can create even more attention for One Cure Sunday at the fast, 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval. It marks his 13th start at Las Vegas, where he owns a top-five finish and four top-10s in 13 races. He arrives in in Las Vegas after leading a race-high 37 laps, winning Stage 1 and finishing fifth Monday at Indianapolis.

It’s been a solid regular season for Bowyer in 2018. He’s earned two victories, seven top-five finishes and 12 top-10s. He and his SHR teammates Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch have combined for 10 victories and comprise three of the top six positions in the playoffs.

“All that doesn’t matter anymore,” Bowyer said. “The next 10 races will define everyone’s season.”

CLINT BOWYER, Driver of the No. 14 One Cure Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Can you and the No. 14 team compete with the dominant tier of drivers Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr., in the playoffs?

“You have to elevate your game and rise to their capabilities and expectations. Those guys, not only do they have the wins, they are dominant cars that have led a lot of laps when they get those wins and all the stage points and all that stuff. You have to be able to do that more consistently. On our team, that is what we have to do. We have touched on that and made some mistakes and know we have to get those mistakes behind us to capitalize on every possible situation. Every stage. Every lap. That is what we have to do better. We have to smooth out the highs and lows. You have to stay on top of the mountain. You can’t fall off the damn mountain. That’s what it boils down to.”