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10/15/2010
Celebrity chef Mario Batali has concocted quite a recipe for success for the inaugural Asphalt Chef gala that will be held Saturday, Nov. 6, evening poolside at Texas Motor Speedway’s Lone Star Tower to benefit Speedway Children’s Charities-Texas Chapter and the Mario Batali Foundation.
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10/13/2010
FORT WORTH, Texas (October 13, 2010) – Four-time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson is no stranger to driving around Texas Motor Speedway’s high-banked, 1.5-mile oval at over 190 mph.
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10/13/2010
FORT WORTH, Texas (Oct. 13, 2010) – Four-time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson and Texas Motor Speedway will be offering a ticket package for the Nov. 7 AAA Texas 500 with such substantial savings that it will only be available for 48 hours beginning 9 a.m. Thursday.
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10/11/2010
By Reid SpencerSporting News NASCAR Wire Service FONTANA, Calif.—A poor qualifying run left Denny Hamlin 34th on the starting grid for Sunday’s Pepsi Max 400 at Auto Club Speedway. A transmission change before the race forced him to the back of the field—43rd—for the green flag. Under the circumstances, Hamlin did well to stay close to points leader Jimmie Johnson. Hamlin finished eighth and remained second in the standings. He trails Johnson, who finished third, by 36 points with six races left in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. “I can’t be too disappointed with it—especially from where we started,” Hamlin said. “It’s somewhat uplifting that we got out of here with a top-10 day. On the other hand, we felt like we at least could have raced those guys.” Hamlin’s nemesis was a series of restarts necessitated by late cautions. Hamlin was gaining ground until a debris caution on Lap 182 slowed the race. “I needed it to go green those last 20 laps,” Hamlin said. “We were catching the 48 (Johnson) and those guys. I felt like we were going to finish third or fourth. Just got those restarts—that was our Achilles’ heel all day. We’d lose three or four spots every lap for the first couple, and then we would make them back up.” Hamlin nevertheless has cause for optimism. “We run better the second half of the Chase—we always have,” he said. “At this point, to be within whatever amount of points we are, I can take that and I can race him from there.” Kyle Busch’s Chase up in smoke A blown engine on Lap 154 Sunday derailed Kyle Busch’s promising run and all but eliminated him from title contention. “It blew the seal between the hood and the cowl up about five laps prior to that,” Busch said. “I don’t know why or what it was, but I said, ‘That certainly didn’t sound right, and if it makes it the rest of the way, I’ll certainly be surprised.’ ” Busch didn’t have to worry about finishing the race, and with the engine failure went the championship. He is 10th, 187 points behind Johnson. “It’s over,” Busch said. “On to next year.” Bad day for big brother, too Unlike his brother, Kyle, Kurt Busch isn’t giving up on the Chase, but Kurt’s fortunes suffered a major setback, thanks to an accident involving David Ragan with seven laps left in the race. Busch rallied to finish 21st, but he leaves Fontana sixth in the standings, 140 points behind Johnson. “We still looked to be a threat for a top 10 until we had the run-in with the 6 car (Ragan),” Busch said. “He just washed right up the track and pinned us into the wall. The left front tire blew, and we had to pit for repairs. “We were running wounded out there on the last restart, but we still made it back up from 30th to 21st. It could have been a really solid day here for the (No. 2) Dodge, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. Hopefully, we can bounce back next week at Charlotte.”
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10/08/2010
By Lee Montgomery
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10/07/2010
By Bill MarxSporting News NASCAR Wire Service
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10/07/2010
FORT WORTH, Texas (October 7, 2010) – Charles Caleb Colton coined the phrase “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage is feeling quite flattered when he checks out the various billboard marketing campaigns on his commutes throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.
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10/05/2010
FORT WORTH, Texas (October 5, 2010) – 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Kurt Busch would love to hang on your couch and give you the inside skinny on a NASCAR race for one weekend, but his schedule unfortunately does not allow for that.
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10/05/2010
Foreigner lead singer Kelly Hansen will be performing the National Anthem prior to the Nov. 7 AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, the eighth race in the 10-event Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship. It will be Hansen’s second appearance at Texas Motor Speedway. He previously performed with Foreigner as the headliner for the 2009 Samsung Mobile 500 pre-race show.
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10/04/2010
Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Dario Franchitti earned his second consecutive IndyCar Series title Saturday with an eighth-place finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway. This marks Franchitti's third IndyCar Series title (2007, 2009, 2010), tying Sam Hornish Jr. (2001, 2002, 2006) for most championship wins. Franchitti and Hornish Jr. are the only drivers to post consecutive championship wins in series history.
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10/04/2010
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Greg Biffle and Jimmie Johnson got exactly what they needed Sunday at Kansas Speedway—Biffle by leaving the field in his dust and Johnson by persevering.Biffle ran away and hid from the rest of the field in winning the Price Chopper 400—the third race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup—by 7.638 seconds over Johnson, who rallied from his 21st starting position to claim the runner-up spot.Johnson, seeking his fifth straight Cup title, didn’t leave the 1.5-mile racetrack with the trophy, but he heads to next Sunday’s race at his “home” track (Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.) with the series points lead.Biffle entered the race 140 points behind Denny Hamlin, who finished 12th Sunday and lost the points lead to Johnson. With his second win of the year, his second win at Kansas and the 16th victory of his career, Biffle heads for California eighth in the standings and 85 points down to Johnson with seven races left in the Chase.Johnson leads Hamlin by eight points.“It was a great day for us,” Biffle said. “The car ran flawless. (Crew chief Greg) Erwin just made great calls in the pits, and the car just kept getting better and better and better. I was too loose for about the first three-quarters of the race.“I didn’t want to adjust on it, because I was running in the top three, but they tightened it up, and off it went, man. All it need was a little bit of wedge in it to take off.”Kevin Harvick finished third, followed by Tony Stewart, who led a race-high 76 laps before his car faded slightly in the closing stages. Jeff Gordon won an intense battle with Carl Edwards for the fifth spot, and Matt Kenseth came home seventh, as Chase drivers claimed the top seven positions.The victory was a tonic for Biffle after last week’s 19th-place finish at Dover.“We were kind of down in the dumps about Dover, one of our best racetracks, and we got trapped (when forced to pit off-sequence)—we had a top-10 car there. But we can’t go back and do it over again. We’ll keep doing the best we can.“Everybody asks if we’re out of it, and I said, ‘We’re going to do the best we can. If we win ’em all, we win ’em all.’ ”Despite taking the points lead, Johnson said it’s far too early to start thinking about a fifth straight championship.“That would be foolish,” Johnson said. “It’s way too early to think about those things—way, way too early. … All I can do is worry about my team, what we have to do. Again, it's early. I'm not worried about who is leading the championship right now.“I know we came (into Kansas) second. Of course, I wanted to be leading. I could care less where the 11 (Hamlin) was today. It's just not time to worry about that stuff. After Talladega (the seventh Chase race), teams and drivers can work on a strategy of protecting or taking chances. We have to get deeper into the Chase to be concerned about who the points leader is.”Notes: Biffle’s win was worth a $100,000 bonus to his No. 16 Roush Fenway racing team. Ford’s director of North American Motorsports announced an incentive program for the Ford Chase teams before the race—$100,000 for each win in the final eight races, to be distributed throughout the team. ... Despite two run-ins with David Reutimann, Kyle Busch salvaged a 21st-place finish and stayed within striking distance of Johnson, seventh in the standings and 80 points back.
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10/01/2010
Come out to the 18th Annual Lone Star Nationals at Texas Motor Speedway and enjoy over 1,500 Rods, Customs, Classics, Muscle Cars and Trucks thru '72, Goodgals Gallery, Model Car & Pedal Car Show, Swap Meet & Cars for Sale Corral and much more!
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09/30/2010
By Jim PedleySpecial to Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
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09/28/2010
Sporting News Power Poll after Dover By the Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service After his victory Sunday at Dover, Jimmie Johnson is back atop the Sporting News Power Poll. Johnson has three top-five finishes in his past four starts and has closed to 35 points of Chase leader Denny Hamlin, who is second in the poll. The weekly poll is a collaboration of Sporting News and Rowdy.com. 1. Jimmie Johnson (11th) His 19 wins in Chase races alone (62 races) are enough to rank him 34th all time in Cup wins. 2. Denny Hamlin (1st) His target finish was eighth, and he finished ninth. That’s three straight top 10s for the points leader. 3. Kyle Busch (4th) Looked like he might pull off a Dover sweep but faded to sixth at the end. 4. Carl Edwards (6th) Edwards stayed in touch with the Chase leaders with a fifth-place finish at Dover. 5. Kurt Busch (9th) Fourth in the race. Fourth in the points. 6. Jeff Burton (13th) Found it funny that Burton bemoaned the fact he can’t qualify well. He has never qualified well. Accept it, dude, and move on. Be proud of your runner-up finish and keep digging. 7. Kevin Harvick (3rd) Harvick has four top 15s in the past five races, but he hasn’t led any laps since winning at Michigan. 8. Jeff Gordon (5th) Gordon ran in the top six most of the afternoon, but a mistake in the pits cost him dearly. Lacking the speed of the Chase front-runners, Gordon has to be perfect in all other respects. On Sunday, that didn’t happen. 9. Ryan Newman (10th) Four top 10s in the past five races. Easily his best stretch all season. 10. AJ Allmendinger (16th) Before Sunday’s race, AJ had led 43 laps in his entire career. At Dover he led 143. Could it be mere coincidence that he drives the No. 43? 11. Joey Logano (25th) Logano has two top fives in the past three races but still no consistency. 12. Jamie McMurray (7th) McMurray is fighting hard with Newman for the consolation prize for non-Chasers. Newman has 13th place by 19 points. 13. Clint Bowyer (2nd) His appeal should raise the point that NASCAR needs an independent board of arbiters to make judgment calls, rather than NASCAR-appointed ones. 14. Tony Stewart (8th) A second straight finish in the 20s put Smoke’s title hopes in serious jeopardy. 15. Juan Pablo Montoya (14th) Montoya qualified in the top 10 for the 10th straight race. That’s the longest current top-10 starting streak in Cup. 16. Matt Kenseth (17th) A blown tire ripped into his car, and Kenseth finished 18th. That’s his fourth consecutive finish outside the top 10. 17. Greg Biffle (15th) A big, fat egg laid at one of his best tracks spells doom for Biffle in this year’s Chase. 18. Mark Martin (23rd) Martin had to start in the back because of an illegal shock in qualifying but raced his way into the top 15—which is progress for Martin these days. 19. Paul Menard (NR) Menard gets his fourth top 10 and first since Chicagoland in July. He had two entering the season. 20. Marcos Ambrose (24th) Once he fell a lap down, long green-flag runs kept him there. 21. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (19th) Step right up to the Earnhardt roller-coaster. New Hampshire gave Junior’s fans some hope. Dover dashed it again. 22. David Reutimann (12th) Reutimann finished 35th, his fourth finish 30th or worse. He had three last year. 23. Kasey Kahne (18th) For the second week in a row Kahne failed to run one lap in the top 10. 24. Brad Keselowski (21st) His 22nd at Dover equaled his average finish this year. Keselowski has 11 finishes from 18th to 22nd. 25. Martin Truex Jr. (20th) Shades of the Truex who won his only Cup race at Dover until mechanical problems spoiled his day.
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09/27/2010
By Reid SpencerSporting News NASCAR Wire Service What’s a win worth? Ask Jimmie Johnson. He’s the expert. Since NASCAR introduced the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup in 2004, Johnson has won a statistically improbable 19 of the aggregate 62 Chase races, the most recent coming Sunday at Dover International Speedway. Johnson has won 30.6 percent of his starts in the Chase. In non-Chase races, Johnson has won 34 times in 257 starts, a winning percentage of 13.2 percent. In the Chase, Johnson and his No. 48 team more their double the frequency of their trips to victory lane. Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus figured out long ago the key to winning Chases is winning races. Not only have they identified the most efficient strategy, but they also have done something much more difficult. They’ve carried it out. Sunday’s race brought home the value of winning in an emphatic, unmistakable way. After an uncharacteristically sloppy 25th-place finish a week earlier at New Hampshire, Johnson was seventh in the standings, 92 points behind Chase leader Denny Hamlin. At Dover, however, Johnson led the most laps and won the race, jumped to second in the standings and knocked 57 points off Hamlin’s lead. Though Johnson’s average finish through two races is 13.0—far off the pace necessary to win a title—he’s only 35 points behind Hamlin, who finished second at Loudon and ninth at Dover for an average finish of 5.5. The math is simple. A race winner is guaranteed 190 points (including the five-point bonus for leading a lap), with another five points available for leading the most laps. Accordingly, a dominating win, the likes of which Johnson orchestrated Sunday, can go a long way toward canceling mistakes in earlier races. Hamlin is aware of the formula. The difference is that he and his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team haven’t been able to implement it yet. “We’re not going to keep those guys from winning—they’re going to,” Hamlin said after Sunday’s race. “They’re going to win. That’s the characteristic of that team. Anytime they’re faced with adversity, they come and make a strong statement. That’s been their M.O. for a long time. “To me, it’s not that alarming, and I won’t be too alarmed by it.” Nevertheless, it’s evident Hamlin and Johnson entered the Chase with different mind-sets. Hamlin had a series of goals with respect to where he hoped to stand after each race. Johnson prefers to add up the points after each event. “I’m not so concerned with statements,” Johnson said. “At the end of the day, I’m just concerned with where I am in the points, what the deficit is—if we’re fortunate to get on top, how big that gap is, what we need to do to be champions. A lot of that other stuff, if it’s in your brain, you’re not thinking about the right thing. “We want to win this championship. We want to win five in a row. It’s within our race shop. These guys on the 48 team, we need to buckle down, get better in some areas. (Sunday) we did win, but we need to be stronger moving forward. We’ve got to go home and get better.” And they have to win more races. That’s part of the formula Johnson and Knaus are all so familiar with. And it’s something Hamlin and the No. 11 team will have to accept and execute if they want to become the next Sprint Cup champions.
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09/23/2010
WELCOME, N.C. (September 23, 2010) - Richard Childress Racing's three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams, along with the remaining host racetracks in the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup, are adding to the excitement of the championship race through a social media promotion designed for race fans.
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09/23/2010
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Sept. 23, 2010) – The National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) announced today that it will revise the qualifying procedure for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for the remainder of the 2010 season.
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09/21/2010
FORT WORTH, Texas (Sept. 21, 2010) – Texas high school bands have a chance to compete for a rare opportunity with the 95.9 The Ranch “Battle of the High School Bands” contest, as the winner will perform the National Anthem for the Nov. 6 O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway.
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09/21/2010
FORT WORTH, Texas (September 21, 2010) – The Tony Stewart “Smoke Show” fantasy camp at Texas Motor Speedway that benefits the Speedway Children’s Charities-Texas Chapter will be featured in a segment on America’s most-watched morning show, NBC’s Today Show, on Wednesday during the 7 a.m. CT/8 a.m. ET hour.
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09/20/2010
By Reid SpencerSporting News NASCAR Wire Service (September 20, 2010) LOUDON, N.H.—Tortoise or hare? Which one—specifically, which philosophy—is going to win the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup? If Jeff Gordon wins the championship, he’ll validate the tortoise approach. That’s not to imply Gordon is slow. It simply means he can bring to the Chase the maturity and experience born of previous championship battles—as he did Sunday in New Hampshire, where he bided his time, made a sensible choice and left with a sixth-place finish. A mediocre qualifying effort put Gordon in the 17th starting position. Gradually, he worked his way toward the front of the field, running as high as second in the final 80 laps of the Sylvania 300. But when others gambled on fuel mileage after pit stops on Lap 208, Gordon and crew chief Steve Letarte weighed the risk versus the potential reward and brought the No. 24 Chevrolet to pit road for a splash of gas on Lap 225. Clint Bowyer’s gamble on fuel paid off with a race win, but Tony Stewart and Jeff Burton weren’t as lucky. Stewart’s tank went dry with his No. 14 Chevrolet in the lead with barely more than one lap left. After an agonizingly slow trip around the 1.058-mile racetrack, Stewart inched across the finish line in 24th place. Jeff Burton, running fourth at the time, experienced fuel pickup issues before Stewart did but managed to coast home in 15th. Burton and Stewart sustained deep wounds to their championship hopes. Gordon and Letarte weren’t willing to take the risk, and the conservative choice paid off. “It wasn’t our best day, but I felt like we really brought the No. 24 car home in the best position we possibly could,” Gordon said. “We had some high hopes when we got up there to third or fourth—even to second at one time. “But I think Steve called a great race. He didn’t want to risk the fuel, and it just wasn’t worth it. We did a gas-and-go and probably just needed to make one adjustment on that last set of tires. We got real tight there at the end, but when those guys didn’t make it on fuel, it definitely made us feel that much better about the call that Steve made and coming home sixth.” The net effect was enormous. Though winless this year, Gordon wiped out the 50-point advantage that belonged to teammate Jimmie Johnson, a five-time winner this year but a 25th-place finisher at Loudon. Gordon jumped from a tie for eighth in the standings to fifth, 75 points behind race runner-up Denny Hamlin but well within striking distance if Hamlin falters. “I don’t think we played it cautious (Sunday),” Gordon said. “I just feel like Steve looked at whether or not it was worth gambling. That’s what we do every week. We came into this race saying we can certainly lose this championship this weekend; we can’t necessarily win it. We’ve got to go and grind it out and put out that kind of effort for 10 weeks.” In five of the past six seasons, the Chase winner has come from the top six finishers at New Hampshire in September. The lone exception was Johnson in 2006, when he rallied from a 39th-place finish at Loudon to win the title. In the past three seasons, Johnson has surged to the front by piling up victories in the Chase, but there’s nothing to suggest one team will dominate this year. That’s good news for Gordon. “Slow” won’t win anything, but “steady” certainly could, and “steady” defines Jeff Gordon, whose trump card—more than anything else—is consistency.
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