Chevrolet Sweeps In Richmond
RICHMOND, Va. - What it was was chaos, 3-1/2 hours of spinning and crashing and blowing tires. And when the smoke finally cleared at Richmond International Raceway, it was once again Chevy team owner Rick Hendrick celebrating four-for-four in NASCAR car-of-tomorrow races, this time with Jimmie Johnson sprinting away from teammate Kyle Busch in a 1-2-3-4 Chevrolet sweep.
Only Denny Hamlin catching Jeff Gordon for third kept Hendrick from a top-three sweep. And it was Chevrolet’s ninth win of the year in 10 events. Chevy drivers led all but 33 of the 400 laps in front of a crowd of some 100,000.
But NASCAR’s latest car-of-tomorrow event, following runs at Bristol, Martinsville and Phoenix, was the most ragged yet, with drivers clearly having considerable handling trouble throughout the dry, sunny, but windy afternoon race, rain-delayed from Saturday night.
Busch had the lead at the last restart, lap 380 of the 400, but Johnson quickly dived under him
“I knew he was coming, and I figured he was going to get by me,” Busch said. “Jimmy was a little better than I was. Then I just over-drove turn one, and Jimmie was able to get under me.”
“I knew Kyle was going to be strong on a short run,” Johnson said. “But on a long run I felt our car was a little better. I just had to get a good restart. And Kyle was so good on restarts. So I kept buzzing my tires coming to the line (for the final green), and I finally got it right to where I was able to carry my momentum to turn one.
“I looked to the outside, and he came up, like he should, and when I saw the inside open I just jumped in the gas, it hooked up, and I got position on him.”
Kevin Harvick may have had the best car in the field, but he caught some bad luck.
Harvick was pulling away from the field midway when he collided with rookie David Ragan during a routine yellow flag pit stop. Harvick was pulling out of his pit as Ragan was coming in, and the right-front of Harvick’s car was badly damaged. Fortunately no crew men were injured.
To add insult to injury, NASCAR hit Harvick with a penalty for speeding on pit road during an ensuring stop for repairs, putting him at the end of the field. However Harvick made an impressive rally to finish seventh.
“We just didn’t communicate, and got tore up. Everything happened all at once,” a disappointed Harvick said.
Harvick wasn’t alone in getting banged up. There were 14 cautions.
“All that action happened right behind me, because we were able to stay up front,” Hamlin said. “But it was so track-position sensitive, I could see why guys were so impatient. Because if you were out front, you could haul the mail, whether your car was good or bad. But if you were back in 15th, your car was terrible.
“You saw how it took Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick all day to get back to the front. I experienced that same thing in Phoenix. When you get back in the pack it’s just very frustrating as a driver, because even if you have a good car and the guy in front is slower, you can’t get around him.”
Jeff Burton would have liked to have had that chance…but his engine blew early. And he didn’t take it very well. “It just ate itself up,” Burton snapped. “You have a good car and I’m going to finish dead last.”
That cost Burton second place in the Nextel Cup standings. Johnson moved up to second, but tour leader Gordon goes to Darlington this week 211 points out front.
Among the day’s many incidents that left bruised feelings, Juan Pablo Montoya and Ryan Newman tangled again, the second straight week, and it looks like whatever started last fall at Homestead – with that fiery crash – hasn’t ended. Then Montoya got caught up in a hard duel with Robby Gordon, that prompted NASCAR to issue Montoya a warning to cool off.
Montoya struggled home 26th.
But for the four or five men up front most of the race “It was kind of a quiet day,” Busch said of the view from his seat.
However Busch still hasn’t changed his opinion of the car-of-tomorrow as an ill-handling machine: “The car-of-tomorrow just doesn’t want to turn in the corners. You turn the wheel to the left and it’s not gripping, it’s just sliding the front tires, and that builds heat. You’re just sitting there waiting for the front tires to grip so you can go.
“I’m really surprised we didn’t see more tire failures than we have.
“If the thing doesn’t turn, you have to use the brakes. So you’re getting too much right-front brake heat, and that can pop the
bead. And we’re maxed out on our (brake) cooling.
“We need to test some more to get a better feel for this thing.”
Ricky Rudd took one of the hardest hits, in the day’s last caution, triggered when Sterling Marlin tagged Ward Burton as they tried to go up the middle of a three-wide pack on lap 373. That put Rudd hard into the outside wall. The incident occurred just behind the front foursome.
NASCAR threw a few odd rules at the teams early in the race. First, Saturday night’s 12 laps, run under the green-and-yellow, were wiped from the books, though there is no such rule specifically in the book; second, the sanctioning body told crews they couldn’t fill their tanks before the new start and couldn’t pit for gas until a ‘competition yellow’ on lap 40.