March 27, 2004
- Matt Still Confused Over Darlington: A week after being penalized for passing cars under the caution at Darlington, #17-Matt Kenseth remains bewildered by NASCAR’s actions. Kenseth was involved in an accident and pitted before pit road was open. He was penalized and had to go to the rear of the longest line. He did before pit road opened. So, when the pits opened, all the lead-lap cars stopped. Kenseth said that should have put him in the lead, but a few cars exited pit road ahead of him. So Kenseth passed them, incurring a penalty for passing during the caution. A NASCAR official stated Kenseth couldn’t lead after taking the first penalty. “I read the rule book pretty thoroughly, I didn’t read the whole entire thing, so I can’t tell you for sure that there’s not a rule, but they said that a car getting penalized with one to go can’t lead a lap, well I never found that, maybe I missed a page somewhere,” Kenseth said.(News and Record)(3-27-2004)
- #4 One Race Deal: Food City is on board the #4 Morgan McClure Chevy that Kevin Lepage drives for the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.(Morgan McClure Motorsports PR)(3-27-2004)
- More Crew Changes on the #2: Rusty Wallace continues to make changes to the pit crew on his #2 Miller Lite Dodge team in hopes of improving performance. He tried former crew chief and tire changer Bill Wilburn, but that didn’t work out. Last week, he used a temporary fill-in from teammate Brendan Gaughan’s team. This week, for Sunday’s Food City 500, the team is using Jay Hackney for the first time as the front-tire changer. D.J. Richardson, who worked with the team earlier in the season, returns as the rear-tire changer.(ThatsRacin.com)(3-27-2004)
- No Sponsor for the #99 at Bristol: Roush Racing has done a masterful job putting together single race sponsorships for Jeff Burton’s Ford Taurus since the season started, some five events ago. Unfortunately, that run came to a stop here at Bristol Motor Speedway and Burton’s car is painted basic black this weekend. “It’s the get out of my way black Ford Taurus,” Burton said of this week’s austere motif with a #99 plastered on the roof and doors. Asked if driving a car without a sponsor affects him in any way Burton said, “From a competitive standpoint? No. The sponsorship situation is what it is and it’s no different today than it was in January. “There’s some things going on but they’re not done,” Burton added. “It may make people feel better having a name on the side of the car but the fact of the matter is the sponsorship situation is what it is. There was no company that was ready to do business so there’s no sponsor on the car.” Finding a positive in the situation Burton pointed out, “We’ll bring a lot of attention to it this week because we don’t have a sponsor on the car; that may be okay. At the end of the day when people see it’s un-sponsored maybe they’ll see it as an opportunity. Certainly people will take notice of it.”(Ford Racing), see an image of the car on the #99 Team Paint Schemes page.(3-27-2004)
- #48 Shocks? NASCAR officials will lay out all the shock parts from Jimmie Johnson’s winning Darlington car today, which should end all speculation about that part of the post-race inspection. Crew chief Chad Knaus said the car passed with no problems.(Winston Salem Journal)(3-27-2004)
- New Practice/Qualifying Times? #18 Crew chief Michael McSwain is adding his voice to those accepting a new Friday testing policy each race week, with teams allowed to use computer-data acquisition on their cars. Then on Saturdays, drivers would get three 45-minute regular practice sessions before qualifying and no practice after qualifying, so they would effectively have to qualify on race setups. That, Mark Martin said, would give drivers much more practice on race setup than they get now.(Winston Salem Journal)(3-27-2004)
- New Jersey Native Martin Truex Jr. Wins at Bristol: #8-Martin Truex Jr.’s first NASCAR Busch Series victory was dominating and clear-cut [a NJ native with NJ native Jayski in attendence]. The remainder of the finishing order in Saturday’s Sharpie Professional 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway, however, was determined only after myriad replays, complaints and discussions in the NASCAR hauler. After a wild final three laps in which first #32-David Stremme, and then #27-Johnny Sauter, were involved in accidents without a caution being displayed, Truex Jr. claimed a win under caution when the yellow finally came out for #1-Johnny Benson’s wreck in Turn 1 on Lap 249 of 250. Even then, rather than sort out the many issues, including cars passing under yellow and another driver – Mike Bliss – failing to take the checkered flag, NASCAR stood with its initial finishing order. Series points leader #21-Kevin Harvick was credited with second, rookie #5-Kyle Busch third, pole-winner #60-Greg Biffle fourth and #37-David Green fifth. Truex Jr., in his 20th start, took the lead on Lap 117 after running down Biffle, who decided against stopping for fresh tires with the rest of the lead-lap cars under caution on Lap 71. He never lost the lead after that. “Martin Truex Jr. What can you say?” said Dale Earnhardt Jr., who co-owns Truex Jr.’s Chance 2 Motorsports team with his stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt. “These guys deserve all this success.” Truex Jr. had come close to victory before in his short series tenure, with three second-place finishes. “We’ve had things not go our way and today, I swear, I thought they weren’t going to go our way at the end there. But we pulled it together,” Truex Jr., 23, said. “I can’t wait for the rest of the year. I think we can win the championship. These guys are that good and these cars are that good every week.” The race was slowed eight times by caution for 49 laps. Truex Jr.’s pass of Biffle was the only lead change of the race. The drama didn’t end with the checkered flag. Mike Bliss, who was running second when the caution came out, failed to take the checkered flag [and drove onto pit road]. When he realized his mistake, he ended up 17th [after going back on the track and taking another lap]. Harvick apologized for starting the late-race incident with Stremme. The crews of Stremme and Benson got into a shouting match on pit road and then the garage, as it was Stremme who hit Benson on the next-to-last lap.(ThatsRacin.com report)
For race results, see ThatsRacin.com, BGNRacing.com, Motorsports One or NASCAR.com.(3-27-2004)
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