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McMurray’s win ends my chase
Finally.
After winning the first two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races of the season it had been a long dry spell for those of us in the Ford Racing camp, but that ended last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway as Jamie McMurray avoided two big wrecks down the stretch to win the Amp Energy 500.
And while this race may be remembered for the scary accident that saw Ryan Newman’s car flip and land on its roof, it might also be thought of as the day Jamie sealed a full-time ride for 2010.
The reason he’s looking for a job in the first place stems from a decision NASCAR made in 2005 that limits the number of teams one organization can own to four. The grace period for getting down to that figure ends at the end of this season, meaning Roush Fenway Racing will no longer be able to field five cars each weekend. Due to existing contracts with other sponsors and drivers, Jamie finds himself as the odd man out.
But the way he drove the No. 26 Irwin Industrial Tools Ford Fusion on Sunday definitely made people take notice of his talent. The way he weaved through traffic, and then took advantage of some help from teammate Matt Kenseth to grab the lead and hold off the rest of the field for the final 11 laps was impressive.
Jamie winning a race is obviously good news for Ford, but even better news for me. The main reason I say that is because no driver is harder to catch for a comment after the race than Jamie. He’s like a super hero who has the ability to climb out of his race car and instantly change clothes before vanishing into thin air.
There have been countless times the past three years where I’ve caught up to Jamie and could barely ask a question because I was huffing and puffing from running him down. Earlier this year at Sonoma, I found him behind the wheel of a rental car as he was just about to pull out of the race track. I frantically waved my arms to grab his attention and as I got to the door he rolled down the window and graciously gave me a couple quick comments.
I took a deep breath and thanked him, turned, and started running back toward the garage to find a couple more drivers. That’s when I heard his voice from behind me yell — “Run, Forrest! Run!” Had I been being chased at that moment by a bunch of bullies from school, as Forrest Gump was in the Oscar-winning movie of 1994, I would have surely been caught because I broke out laughing and couldn’t stop. Now, every time I watch that movie and Jenny yells that line, I’m going to think of Jamie.
His disappearing act has become a running joke between the two of us, but, by winning on Sunday, it meant he had to come into the media center for the winner’s post-race press conference. When he finally arrived after all of the celebrating and pictures had been completed in Victory Lane, that trademark smile was still planted on his face. You could see in his eyes how much this win meant to him, so as he sat down behind the microphone I congratulated him on a well-deserved victory.
In his typical humor he just laughed and said, “Hey, at least you didn’t have to chase me down today.”
With three races to go in this season, it would be nice to have one less Ford driver to chase down from here on out. It would be nice to be able and have Jamie or one of his teammates walk through the doors of the media center after winning at Texas, Phoenix or Homestead Miami Speedway.
But racing is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.
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Motorsports
Army Strong Soldiers looking for another world title
Unfortunately, our Sunday did not end the way we wanted it to out at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The U.S. Army team got beat in the quarterfinals by our teammate, Cory McClenathan, in what proved to be a pretty exciting race.
We actually laid down a nice elapsed time, but Cory was just a little bit quicker and was able to get the win light. We really felt good about our chances to win the Las Vegas Nationals, but I guess it just wasn’t to be.
Even before Cory got to the finish line ahead of me, I was upset with my performance at the starting line. For some reason, I did not react to the “Christmas Tree” and as a result cut a bad light. That’s not something you do when you are in a heated world championship chase.
Speaking of the Countdown to 1, it appears it’s now a three driver race for the Top Fuel title. With our early exit here in Vegas, the door flew wide open for both Larry Dixon and Cory.
Next up for the NHRA’s Full Throttle Drag Racing Series is the 2009 season finale – the Auto Club Finals – out in Pomona, Calif., November 12-15. We’re going to go there loaded for bear, I will guarantee you that.
We’ll have to come off the truck on the first day of qualifying ready to rock and roll. We need to grab as many points as we can get in qualifying and then go kick some booty on race day.
The guys are determined to deliver another world title to our Army Strong Soldiers. They know the sacrifices our brave men and women make on a daily basis. We’re proud of everything they do, so we want them to be proud of us as well.
I really can’t wait to get to Auto Club Raceway in two weeks. We’ve had some big moments there in recent years. Needless to say, we’re eager to add another chapter to that book.
Before I close this final blog out, I want to thank all of you fans for coming out to The Strip this past weekend. It was special to see the stands packed each day. Without question, you’re the greatest fans in motorsports.
“The Sarge” would like to salute y’all one last time. Keep an eye and ear out to see how we do in Pomona. Hopefully, you will hear us celebrating another title from here in Vegas.
Until we meet again next April, y’all stay well. Please remember to keep our Army Strong Soldiers in your thoughts and prayers
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Ready for the show
The dress rehearsal is over and it’s time for the curtain to come up on the show.
The rehearsal was four rounds of qualifying we had the last two days. While you can gather points during that time, it’s really more of an opportunity to get set up for race day on Sunday.
Of course, race day is when it counts the most and in my case every round win is so critical these days. I’ve already documented how close the Top Fuel points race is. Counting yours truly, three other drivers have legitimate shots to win the world championship. We’re involved in a tight battle at the moment. We have to follow our Army Strong Soldiers and not let failure be an option.
As the U.S. Army Top Fuel team looks ahead to the first round of eliminations, our approach remains the same – to only focus on our first round opponent and nothing more.
In the sport of drag racing, you can easily get caught looking ahead. And, more times than not, that can spell big-time trouble in the form of a loss. Given where we’re at in the schedule, we clearly can’t afford an early exit here in Vegas, not with one event to go.
Good teams always rise to the occasion when it’s time to step up. I have all the confidence in the world my crew chief, Mike Green, and the rest of the guys will do that very thing.
A lot of people ask me what I do the night before a race in terms of preparation. While Vegas can certainly offer plenty of distractions (especially on Halloween), I will do the same thing this evening as I always do – eat a nice, healthy dinner at a reasonable hour and then get to bed shortly thereafter.
I’m one who needs to be well rested and relaxed by the time I get to the track on Sunday. Being sharp can only be helpful while you’re pursuing a sixth consecutive championship.
For sure, we’re going to be looking to go four rounds Sunday. I really believe we’ve got a good enough race car to win here in Vegas again. But, we know we have a tough road ahead and can take nothing for granted. We hope to see all of you in victory lane!!
“The Sarge” salutes y’all. Have a great Halloween and we’ll visit with you again post-race on Sunday.
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A Rest Stop ? Somewhere in Nevada ?
A depository for the newest Liberal Health Care Package?
OK Harry, Nancy, open up, we know you’re in there somewhere!
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Countdown to a Championship
If you’re reading this blog and you’re a little confused as to how the sport of NHRA Full Throttle drag racing has evolved here lately, let me explain. We have what we call the Countdown to 1, and this Countdown to the championship is basically a six-race playoff for the top 10 in the point standings to determine the winner.
If you’re watching what’s happening in NASCAR right now, you know that Jimmie Johnson has pretty much secured another championship. He’s been winning or being a runner-up lately, and he seems to be running away with it.
In NHRA drag racing, the battles in Top Fuel and Funny Car are the tightest, with just these two races left, in Vegas and Pomona, Calif. And that’s what makes this race so important here at The Strip.
Not to confuse you any more, because surely even some of us NHRA racers have been confused with the points system lately, NHRA has thrown little bonus points in for the qualifying results in each session (three, two and one points for the top three in each session). So, on top of what happens on race day on Sunday this weekend, we are all vying for very small bonus points in qualifying for each session, which include two rounds on Friday and two on Saturday.
The conditions have been pretty cool here and it looks like it will stay that way for the weekend, so there’s a chance to set a national elapsed time record at The Strip. If that happens, as long as it’s backed up by a second pass within one-percent during the weekend, a driver will receive a bonus of 20 points, which is equivalent to one round of competition. I think you’ll see a lot of drivers going for it, if the conditions permit.
It’s a very exciting time right now, but you have to remember that we’re in a very tight playoff battle. We’re fourth in the standings, 63 points back. It’s like we have a player on third base at the bottom of the ninth with two out, we’re up to bat, and we need to hit a home run with this NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Funny Car.
As for how qualifying went Friday night at The Strip, the second session in the dark was held under nearly perfect, cool conditions, and the elapsed times were quick. We were the first pair out and we set a 4.041-second elapsed time at 310.55 mph, which was my career-best racing to 1,000 feet. We were No. 1 until my DSR teammate Matt Hagan scorched the track in the next-to-last pair with a 4.030-second lap at 313.88 mph.
We ended up second in that round to Matt (and third qualifier after two sessions) and earned two of those valuable qualifying points for ourselves. And Matt earned three, although he’s not in the Countdown, but it did keep one of the championship contenders from earning them, so all is good for the DSR Funny Car team right now.
We’ll see what happens today.
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Back In Vegas
It’s great to be back in Vegas, other than the strong winds and the really chapped lips. Us Midwest folks need a lot of lip balm when we visit. It’s late Friday night and instead of enjoying the Sin City night life, Jeff Wolf has me on assignment. Homework at 32-years-old, you gotta love it!
It was a long day at the track, but a productive one. It was a crazy day that started bright and early with a phone call from the gals at the NHRA credentials trailer around 8 a.m. about at ticket mix-up. That set the tone for the day. I wasn’t PR Ted today, but rather Fireman Ted because we spent most of the day putting out little fires at the track, including appeasing the Clark County Fire Department at our hospitality tent. It’s all good though, we made the sponsors happy, and the fire marshal, so that means a good day for all.
The highlight of my day was putting decals on the car. New team owner (Don Schumacher Racing), means some new stickers on the car, so we had to rearrange the DirecTV sticker and add NAPA and Valvoline stickers to the Matco Tools dragster. Thanks to the help of my bald-headed teammate Wayne “Red” Waite, the car looks “right and tight,” to steal a line from our driver Antron Brown.
Speaking of Red, he’s tying the knot with his lovely bride-to-be, Gabby, on Tuesday after the race, so we’re all sticking around for the wedding on Nov. 3. Plus, it’s much warmer here than it is in Indianapolis this time of year, so we’re ok with a few extra days in Las Vegas.
Jeff asked me to talk a little bit about what it’s like to work alongside Antron. I must say, I’m the luckiest publicist in motor sports because Antron is an absolute gem to work with. Besides being, arguably, the hottest commodity in NHRA drag racing, he’s the nicest guy you’ll meet. He’s one of the rare people that absolutely nobody has a negative thing to say about. Everyone loves A.B. We work him ragged, let me tell you and he never complains. He signs more autographs and spends more time at the ropes than any other driver it the track, so if you ever come to an NHRA race and leave without Antron Brown’s autograph, that’s your own fault.
We’ve kept him plenty busy this week. A.B. got into town on Tuesday afternoon and spent Wednesday at College of Southern Nevada for a Matco Tools TechEd visit. It was the sixth of seven technical school visits we do with Antron and the Matco Tools dragster. Later that night, we had a Matco Tools dinner at The Grotto inside the Golden Nugget, our Matco Tools team hotel. The Grotto has some good Italian grub, let me tell you.
The next day, we had a team meeting with DSR Team Manager Lee Beard and then A.B. joined a group of other drivers on Fremont Street for the Fan Fest. The support we see from the race fans here in Vegas is second to none. I’m sure Ant has hit up the blackjack tables at the Nugget. Ant has all the luck on the 21 tables. If you want to win some dough, sit next to A.B. when you play blackjack. Today we had a Toyota Racing meet-and-greet at the Toyota Pit Pass display and two qualifying runs. We finished seventh at 3.860-seconds, so we’re happy being in the top half of the field.
We’ll, it’s late and I need a little shut eye. Thanks for reading and we’ll blog at you soon.
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From Cheyenne High to The Strip
It’s been an active couple of days since we arrived here in Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
As is typical of a Thursday before a race weekend during the school year, we made a visit with the show car out to a local high school – Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas.
The kids always seem to enjoy taking photos by the car and, of course, we sign autographs until the very last student gets one. Additionally, local U.S. Army recruiters join me for the visits to answer questions about a possible career in the military.
I truly enjoy meeting the youth of America during the course of a season. These are our future leaders who will steer our great country in the direction it needs to go.
As you read this we’re experiencing the first day of qualifying out at The Strip. With the points being as tight as they are, it will be very important to gain as much ground as we can before we even get to race day.
We’d love to “sweep” qualifying and thereby collect another 20 points heading into Sunday. Like I stated in my previous blog, it’s really time to step up to the plate. And, we’d love to dig in and connect with a home run swing. We’ve done it at The Strip before so there’s no reason we can’t do it again.
By the way, we’re all thrilled the weather turned out the way it did. Thanks Vegas for ordering up the perfect weekend.
In fact, it’s flat out gorgeous here at this time of year. The skies are cloudless and royal blue which makes the mountains that surround the track that much more spectacular to look at. We certainly don’t get this kind of scenery at most of the other venues we travel to on the circuit.
If you happen to be reading this piece and its prior to 9 p.m. on Friday, I would invite you to come down to the Stratosphere to visit me and the rest of the Don Schumacher Racing drivers. We’ll be signing autographs and taking photos for an hour. It should be a terrific time.
If you don’t make it to the Stratosphere, we hope to see you at The Strip some time over the next two days. If you haven’t seen NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing in person, you’re really missing out. There’s nothing like feeling 8,000 horsepower rumble by just a few feet in front of you.
That will do it for now. We’ll see you right back here on this page tomorrow. “The Sarge” salutes you all.
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Vegas means racing, friends and Blue Man Group
I already talked about how busy our schedule is prior to this weekend’s NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But, you have to remember, right now the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Funny Car team is in a championship battle that is surely going to come down to Pomona (Calif.) in two weeks, the last race of the year. But, even more so, this race in Vegas is and has been for the last few years one of the more pivotal races that we run all year long.
If you have a chance at the championship with two races being left, this Vegas race is a make-or-break race, and I think it’s only appropriate that it be at this track and this town.
In my first blog I talked about all the stuff that we do before the races and, for instance, one of my favorite things to do is bring my kids here for some fun. I’m taking my son Caden to see Blue Man Group. He’s 8 years old, and it will be kind of a boys’ night out that I know we’re going to enjoy. That is something I don’t get to do very often and I’m excited, and I know he is too.
The other thing about the Las Vegas race is we tend to get a lot of friends and family who want to come to this race, so I’ll be handling a lot of ticket requests. But, the planning of what I’m going to do at night, and how much time I’m going to get to spend with my family, is definitely curtailed because of what we have to do with our sponsors.
On top of that, you have in the forefront of your mind what we’re going to have to do on the track. We know we’re 63 points behind the leader and we know that we have to have another good weekend. And when we left town here in April we left holding the trophy. We had a great race, we won it, and we had a lot of friends and family in town and ended up going to a great after-party with our friends from Palmer Electric here in Las Vegas. They have a suite at the track and they always take care of my friends and family.
And that’s another great thing. Winning in Las Vegas and having everybody around to celebrate and enjoy it with sure beats winning elsewhere in the country, like in Florida, where I don’t really have any family show up. You’d love to win everywhere, of course, but there’s nothing better than winning with your friends and family around.
In Las Vegas it doesn’t matter when we get done with the winner’s circle (if we are lucky enough to win), because we know every place is open 24 hours to go for an after-party. And we’re hoping to do that again.
Right now, we’re focused on getting qualified on Friday in the NAPA Dodge then heading over to the Stratosphere Hotel casino on Friday night from 9-10 p.m. for the Don Schumacher Racing autograph session at our team hotel and hanging out with our fans and the rest of my DSR teammates.
I’m looking forward to seeing you there!
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An Absolutely MUST Watch !!!
Go To:
nationaljuggernaut.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-cartoon-seemed-far-fetched-in-1948.html
The ending of the video is exactly what we need to do with our present politicians and all their BS ! (both parties)
Our Economy is soooo bad that Hot Wheels are trading higher then GM !!!
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Talladega needs to be a no-fly zone
Silence.
It’s what every parent who has young children craves and the one thing librarians demand. But if you’re a race car driver, silence is something you never want to hear. If you do, it can mean one thing and one thing only – your tires are no longer on the ground.
Just like when you hear victims of a tornado strike talk about how it “sounded like a train just seconds before hitting the house,” you’ll hear drivers talk about how “everything went quiet inside the car as soon as I got airborne.”
I bring this up because we’re heading back to Talladega Superspeedway this weekend and after the wild ride Carl Edwards took the first time around, it seems to be the natural thing to do. If you haven’t seen what happened, I invite you to go on-line and visit www,youtube.com, where it has been viewed more than one million times, and watch it first-hand.
I didn’t actually witness Carl’s wreck with Brad Keselowski live, but I could tell something big had just happened from my location. I was at the infield care center getting some comments from Bobby Labonte after he was involved in a seven-car accident on lap 180, and was in the process of running back to the media center to catch the finish of the race. They were approaching the tri-oval for the final time and as I glanced at the scoreboard it showed the 99 car in first place.
As I turned the corner of the garage the track was about 200 yards in front of me. The cars whizzed by on their way to the checkered flag when I made a left-hand turn toward the media center. That’s when I saw smoke and at almost the same time a collective scream as fans in the grandstands, who were already on their feet, started pointing in unison toward the finish line.
I knew that whatever happened must have been big, but didn’t know who was involved. When I got inside the media center, the assembled press was huddled around a handful of televisions scattered about the room to get a closer look at replays. I watched and held my breath as Carl’s Aflac Ford Fusion went up in the air and into the catchfence, reminding me and everyone else of the time Bobby Allison had a similar accident back in 1987. The room was silent and then let out a collective sigh of relief when Carl emerged and ran the final 150 feet to the finish line.
It was yet another example of how all the NASCAR-mandated safety initiatives worked to perfection. The head and neck restraint, which helps keep the driver’s head from moving around in the seat, did its job while the reinforced steel tubing that makes up the roll cage allowed the driver’s compartment to remain intact. The catchfence held and pushed the car back onto the track like it’s designed to do and while a few fans where injured by scattering debris, it could have been much worse.
As you can imagine, there was a big group of reporters standing outside the infield care center to get Carl’s reaction.
Fortunately, there was a temporary metal fence in place to keep the crowd from smothering him and what amazed me the most was how seemingly calm he was about the whole incident. After properly letting his mom and wife know that he was fine on national television, Carl proceeded to tell everyone what happened from his point of view. He didn’t blame Brad. He even called him one of his heroes for the way he has worked his way through the NASCAR ranks and said he didn’t do anything wrong.
After patiently telling and re-telling the accident for three separate waves of media, Carl was finally done. In the days ahead he would fly to California and talk about the accident with Larry King and Ellen DeGeneres, but, for now, it was over.
The grandstands were just about empty and the garage area had pretty well cleared out too, so, as the sea of reporters parted, Edwards began to make the long walk back to his motorcoach – in silence.
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