April 14, 2012
- Biffle wins at Texas: #16-Greg Biffle won the Samsung Mobile 500 Sprint Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway for his 1st win of the year, 2nd at Texas and 17th career win. It was Biffle’s first win since Kansas in Oct 2010, a span of 49 races and the first career win for crew chief Matt Puccia.
#48-Johnson finished 2nd [his 37th career 2nd place, tied for 13th all-time] followed by #55-Martin, #24-Gordon, #17-Kenseth, #56-Truex, Jr.(the pole sitter), #5-Kahne, #99-Edwards, #29-Harvick and #88-Earnhardt Jr.
2011 Sprint Cup Series Chemp #14-Stewart, in a backup car, finished 24th with an ill-handling car. #2-Keselowski supposedly had fuel pump problems and lost many laps in the garage, finishing 36th. There were only 12 cars that finished on the lead lap. With only two cautions, there was a track record average speed for the race of 160.575mph.
There were only 2 cautions for 10 yellow flag laps, a new record. There were 18 lead changes among 7 drivers. The estimated attendence was 159,000, down from 168,400 in 2011.
See race results, awards, money won, laps led, cautions and more on the Texas Race Results page (pdf).(4-14-2012) - 2012 Sprint Cup Driver Championship Points Standings:
[after Texas, race 7 of 36]
1) #16-Greg Biffle [1 win], 273
2) #17-Matt Kenseth [1 win], 254, -19
3) #88-Dale Earnhardt Jr. [0 wins], 254, -19
4) #56-Martin Truex Jr. [0 wins], 253, -20
5) #29-Kevin Harvick [0 wins], 249, -24
6) #11-Denny Hamlin [1 win], 242, -31
7) #14-Tony Stewart [2 wins], 234, -39
8) #48-Jimmie Johnson [0 wins], 233, -40
9) #39-Ryan Newman [1 win], 225, -48
10) #15-Clint Bowyer [0 wins], 219, -54
wild card drivers:
11) #2-Brad Keselowski [1 win, 15th in points], 183, -90
12) #99-Carl Edwards [0 wins, 11th in pts], 215, -58
(ties broken by 1sts, 2nds, 3rd, etc)
See drivers championship points standings on the Drivers Points Standings page (pdf).(4-14-2012) - Top-35 in Owner Points and guaranteed a starting spot at Kansas:
#83 stays in the top 35, #10 moves back into the top-35, #33 drops out by 1 point.
Rank) Car#-Driver/Team, owners pts, +/-
30) #13-Mears/Germain, 119, +29
29) #34-Ragan/Front Row, 109, +19
30) #38-Gilliland/Front Row, 109, +19
31) #36-Blaney/Baldwin, 104, +14
32) #32-Sorenson/FAS Lane Racing, 104, +14
33) #93-Kvapil/BK Racing, 103, +13
34) #10-Reutimann-Patrick/Baldwin, 94, +4
35) #83-Cassill/BK Racing, 91, 1 ahead of 36th
these teams / drivers will need to qualify by speed:
36) #33-Sadler/Childress, 90, -1 from the top 35
37) #30-Stremme/Inception, 63, -28
The teams are NOT locked in past the next race as the owners points change after each race.
For the owner points standings, see the Owners Points Standings page (pdf).(4-14-2012) - Race Fast Facts – Texas Motor Speedway:
#16-Greg Biffle won the 16th Annual Samsung Mobile 500, his 17th victory in 337 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races.
Biffle ends a 49-race winless streak. His last win came at Kansas Speedway on Oct. 3, 2010.
This is his first victory and fifth top-10 finish in 2012.
This is his second victory and 10th top-10 finish in 17 races at Texas Motor Speedway.
Biffle locked up a spot in the 2012 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.
This is Roush Fenway Racing’s ninth win at Texas Motor Speedway, most of any organization.
There was a record for average speed: 160.575 mph. Previous fastest was 152.705 mph on Nov. 6, 2011.
There was a record for fewest cautions (two) and caution laps (10).
#48-Jimmie Johnson (second) posted his 13th top-10 finish in 18 races at Texas Motor Speedway. It is his fifth top-10 finish in 2012.
#55-Mark Martin (third) posted his 13th top-10 finish in 23 races at Texas Motor Speedway.(NASCAR Statistics)(4-14-2012) - Texas Notes-n-Nuggets:
” Greg Biffle earned his 17th career Cup Series victory in his 337th start.
” It was Greg Biffle’s second Texas win; he is the sixth multiple-race winner at the track.
” Greg Biffle’s previous win came at Kansas in Oct. 2010, 49 races ago.
” The victory was Greg Biffle’s eighth consecutive top-10 finish at Texas, the longest current streak.
” Greg Biffle led seven times for 90 laps, including the final 31, and now leads teammate Matt Kenseth by 19 points in the Cup Series standings.
” This was the 127th Cup victory for Roush Fenway Racing and its ninth at Texas, six more than any other team.
” Jimmie Johnson (second) finished second at Texas for the fourth time since his Nov. 2007 victory; his 155 laps led were the most of all drivers.
” Mark Martin (third) earned his third top-10 finish in five starts this season.
” Jeff Gordon (fourth) picked up his best finish of 2012 and only his second top-10.
” Matt Kenseth (fifth) finished in the top five for the 11th time at Texas, the most of all drivers.
” Martin Truex Jr. (sixth) earned his fourth consecutive top-10 finish, his longest streak of his career.
” Carl Edwards (eighth) rebounded after a loose lug nut dropped him to 30th for the Lap 101 restart.
” Dale Earnhardt Jr. (10th) earned his fifth top-10 finish in seven races this season; it was his third consecutive top-10 at Texas.
” Track records were set for fewest cautions (two) and average speed (160.577 mph).
” The final 234 laps were run under green.(Racing Recall/nascar.com)(4-14-2012) - TMS installs new circuit breakers after outage: After the lights went out on the third turn of Friday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 300, Texas Motor Speedway officials decided to replace all of the circuit breakers for the Samsung Mobile 500. An outage caused two cautions during the O’Reilly 300, including a 10-minute red flag to replace the broken breaker. Maintenance crews replaced the rest of the breakers overnight. The breakers could have overheated, causing them to shut off to avoid further problems. The circuit breakers were 15 years old, according to the report. This is the second year that the O’Reilly 300 and Samsung Mobile 500 races took place at night.(ESPN Dallas)(4-14-2012)
- Edwards responds to comments in book: #99-Carl Edwards took the high road Friday when asked about the critical comments former girlfriend Amanda Beard wrote about him in her new book. “I’m not going to bash her or say bad things about her,” Edwards said in the Texas Motor Speedway media center. “She’s a mother, she’s a wife and someone I cared about.” Beard, a former Olympic gold medal swimmer, describes Edwards as self-absorbed, insanely jealous and controlling in their two-year relationship from 2005 and 2006. Sixteen pages of the 256-page book titled, “In the Water, They Can’t See You Cry,” are devoted to their times together. The book also details Beard’s previous problems with drug use and bulimia. “I considered us friends and I didn’t realize she had all those problems,” Edwards said. “I would have done anything in the world to help her with those. Regardless of what she writes in a book, if she ever needs something from me, I’d be there to help her out.” But Edwards said he’s still dumbfounded by some of the things Beard wrote in her book. “I don’t know where to start,” he said, “whether it’s the psychology of feelings about a relationship that doesn’t work out or the strategy to sell book. To be honest, it’s just weird. I don’t know how to address things that I don’t remember happening.” Edwards married Dr. Kate Downey in 2009. They have two children; two-year-old Anne and Michael, 11 months.(ESPN)(4-14-2012)
- Johnson Crowns ‘Speeding To Read’ Champions UPDATE: #48-Jimmie Johnson will make a special trip to Clara Love Elementary School in Justin on Friday, April 13, to crown the 2011-2012 champions for Texas Motor Speedway’s Speeding To Read pilot educational program. Speeding To Read LogoClara Love Elementary’s 630 K-5 student body have been racing to the finish line with more than 57,000 books read school wide. The school’s classrooms, split into two divisions with kindergarten through second grade and third through fifth grade, have been competing against each other to read the most books and earn the title of Speeding To Read champions.(TMS)(4-13-2012)
UPDATE: #48-Jimmie Johnson., the five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, paid a special visit Friday to Clara Love Elementary School in neighboring Justin to crown the inaugural champions of Texas Motor Speedway’s “Speeding To Read” educational program. Before an enthusiastic full-school assembly of nearly 625 students, faculty and visiting parents, Johnson arrived to a thunderous, continuous chant of J-I-M-M-I-E J-O-H-N-S-O-N in the auditorium to present the winning classrooms of the “Speeding To Read” program with their championship trophies. Johnson presented the Kindergarten-Second Grade Division championship trophy to Ms. Abrams’ first-grade class, which read 10,457 books. He then presented the Third-Fifth Grade Division championship trophy to Ms. Baker’s fifth-grade class, which read 913 books that were longer and more in-depth than the younger division. The 29 classrooms read a combined 80,083 books and more than 80% of the student body met or exceeded their reading goals for the year. Clara Love Elementary Principal Julie Nerby reciprocated on behalf of the school and made Johnson an honorary “Lil’ Texan” and presented him with a plaque and school t-shirt. Following the assembly, Johnson visited with the winning students that also were presented with champions t-shirts and four tickets each to Saturday night’s Samsung Mobile 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race to watch Johnson and his fellow competitors. He signed each one of their race programs as a memento, posed for photos with the championship classrooms and conducted another Q&A; with the winning students. “Speeding To Read” is an incentive-based, NASCAR-themed reading program created by Texas Motor Speedway to encourage students to read more frequently during the school year. In addition to taking in Saturday’s Samsung Mobile 500, the winning classrooms also will get to visit with Scott Speed of #95 Leavine Family Racing prior to the race.(TMS)(4-14-2012) - Ambrose lends a hand to family in Texas: Marcos Ambrose, driver of the #9 Stanley Ford, partnered with Stanley, Do it Best Corp and Habitat for Humanity for the third annual “Hammering for Habitat” project on Wednesday, April 11 in Fort Worth, Texas. Ambrose assisted in building a new home with the Barnes family, who is currently living in a two-bedroom apartment that has severe mold problems and flooding issues. Ms. Barnes has four children under the age of nine and is currently working toward her B.A. in Social Work. Ambrose spent the majority of Wednesday afternoon helping with the framing portion of the house ahead of the Samsung Mobile 500 race festivities at Texas Motor Speedway.(RPM)(4-14-2012)
- Bonnett to be inducted into Motorsports Hall of Fame of America: Racing legends Derek Bell, Neil Bonnett, Pop Dreyer, Vic Edelbrock, Sr., Ricky Johnson, Ed Pink and Danny Sullivan will be this year’s inductees into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America at the organization’s 24th Annual Induction Ceremony that will be held on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at the Fillmore Theater in Detroit. The Class of 2012 announcement was made in a press conference on the opening day of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach where Hall President Ron Watson was joined by Sullivan and Pink, who represented the accomplished motorsports legends that make up this year’s illustrious group of inductees. Bonnett was one of the most affable drivers in NASCAR Winston Cup Series history, earning 18 series victories during his 18-year career. Among his 18 wins were back-to-back victories in NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 (1982 and 1983). Bonnett also won back-to-back Busch Clash races at Daytona International Speedway (1983 and 1984). Tickets for the 24th Annual Motorsports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony can be purchased at www.mshf.com.(MSHFA)(4-14-2012)
- Sad News – Tia Lynne Liberati: Tia Lynne Liberati, 44, from Bellaire, OH, passed away Thursday, April 5th in Morgantown, W.Va. surrounded by her family. She is survived by her parents Dorothy and Anello Liberati; brothers Anello, Jr. “Smoker” and [NASCAR crew chief] Gio “Rambo” Liberati; numerous aunts and uncles; as well as nieces and nephews who affectionately referred to her as “Tia-Tia.”(4-14-2012)
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