With NASCAR on a temporary hiatus, news is going to be slow in the coming weeks. To help fill the NASCAR void, we plan on taking you on a daily trip down memory lane spanning the years since the Jayski’s site inception. Using our news archives pages, here’s a look back at what’s happened on this date through the last 23 years in NASCAR:
This day in NASCAR history: April 3
Years we have pulled today’s main items from: 2016, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2002,
Top see everything from this date over previous years: 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997
Note: Many links on older stories don’t work. There’s not a lot of the same websites around anymore.
To see previous articles covering “Today in History”, click here.
2016:
Kyle Busch wins at Martinsville: #18-Kyle Busch won the STP 500 Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway for his 1st win of the season, 1st win at Martinsville Speedway and 35th career win. He led the most laps – 352 of 500 laps.
#47-Allmendinger finished 2nd, followed by #42-Larson, #3-Dillon, #2-Keselowski, #19-Edwards, #14-Vickers, #27-Menard, #49-Johnson, and #31-Newman.
Pole winner, #22-Logano, lost a lap early but got back on the lead lap and finished 11th.
There were 11 lead changes among 5 drivers and 8 cautions for 51 yellow flag laps.
The average speed was 80.088mph.(4-3-2016)
2013:
- Go Green Racing Announces First Cup Race of 2013: Go Green Racing announced that they will attempt their first NASCAR Sprint Cup series race of the 2013 season at Richmond International Raceway on April 27th for the Toyota Owners 400. The #79 Ford Fusion team had plans to start their season earlier in the year, but with the limited availability of parts for the new Gen 6 cars, as well as building them, delayed the start. Go Green Racing expects to compete in 8-10 events this season with hopes of running the entire races as funding permits. The team has had conversations with several drivers for the #79 Ford Fusion and hopes to make an announcement in the coming weeks as to who that will be. Go Green Racing, founded by Maine native Archie St. Hilaire, has enjoyed success in the NASCAR Nationwide series over the past several years before fielding a NSCS entry last season on a limited schedule. The team qualified for six races including the Southern 500, Brickyard 400, and both races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.(Go Green Racing)(4-3-2013)
2011:
- Harvick wins at Martinsville: #29-Kevin Harvick won the Goody’s Fast Relief 500 Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway for his 2nd win of 2011 [and in a row] and 16th win of his career. It is Richard Childress Racing’s first win at Martinsville since Dale Earnhardt won there in 1995.
#88-Earnhardt Jr. finished second followed by #18-Busch, #42-Montoya, #24-Gordon, #17-Kenseth, #1-McMurray [the pole sitter], #6-Ragan, #33-Bowyer and #5-Martin.
There were a record 31 lead changes among 12 drivers; 11 cautions for 72 yellow flag laps. The attendance is listed as 60,000 up a tad from last years 58,000 which was rain delayed until Monday when 40,000 came back to watch the race.(4-3-2011) - Ward Burton’s son racing: Jeb Burton’s rise from the Limited Sportsman division to the Late Model Series
at South Boston Speedway has come with the guidance of father, Ward Burton [former Cup driver and Daytona 500 champ], and national championship crew chief Neil Perkins. For those around the younger Burton, there isn’t a better group of local short track racing figures to help develop the 18-year-old Halifax County High School senior as he continues to set his sights on advancing in the racing field. Though, the phone conversations he has with his uncle, Sprint Cup Series driver Jeff Burton, are what he enjoy the most as he finally gets a chance to hear from the driver who is still one of the best in the sport. “I talk to him and I ask his advice, I store it in my brain,” Jeb Burton said. “He’ll have time one day to come watch me race and I’m pretty sure he will. … It’s helping me, but I’ve got to help myself. I got to start giving a little bit better information. I’m just trying to get better. I know I can win races and I just want to win races every weekend.” Jeb Burton said he has committed to racing in the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown in late April at Richmond International Raceway. That event, which runs on a Thursday, kicks off the racing weekend at RIR and concludes with the Cup Series race Saturday night.(News & Advance)(4-3-2011)
2010:
- Shane Hmiel back racing; Rose back in NASCAR Former NASCAR driver Shane Hmiel won a USAC Midget race last week at Hickory Motor Speedway. He returned to race again the next night, turning the fastest speed in qualifying and hoping for another $3,000 winner’s payday, only to see rain wash away those hopes.
A handful of people milled around the pits and maybe a few hundred people sat in the grandstands as Hmiel and his one crewman worked on his car. It was a long way from pit road at Bristol Motor Speedway, the site of his last Sprint Cup race five years ago. It was a long way from victory lane at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he won a NASCAR Truck Series race in 2004. If all had gone right in Shane Hmiel’s world, he’d be making more than $3,000 a race just for waking up in the morning. But things didn’t go right for Hmiel, who is bipolar and has a drug habit. “I was 25 years old,” Hmiel said about where he was five years ago as a NASCAR Busch Series regular driving for Braun Racing. “I could have been one of the next guys, know what I mean? I pissed it all away twice, and nobody needs to do that. Nobody needs to put their family through it. It doesn’t bother me because I understand it. I feel like I’m just here. I’m living, going day to day. I’m just excited to race like I get to now.”
Hmiel has been back racing for three years, but not in NASCAR, where he’s been banned from competing and banished from the garage for repeatedly violating NASCAR’s substance abuse policy. His first indefinite suspension lasted for eight races after he tested positive for marijuana in 2003. After being reinstated, he was indefinitely suspended again for testing positive for cocaine and marijuana in May 2005. He failed another test in early 2006 while on suspension and has been banned for life. Hmiel, son of longtime NASCAR mechanic and current Earnhardt Ganassi Racing competition director Steve Hmiel, isn’t trying to get back into NASCAR. He’s trying to become an accomplished racer again, a champion. It’s better than being on drugs, or possibly having his life end while on drugs. Hmiel said that when he first returned to the track, he noticed people staring at him. They thought he had just been hiding out for a few years and wasn’t truly drug free, he said. Today, he says he has a stack of drug test results that prove he is clean and believes that about 90 percent of his competitors believe him. He talks to people, he says, who want to talk about their own battles with addiction.
Hmiel says he doesn’t have the urge to use drugs anymore but says he won’t conquer his addiction unless he never uses again. Hmiel also says he’s a much better race-car driver now. He’s wrecked fewer cars in three years, he says, than he did in three months of stock-car racing.(full story and quotes at SceneDaily and also at SceneDaily: Shane Hmiel says NASCAR’s new substance abuse policy would have helped him get treatment sooner.
AND Brian Rose, a once-promising young race car driver, will be behind the wheel of a NASCAR racing machine [failed to qualify for the Nashville Truck Series race] for the first time since he was indefinitely suspended for violating the league’s substance abuse policy in the spring of 2003. He’s back with Rick Ware Racing, the same team he was driving for when he was banned by the league. But he is not the same person we knew then. When we last saw him, Rose was a broken, drug-addicted 23-year-old. Sponsorship woes had limited his opportunities to race. In 2001-02, he competed in 36 NASCAR Truck races, including stints with top-shelf team owners Bobby Hamilton and Billy Ballew, earning five top-10 finishes. In 2003 he rejoined Ware, with whom he’d started his career, and raced in two of the season’s first four events, finishing 14th at Darlington and 24th at Martinsville. The other two weekends he was stuck at home, forced to watch others race on TV. See full article at ESPN.com.
AND NASCAR has lifted the indefinite suspension of Brian Rose, who was suspended in April 2003 for failing to take a drug test.(SceneDaily)(4-3-2010)(4-3-2010)
2009:
- Las Vegas lands NASCAR’s Sprint Cup banquet: NASCAR and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority have reached an agreement in principle to bring the Sprint Cup banquet, awards ceremony and
postseason celebration to Las Vegas in the first week of December. LVCVA president Rossi Ralenkotter confirmed the tentative agreement to move the annual event from downtown New York, where it has been held for the past 27 years, and make it a citywide event centered on the Strip. Some deal points still need to be finalized,” Ralenkotter said Thursday. The sides have yet to settle the length of the contract; Ralenkotter wants a deal of three to five years. Also to be determined is the degree to which Las Vegas will be included in advertising and media references to the event. The LVCVA would pay NASCAR between $500,000 and $1 million for each year of the contract, Ralenkotter said. NASCAR has the option of selecting the venue for the banquet, likely to be Dec. 4. A spokesman for NASCAR, Ramsey Poston, said “nothing’s been finalized” about this year’s banquet plans. The event honors the top 10 drivers from the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Talks between NASCAR officials and Ralenkotter began two years ago, with Ralenkotter attending the 2007 banquet. Negotiations picked up in the past two months. NASCAR moved its banquet from Daytona Beach, Fla., to New York in 1981 in part to establish a Madison Avenue presence. The move was highly successful, helping to attract a number of Fortune 500 sponsors, including Home Depot, Dupont and Sprint Nextel, to the sport. But high-priced hotel rooms in Manhattan and often harsh winter weather created problems for racers, sponsors and media traveling to the five-day event. Last year the “Victory Lap” parade around midtown with the top-10 Cup cars and drivers was canceled because it caused traffic congestion. NASCAR would be the second major professional sport to shift its awards ceremony to Las Vegas this year. Ralenkotter negotiated a three-year deal to bring the NHL awards to the Palms on June 18.(Las Vegas Review-Journal)(4-3-2009) - Nationwide To Use Twitter, Twitpic for real-time race access: The Nationwide Media Team for the NASCAR Nationwide Series will be using Twitter (http://twitter.com/Nationwide) and Twitpic (http://www.twitpic.com/photos/nationwide) to provide real-time, behind-the-scenes access to the NASCAR Nationwide Series Pepsi 300 at Nashville Superspeedway April 10 and 11. They will post updates and capture photos from the pre-race press conference, at a driver Easter Egg Toss, in the garage area and pretty much anywhere else interesting stuff is taking place. Additionally, they are taking special requests you may have for pictures from pit row, the press conference, a particular driver, etc. They may not be able to fulfill all the requests, but they will certainly try. You can follow the Nationwide Media Team’s whereabouts on the track those two days on Twitter/Nationwide. The pictures will be posted at http://www.twitpic.com/photos/nationwide. Send your photo request to http://twitter.com/Nationwide or [email protected] by midnight April 9.(Nationwide PR)(4-3-2009)
2002:
- NASCAR Pay for View? NASCAR may announce the launch of a multichannel pay-per-view television package for this season’s races as early as this week if legal issues can be resolved, Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal reports (need sub to read). Writer Andy Bernstein says NASCAR is working with In Demand to provide about eight channels of coverage, most of them fixed on in-car cameras. The story says the package would have a price comparable to NFL Sunday Ticket, which sells for $169 a season, and would include every Winston Cup race.(Winston Cup Scene Daily Newsletter)(4-3-2002)
Click a link below for a full listing of news from each year:
2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997