April 4, 2009
- Race Coverage of the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway is scheduled for Sunday, April 5, 2009.
TV: FOX at 2:00 pm/et; pre-race show at 1:30 pm/et; green flag approx 2:16pm/et
Radio: PRN Radio and Sirius XM Satellite NASCAR Radio
Scheduled Race Re-Air: SPEED, Wednesday, April 8 at 12:00pm/et;
- Pit Stall Selections – Texas: The selections for pit stalls of the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway have been made. Pole sitter #00-David Reutimann chose pit stall 1 as do most pole sitters, while outside pole sitter #24-Gordon took pit stall 14, the next with an opening in front of it and #17-Kenseth, took pit stall 24, which is the next stall with an opening in front of it. #6-Ragan who starts 4th, chose the final pit stall. See the pit selection chart on the Texas Motor Speedway Pit Stall Selection chart.(4-4-2009)
- Happy Hour Practice for the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway is over, the top 5:
#48-Johnson 183.717
#11-Hamlin 188.717
#18-Busch 183.605
#26-McMurray 183.293
#71-Gilliland 183.175
slowest: #09-Bliss 175.092 and #13-Papis 175.359
incidents: none
For the best speeds, ave speeds, laps run and more, see the Texas Practice Speeds/News page.(4-4-2009)
- NASCAR team owner to run Indy 500? UPDATE: According to a press release from TB Communications, a press conference has been scheduled for Monday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a “NASCAR team owner” to announce an entry into the 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 24. The release said the team owner will be making his debut as a car owner in the Indy 500. Two Sprint Cup Series team owners can be eliminated. Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi have both won the Indy 500 as car owners. The NASCAR team owner announcing the entry is also expected to announce a major sponsor for the deal and also who will drive his car. The release did not say if the NASCAR team owner involved is an owner in the Sprint Cup Series.(Hartford Courant)(4-3-2009)
UPDATE: Richard Petty Motorsports will field an Indy 500 entry for driver John Andretti, sources have confirmed to NASCAR.COM. The official announcement will be made Monday. Given that RPM currently does not have an IndyCar operation, it was unclear Friday how the program would take shape.(NASCAR.com)(4-3-2009)
UPDATE 2: Richard Petty will make his first foray into the Indianapolis 500 as an owner when he fields a car for John Andretti in next month’s race. A news conference is scheduled Monday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but details were confirmed Friday by a person familiar with the arrangement. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the deal has not been announced. In 1994, Andretti became the first driver to run both the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR event in Charlotte on the same day, finishing 10th at Indianapolis and crashing and finishing 36th at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Tony Stewart and Robby Gordon have both since done the double, but the grueling feat is no longer possible since Indianpolis changed its starting time several years ago. Petty is a partner in NASCAR with George Gillett in Richard Petty Motorsports, the team formerly known as Gillett Evernham Motorsports. Gillett is not expected to be part of the Indy deal. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, which runs the full IndyCar Series, will work with Petty at Indy, providing equipment and personnel.(Associated Press)(4-4-2009)
- Allmendinger and Speed on USF1’s short list UPDATE Speed says NO: Sources tell AutoRacingSport.com that NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers AJ Allmendinger and Scott Speed are ‘definitely’ on the short list of the newly formed USF1 Formula 1 team that’s set to begin competition in 2010 while IndyCar star Danica Patrick and NASCAR Sprint Cup sensation ‘Kyle Busch are not. Ken and Peter (Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor-USF1 team Principals) are really looking for open wheel experience, and Scott and AJ (Speed and Allmendinger) fit that bill quite well, with AJ being a winner in Champ Car and Scott having F1 experience.’ our source informs us.(AutoRacingSport.com)(3-28-2009)
UPDATE: Oh yeah, there’s one other thing I [Scott Speed] wanted to mention. Even though I might talk fondly about my F1 days, I’m not going back. So don’t believe anything that anyone is saying about me joining the new U.S. F1 team next year. Those rumors were generated by journalists who were just being journalists, that’s all. So get used to me, I’m not going anywhere!(Frontstretch.com/Scott Speed Diary)(4-4-2009)
- ESPN Motorsports Coverage Earns Five Sports Emmy Nominations: ESPN’s coverage of motorsports earned five Sports Emmy Award nominations, among an industry-leading 54 nominations earned by ESPN, Inc., it was announced today by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The 54 nominations were the most of any submitting company for the eighth time in nine years. The winners will be announced Monday, April 27. The five nominations in motorsports included the company’s production endeavors for live event coverage and technical expertise.
Outstanding Technical Team Remote: ESPN NASCAR 2008
Outstanding Technical Team Studio: ESPN NASCAR 2008 (Pit studio and Tech Center)
Outstanding Live Event Audio/Sound: ESPN NASCAR 2008
George Wensel Technical Achievement Award: Draft Track 2.0
Outstanding Open/Tease: 2008 Indianapolis 500: The Perfect Storm
ESPN has won 18 Sports Emmy Awards for motorsports in its history, 17 during the 1990s and one last year for 2007 and the network’s return to NASCAR. Overall, ABC has won 160 Sports Emmy Awards since they were first given in 1980, while ESPN has won 123 in 21 years of eligibility.(ESPN PR)(4-4-2009)
- Fox earns 5 Emmy noms: NASCAR on FOX received 5 Sports Emmy Noms including Outstanding Live Series and Live Special for Daytona 500 coverage.(4-4-2009)
- National Science Foundation Teams With NASCAR: As science educators continue to explore ways to improve science scores among students grades 8-12, they now can turn to NASCAR. A new online series of videos called The Science of Speed, announced Friday at the Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) in Fort Worth, reveals the sophisticated science and engineering behind NASCAR racing to teach science. To bring the 12-module science video series to computer screens, NSF teamed with NASCAR, the largest sanctioning body of motorsports in the United States, University of Texas at Dallas physics professor Diandra Leslie-Pelecky—author of the book The Physics of NASCAR and Santa Fe Productions, Albuquerque, N.M. In a series of high-quality, easy-to-understand videos, fast cars double as science experiments that illustrate basic concepts of friction, safety, sound and other elements of racing at speeds up to 200 miles per hour. Deftly guided onscreen by Leslie-Pelecky, viewers glimpse the intricacies of a rarely seen side of NASCAR—the science. Segments feature drivers, crew chiefs and engineers from numerous NASCAR garages including Jeff Gordon, Steve Letarte and Lisa Smokstad of Hendrick Motor Sports; Nick Hughes of Michael Waltrip Racing; Carl Edwards and Chris Andrews of Roush Fenway Racing; Josh Browne and John Probst of Red Bull Racing; Andy Randolph of Earnhardt Childress Racing and many others. Teachers and students can download the videos for free from NSF’s new website, Science360.gov. Science360.gov was created to be the preferred on-line destination for obtaining cutting-edge science information.(NASCAR PR), see a video at ESPN.com and more info at stockcarscience.com.(4-4-2009)
- Plans for Keselowski: from a Chevy Press Conference Transcript of Brad Keselowski:
ON PLANNING FOR NEXT SEASON: “There’s so many pieces to the puzzle as far as deciding where I’m going to be next year and what my situation is that it’s almost mind-boggling. You stop thinking about it and you just worry about running as competitively as you can and knowing that everything will work itself out.”
ON TAKING OVER THE #5 NSCS CAR IN 2010: “I haven’t had the discussion about that. I think ultimately its Mark’s (Martin) call and I don’t know how that’s exactly going to unfold, but I feel comfortable with the organization I’m with at Hendrick Motorsports and JR Motorsports that it will work itself out in the end if I run competitively and can win races.”
WHO ARE YOU UNDER CONTRACT WITH?: “I’m still under contract with JR Motorsports, but we have an informal agreement with Hendrick Motorsports.”
ON OTHER OFFERS FOR THIS SEASON: “I had the offer last year to drive the Penske car and I still feel this way even though the season hasn’t gone the way I wanted it to go in the Nationwide series — I still feel that this is my home with the 88 Nationwide team with having Dale (Earnhardt Jr.) and Mr. Hendrick as a boss. Even though it’s not been as competitive I feel like it’s my home and that it will continue to get better and that we will be an elite team.”(Chevy Press Conference Transcript)(4-4-2009)
- Final Martinsville TV Ratings down: Fox’s broadcast of last Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway earned a final Nielsen Media Research rating of 4.6 and a 10 market share, Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Daily reports. The rating is 13.2% lower than the 5.3 Fox earned for the race in 2008.(SceneDaily), see season TV Ratings, race-by-race ratings and more on the 2009 TV Ratings page.(4-4-2009)
- Only Happy Landings for ESPN’s Shannon Spake: Despite growing up with a pilot for a father, ESPN NASCAR pit reporter Shannon Spake admits she has always been one to comment about bad landings on commercial airline flights – until now. “I’m never judging again,” said Spake, who flew a Southwest Airlines simulator at the airline’s Dallas headquarters Thursday prior to heading to nearby Texas Motor Speedway to work ESPN2’s telecast of Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series event. “I have a whole new respect,” said Spake, who flew in the right seat as her father, Southwest Captain Don Speacht, was in the pilot’s seat in the Boeing 737 simulator. “I did two landings, and all I could think about was how people like me sit in the back of those planes and judge landings. They make it seem so flawless, and until I did it I had no idea how much was involved.” But what she really enjoyed was a day at the office with her father. “He wanted to take me to work with him, and it was so much fun,” she said. “After all these years, I finally got to see him at work when we flew the simulator. That was just awesome.”(ESPN MediaZone)(4-4-2009)
- Camping World to leave Truck Series? NASCAR is putting out feelers for a sponsor to replace Camping World for the Truck Series. Camping World entered the sport as the sponsor for Richard Childress Racing and Kevin Harvick Inc. on Ron Hornaday’s truck in 2007. Later that season CW expanded to include what was formerly the NASCAR Busch East and North developmental series. Camping World was named title sponsor of the Truck Series last fall following an extensive search after Craftsman Tools bowed out.(FoxSports)(4-4-2009)
- “Celebration of Life” Planned for Michael Lance: Michael “Sweats” Lance, who passed away Wed., April 1, will be remembered Monday night, April 6, at Hayworth-Miller Funeral Home in Winston-Salem, N.C. A “Celebration of Life” is scheduled for 6:30pm. Lance was born October 27, 1966, in High Point, N.C., and worked for Richard Childress Racing as a transporter driver for the #33 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team. He had been a member of the NASCAR community for some time, previously working for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. and Joe Gibbs Racing. Lance is survived by his wife, Debbie Boose, and step-children Brandon and Bailey Boose. Hayworth-Miller Funeral Home is located at 3315 Silas Creek Parkway.(RCR PR)(4-4-2009)
- Last weekend for 2008 owners points: UPDATE: The O’Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway is the last time owner points from 2008 will be used to line up the 30 guaranteed spots in the field. Next week, the points from 2009 will be used when the Nationwide series heads to Nashville. Coming into TMS, the #61 Ford driven by Brandon Whitt is 30th in the owner standings, three points ahead of a tie between Scott Wimmer’s #40 StopRepairBills.8com Chevy and Kenny Hendrick’s #42 Dodge. Wimmer did not qualify for the Texas race.(4-3-2009)
UPDATE:
Drivers/Teams that had not been locked in but will be next weekend:
#16-Jack Roush/Greg Biffle/Matt Kenseth
#18-Joe Gibbs Racing/Kyle Busch
#87-Joe Nemechek/Joe Nemechek
#10-Todd Braun/David Reutimann/Kelly Bires
#01-Johnny Davis/Danny O’Quinn, Jr.
Teams that have been locked in, but are NOT at Nashville:
#81-Randy MacDonald/D.J. Kennington/Kevin Hamlin
#05-Wayne Day/Casey Atwood
#52-Jimmy Means/Scott Gaylord/Kevin Lepage
#09-Jay Robinson/Jos Wes Townley
#90-Marcia Parsons/Johnny Chapman
Complete standings are posted on the Texas Race Page.(4-4-2009)
- Harvick, Stewart continue to help Shepherd: Shepherd does have some big-name help. Tony Stewart and Kevin and DeLana Harvick are helping keep Shepherd on the track. A couple of years ago, when Shepherd was wrecked out at Kentucky Speedway, he said into his radio, “This puts us out of business.” The following Monday morning, Shepherd fielded a call from Harvick’s team offering any help they could provide to keep him in business. That has included cars, parts and technical support. Stewart bought three engines for Shepherd before this season and is paying for tires for the entire season, a cost Shepherd estimates at $250,000.(Dallas Morning News)(4-4-2009)
- Hackett to run limited schedule: Ryan Hackett and Ray Hackett Racing will be making their 2009 Nationwide Series debut at Nashville Superspeedway on April 11 as they attempt to qualify for the Pepsi 300. The team will be led by 1993 Busch Series Championship crew chief Bryant Frazier. Janitorial and cleaning supply company J&R Supply Corp. will serve as associate sponsor and primary sponsorship opportunities are still available. The team plans to race a limited schedule in both the Nationwide Series and Camping World Truck Series with more races to be announced as sponsorship is found.(Hackett Racing PR)(4-4-2009)
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