Garage chatter: What everybody's talking about before New Hampshire
Sept. 17 news and notes
Johnson proud of his dominant streak — 3 p.m. ET
Jimmie Johnson chooses to find flattery in questions about how NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup could be changed to eliminate his dynastic run.
Johnson, the four-time defending series champion, was asked about it during a media session at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Friday. Just what does the Hendrick Motorsports driver think of such comments?
“I guess I take a little pride in it because it means we’ve been doing our jobs,” Johnson said. “It’s such a fragile environment, living it myself, I know we’ve had four awesome years, but anything could have happened at any time from the way I see it. It’s very difficult to operate at this high level in this sport that is so competitive with so many superstars that are out there. I take a little pride in that comment, but at the same time, I know this is a tough road to hoe.”
Johnson has branched out a little over the years, too, and is featured in Golf Magazine’s first No. 1 issue that came out this week. While he does play golf, the driver laughed off the article that said he was making a splash in the golfing community.
“It was a cool spread and glad to be in it, but I’m still (a) 25 handicap,” he said. “Golf is a means to drinking beer for me, so it’s still the same thing for me. I am 35, am I getting close to that Senior status?”
— Rea White
Sept. 16 news and notes
Everything really is bigger in Texas – including ticket sales — 10 a.m. ET
While most of the industry is dealing with a down economy and struggling with lagging ticket sales, Texas Motor Speedway is enjoying a sudden surge.
According to a news release, the track gained momentum with the unveiling of its “No Limits” campaign. Both ticket sales and theme-related merchandise are at a fast clip following the Aug. 17 announcement of the 2011 NASCAR and IndyCar schedules at the track and the new advertising campaign.
The track says it has a 200-percent increase in season ticket sales compared to the first three weeks of sales from a year ago. It also is the best opening three-week sales period for season tickets since 2007.
Forty-five percent of the seats were purchased by first-time buyers, while the remaining 55 percent were current season ticket holders expanding their seating needs or former season ticket holders returning.
The merchandise, deemed edgier, has limited availability at this time. Slightly more than 10,000 pieces were produced. Nearly 25 percent of the overall sales have been merchandise from the line and more than 45 percent of ladies apparel already has been sold.
Pricing for 2011 season tickets, which feature two NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck series events as well as an IZOD IndyCar Series race, was reduced between 10 and 16 percent (depending on seat location) and includes several new benefits, ranging from garage parties to discounts on concessions and coupons for merchandise.
— Rea White
Sept. 15 news and notes
Who is the Chase favorite? — 11:30 a.m. ET
For the first time in years, there is no clear consensus favorite entering NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup.
And the drivers like it that way.
“The cars are so close; they’re really, really close,” said Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards, who finished second to Johnson in the 2008 title run. “It can easily be defined by the pit stops, a restart…anything. I think the days are gone where one guy has a dominant car and (then) has a bad pit stop and charges back through the field. Everybody’s just right there.”
Tony Stewart, the 2002 and 2005 champion, believes it’s the most competitive field ever.
“I feel like we’re in a scenario where we’ve got the opportunity to have the most competitive Chase we’ve ever had with the new format,” said Stewart. "There are guys (in the Chase) that started off the year strong that kind of have flatten off a little bit and there is guys that had a weak start to the year that are gaining a lot of momentum.”
— Bob Margolis
Sept. 14 news and notes
They like him, they really like him — Noon ET
Think fans don’t like Kyle Busch? Think again.
The field for NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver has been narrowed to 10 finalists – and guess who’s on the list? You guessed it.
Voting for the full field is no longer open. Now, only the top-10 vote getters to this point in the NASCAR National Motorsports Press Association Hamburger Helper Most Popular Driver Award are eligible for the season honor.
The 10 finalists, in alphabetical order, are Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart.
Now, fans can vote once a day at www.HelpersMostPopularDriver.com for one of those 10 drivers. Just like the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings, the vote count has been reset. Here, though, all drivers are back to zero. Voting concludes Nov. 23 at 12:50 a.m. ET.
The winner will be announced at the NASCAR NMPA Myers Brothers Luncheon in December in Las Vegas. A fan contest winner will participate in that event.
Earnhardt Jr. has won seven consecutive Most Popular Driver awards.
— Rea White
Sept. 13 news and notes
Roush returns to the skies — 5 p.m. ET
Team owner Jack Roush is certainly flying high these days — literally.
Roush has three teams in NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup and has returned to his pilot role as he continues to recover from injuries sustained in a July 27 plane accident in Oshkosh, Wis. That crash was the second plane accident of his career and the third major incident he recalled during a national teleconference Monday.
Roush said he is back 100 percent physically, though he did lose the use of his left eye in his latest incident in which he crashed while landing in what have been described as crowded landing conditions. Roush spent several days in the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota recovering.
“My right eye corrects to 20/15, which is the same as it was before,” Roush said. “I’m driving a car. With another pilot with me, I’ve flown two airplanes since the accident, and I’m on a complete, normal schedule for me with my involvement with my engineering company in Michigan and my interaction with Ford on many fronts and, of course, with my race teams in North Carolina.
“If the question is, ‘Am I back?’ I’m back and I was really off stage for less than three weeks as I went through my surgeries. I think I’m back up to full potential. I know I was on a treadmill for a reasonable period of time last evening, which is a Sunday evening for me if I don’t have a race. I’m sleeping well and eating well.”
And he’s back to flying, too. While some might wonder about that, Roush didn’t even give it a second thought. He previously crashed into water in Troy, Ala., in 2002 in an incident that was much more serious in nature.
“There was no hesitation for it,” Roush said. “It was the Friday evening before the Atlanta race, and it was in a J3 Piper Cub with a friend of mine in Atlanta.”
Part of that comes from the way the crashes happened.
Roush looks at them as both incidents in which something unforeseen happened because of outside circumstances, not because of his own behavior as a pilot. Therefore, he doesn’t have any areas of question or hesitancy when it comes to returning to that role.
“I wasn’t doing something that was reckless,” he said of both incidents. “I wasn’t doing something that was mindless. I simply got in a situation where I had no margin and something happened that was a sure enough accident that followed, so the thing that maybe had affected me as I look at the people that work for me or that work with me, that get them involved with something that they hadn’t foreseen that results in a bad situation, I’d like to think that I’m more sympathetic to their circumstance than I would be if I hadn’t had my own problems that resulted in something that was not good for me in terms of an outcome.”
The way he sees it, though, he plans to learn from his experiences and keep going. He celebrates his good fortune and certainly doesn’t take it lightly, but he also plans to make the best use of his time.
“I’ve had much more luck in terms of surviving things that could have ended my time much earlier. I had a car wreck when I was 16 years old that could have been bad,” Roush said. “I was not injured. I had a race car wreck when I was 30 that could have been bad, but was not serious. And I’ve had two airplane crashes in the last 10 years, so I’ve had much more good fortune and many more bites of the apple here than I should have expected, but for the time that I’ve got left and for the things that I’ve learned, I intend to make the biggest contribution I can to our broader society, to the business community that I’m involved with in Detroit with Ford and the automobile industry, and, of course, the racing community and the things around NASCAR. I’m extraordinarily grateful for the time I’ve got, but I don’t presume that I’ve got another successful outcome to another traumatic accident like I had with my last airplane incident.”
— Rea White
From the editors’ desks ... — 1 p.m. ET
NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup field is set with the 12 drivers ready for the 10-race run to the championship.
Those drivers, though, aren't the only ones making news and racing week to week.
This past weekend, the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series drivers competed at Richmond International Raceway, while the Camping World Truck drivers enjoyed a rare off weekend.
In the Sprint Cup ranks, Denny Hamlin made a stellar run into the Chase with his dominating performance to win at Richmond. (Race highlights) That victory boosted him to the top of the Chase standings. Who else made the field? Check out the entire group.
In the Nationwide race, Kevin Harvick held off a late charge by Brad Keselowski to take the win. (Highlights)
In the news, Dale Earnhardt Jr. discussed the performance of his Hendrick Motorsports team and proclaimed that his team put itself in position to be blamed for upcoming Chase changes or the punchline to that joke.
In Nationwide news, sources say that Rusty Wallace Racing will have Larry Carter as the team's new general manager.
Stay tuned for more news and updates as teams both compete for the title and try to prepare for 2011.
The Chase is just beginning, and so are we.
FOXSports.com is ready for the Chase, with complete coverage, photos, analysis and news appearing on our Chase Central page.
— Jorge A. Mondaca and Rea White
