New Hampshire track gets vote of confidence

Any talk of Bruton Smith and the swapping of race dates, naturally, gets New England race fans worried.

Not so fast, kiddos -- New Hampshire Motor Speedway remains out of this week's conversation. While Smith was talking about swapping a couple of NASCAR Cup Series weekends on the schedule involving a facility he owns, he wasn't talking about taking one of NHMS's races and moving out to his Las Vegas track.


Given that the Cuppers are in Vegas this weekend, it seemed as good a time as any for Smith to float date changes. He did -- though he's proposing swapping his October race at Atlanta with the Labor Day weekend race at California Speedway.


In a story by David Poole of the Charlotte Observer, Smith said he firmly believes Vegas has earned the right to a 2nd Cup race each year. He also said, and it should come as music to New Englanders' ears, that he's somewhat loathe to the idea of doing so at New Hampshire's expense.


"Maybe they will feel sorry for us some day," Smith said in Poole's story. "You realize that NASCAR has never, ever, never given me a date. They’ve given a lot of other people dates. ...It’s just an oversight. I am sure they meant to."


California's attendance has been embarrassing for a track that took an instutition off the slate -- the Southern 500 -- and the SoCal crowd hasn't exactly gobbled up NASCAR the way officials thought it would. That's great news for New Hampshire in the long run -- even though Speedway Motorsports Inc. (Smith's company) doesn't own California specifically, any track like NHMS that routinely sells out 2 races a year remains a boon for NASCAR in general.

The Artful Dodger

Newman wins 50th running of the Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH -- Shame on everyone who forgot about Dodge.

With a dramatic last-lap charge, Ryan Newman silenced two weeks' worth of talk about Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs racing over the last two weeks at Daytona International Speedway. Using a strong push from Penske Racing teammate Kurt Busch, Newman stunned a sellout crowd of more than 200,000 by winning the 50th running of the Daytona 500 on Sunday.

Newman became the 32nd winner of the prestigious event and snapped his own 81-race winless drought, which dated back to his win at New Hampshire in September of 2005.

"(I) don't have the words," said the 30-year-old native of South Bend, Ind. "It's awesome. It's probably the most awesome thing that's ever happened to me. To be looking face to face with all the greats (during the drivers' meeting), the guys that were on the stage up there, the former champions, to be on the same team with those guys, it's amazing."

Hendrick Motorsports, home of multi-time Sprint Cup Series champions Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, continued to grab headlines early in the week with wins in the Budweiser Shootout and the Gatorade Duels by new addition Dale Earnhardt Jr. Joe Gibbs Racing threatened to unseat the Hendrick folks, using their baptism into the Toyota camp to produce a Duel win and a victory by Tony Stewart in the NASCAR Nationwide Series event here on Saturday. They were poised as the two superteams in the Sprint Cup Series going into 2008.

Stewart was leading Sunday when the field came to the white flag, with Newman behind him. Stewart's JGR teammate Kyle Busch -- who led the most laps -- ran third, while Kurt Busch was fourth. Racing off of turn 2, Newman and Kurt Busch gathered all the momentum they needed as they ran into the lead in the outside groove.

They never looked back, pulling away for Penske Racing's first-ever Daytona 500 victory.

"Without a doubt, (Kurt) could have gone 3-wide and made a heck of a mess going into turn three," Newman said of getting help from Busch. "But he chose to be a teammate, and that's the most honorable thing he could do."

Newman also credited Stewart for not resorting to dirty on-track tactics.

"Kurt was the push from heaven that made it all happen," Newman said, "but Tony was very much a sportsman. He could have made that Home Depot (car) very wide, but instead he chose to race."

The three JGR drivers were the three drivers who led the most laps, between them accounting for 134 laps led. That was of little consolation to Stewart, who battled a less than an ideal race car in the middle of race to put himself in position to give Toyota its first win in a Cup Series points race.

"This is probably just one of the most disappointing moments of my racing career," said Stewart, who is winless in 10 Daytona 500 starts. "It would be a lie to come in here and say I was happy about, you know, going from first to third on the last lap of the Daytona 500."

Newman started creeping toward the front in the final 100 miles of the event. He led briefly on three occasions prior to the final lap, and left Kurt Busch happy to be part of a monumental day for team owner Roger Penske -- who has dominated open-wheel racing's biggest day with 14 victories as an owner in the Indianapolis 500 but had yet to claim stock car racing's most sought after trophy.

"It was a race of durability," said Newman's crew chief, Roy McCauley. "Ryan drove a masterful race, as far as when he had the car he could run in the top five, and when he didn't have the car, he found a slot to ride in. ... I think that's the sign of a smart driver."

It's also an early sign that Dodge needs to be included in any Sprint Cup Series conversations this season.

*****

For complete Daytona 500 results, click here.

Robby Gordon's romper room

Versatile driver says he's having plenty of fun in racing

DAYTONA BEACH -- There's been a lot talk lately about "real" racing being back at Daytona International Speedway this week with the Daytona 500 debut of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow. But stock car drivers can seldom be criticized for being too worldly.

It makes Robby Gordon a fine choice for putting restrictor-plate racing into perspective.

"Oh, it's really racing," said Gordon, who will start 26th in Sunday's 50th Daytona 500. "I think the cars are a bit of a handful to drive, and that's a good thing. If anybody can drive them wide open, that's not a good thing. It's not supposed to be a breeze."

Gordon is a champion of off-road racing, and he has also found himself behind the wheel in Indy cars, sports cars and stock cars in some of the most prestigious races in the world -- including the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500 and the Baja 1000. Even with that resume, he's a believer that the new NASCAR race car, with its severe limits on ingenuity in the garage, has made Sprint Cup Series racing -- gulp! -- fun.

"Of course we're having fun," Gordon said, sitting in his hauler following practice on Saturday, trading barbs with a couple of members of his team. "To do what you love to do, to have the comaraderie we have and be able to bitch and complain, that's fun. I mean, if you can't bitch and complain.... I mean, what good is it?"

Gordon likens life at Robby Gordon Motorsports to the long-running reality television show on MTV, "Real World."

"What's that show? 'Real Life?' " he asked. "We've got real life right here every week."

For a 39-year-old racer from Cerritos, Calif., who considers barreling off into the desert in a truck for days on end "fun," it's hard to see how the headaches of Cup ownership could serve any purpose for him. But you need only sit with Gordon for a few minutes to realize that there's a Type A side to his personality that ownership fits like a glove.

"Oh, come on -- it's a babysitting job," Gordon says, drawing chuckles from those who work closest with him, opening a discussion of who was in diapers longer. "It's a full-time romper room here.

"But I like that (ownership) part of it. Obviously, keeping all our sponsors happy is a big part of it, too, and that's a challenge I enjoy."

The challenge is made easier by the fact that Gordon finished last season in the top-35 in Cup owner points, securing him a spot on the starting grid in the first 5 races of 2008. That, he said, allows sponsors to put together incentive programs for customers -- knowing that the No. 7 Dodge will be around on Sundays.

Gordon recalled his first year as an owner-driver, in 2005, when he failed to qualify for the main event despite being a former winner of the Gatorade Duels.

"We've done the game before where we've come to Daytona and not had the opportunity to race," said Gordon, who has 3 career Cup Series wins, including one at New Hampshire, but has never finished better than 6th at Daytona. "Our first year as a team we did that. (Two years) before I won the 150 (with Richard Childress Racing), and then I went home the next year.

"The top 35 thing's tough, but I like it. It's good for the sport and good for the sponsors."
And no matter what he's racing, it's all with the same goal in mind.

"It actually doesn't matter if you're riding a Big Wheel. You want to beat them, beat the best," Gordon said. "It's a team. A race car driver doesn't make these cars go fast. You've got to have a good pit crew, you've got to have good race strategy, reliable race cars and a good-handling vehicle, as well.

"The most important things are those things, and the guys that get that the best are normally the teams that win."

In any form of racing.

Catching up to the rest of the media types

Oh, in case you missed it, Bruton Smith announced last week that he finalized his deal with Bob and Gary Bahre. For $340 million, he's now the owner of the 1.058-mile facility in Loudon, N.H. -- the track that will host 2 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events this season.

Jerry Gappens officially assumed his role of general manager of New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the track's new name.

Yeah, I reported that back in November, like everybody else. I also reported that Gappens was the GM a couple of weeks later. Jokingly, a friend of mine told another friend of mine that I must be behind the times -- because I didn't have anything last week on the blog about the "official" announcement.

OK, now that I've mentioned it all -- again -- do I get a ribbon?

*****

The new Dale Earnhardt Jr. was on display at Daytona International Speedway this week, and he's apparently fitting in quite nicely at Hendrick Motorsports.

Not only was his No. 88 Chevrolet Impala fast in single-car runs during testing at DIS, but he's also taken on the Hendrick personality of refraining from saying anything incendiary.

It's no secret that the rest of the Cup garage has been chasing Hendrick for the last couple of seasons -- and with the COT's debut last season, it became ever more apparent. Now that Junior's in a Hendrick COT, he still wouldn't call out DEI for inferior performance.

"I mean, I really was proud of where I came from and proud of the team that I had last year, and it's hard for me to really put into words without...," Junior said of the difference in the two organizations before stopping himself. "I'd rather -- I choose really not to discuss it that often because I don't want anyone that I've worked with in the past to get the impression that I am in a much better place and much more happier and I've got better people, because it really just comes down to the tools and how you use them."

It's exactly the kind of answer you'd expect from Earhardt, though it's hard to buy that he's not happier now than he was working for his stepmother, whom he had a rocky relationship with.

*****

Doug White, owner of Wiscasset Raceway, may be one of the few people in the area excited about SMI's purchase of New Hampshire Motor Speedway. In fact, he went so far as to say he's hoping Bruton Smith does sell off the track's 2 annual Cup dates -- the sooner the better.

As a short track promoter in the area, White knows that if a Cup facility goes belly-up, it leaves racing fans on the lookout for action somewhere. He knows that staying home and watching Cup races on TV only takes you so far, and eventually people want to get out to the track.

Like other promoters in Maine and New Hampshire, he certainly will keep a keen eye on what goes on in Loudon. The loss of NASCAR racing in New England would hurt the overall picture, but short track racing would get a boost.

Either way, we're putting cart way before the horse with any discussion of NHMS Cup dates -- or a lack thereof...