Check out all the best scanner audio from the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway
terça-feira, 18 de outubro de 2016
Sprint Cup car owner Tommy Baldwin ‘exploring all my opportunities’ for team’s future
Unsure about his organization’s future, team owner Tommy Baldwin met with his employees Monday “so I can give them the options if they needed to go find a job.’’
Baldwin told NBC Sports in an exclusive interview Tuesday that “I’m exploring all my opportunities right now. I’m trying to figure everything out.’’
He hopes to have his plans solidified by some point in December. Among the options, there is one thing Baldwin said he won’t do.
“I would never shut down,’’ said Baldwin, whose team debuted in the Cup series in 2009. “Don’t use that word. The options are keep going or sell. That’s the only two options we have.’’
Baldwin admits he’s given his employees a similar message “in six out of the eight years” of the team and always made it to the next season.
But Baldwin concedes that it is becoming more difficult for a small team like Tommy Baldwin Racing.
“The technology has just increased,’’ Baldwin said. “Everyone has just become smarter. The race teams, with Michael Waltrip Racing shutting down (after the 2015 season) and some other things, it put a lot good people, dispersed a lot of good people to different teams. Everyone had to spend a lot more money to keep up with the Gibbs and Hendrick programs.
“It’s funny to me how everyone thinks our racing is not good. This is the most competitive that NASCAR has ever been.’’
Baldwin admits it has been a struggle at times for the team and driver Regan Smith.
“I think we’ve been competitive at times,’’ Baldwin said. “I think we’ve been really bad at times. It’s been a competitive roller coaster. This year is probably one of the best race teams that we’ve assembled, it’s been a great group of guys that have worked for TBR. There’s a lot of pluses that we have going on, but again, it’s the almighty dollar that is talking.
“If you don’t have the money to keep up with the Joneses, you’re going to be left behind. If you told me eight years ago when I first started this team I would be pretty much in the same spot as when I started, I would have told you that you were crazy. This sport has taken off so much here as far as how smart we’ve all gotten. It’s not that we don’t know how to do it, it’s just that we don’t have the money to apply the proper resources to do it.’’
Baldwin has one of the 36 charters granted to Sprint Cup teams at the beginning of this season. That adds value to his organization, ensuring that his team — or whoever purchases the charter, if that happens — would be in every Cup points race.
Baldwin’s car is 32nd in the car owner point standings, ahead of five other teams that have charters (another team below Baldwin’s leased its charter for this season).
Smith is 33rd in the driver standings. He finished a season-best third at Pocono in August. His only other top-10 finish this year has been an eighth-place result in the Daytona 500.
Tommy Baldwin Racing debuted in 2009, competing in 25 races. The team had five drivers: Michael McDowell (eight races),Scott Riggs (eight), Patrick Carpentier(four), Mike Skinner (four) and Robert Richardson (one).
The organization continued to use a variety of drivers in 2010 before Dave Blaney ran 34 races in 2011. Blaney was with the team through 2013.
Tommy Baldwin Racing expanded to two full-time cars in 2012. Danica Patrick, in partnership with Stewart-Haas Racing, ran 10 races where Baldwin was listed as the car owner. Tommy Baldwin Racing ran two cars through 2014 before selling the assets of the second car (the No. 36 team) to Premium Motorsports.
Before becoming a team owner, Baldwin was a crew chief. He won five Cup races as a crew chief, including the 2001 Southern 500 and 2002 Daytona 500 withWard Burton.
Kevin Harvick crashed the Toyota party at Kansas
Early on, Kenseth made it look like that was going to be the case. He led 116 laps, but close to the halfway point, he got against the wall and the handling changed on his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. And that pretty much took him out of contention to win the race.
Again, how many times this year have we talked about it: Chase Elliott, drives up there, takes the lead and just — he just can’t have any luck, that’s all you can say. He and his teammate Kasey Kahne had the same problem with tire rubs at the back of the car that made me go, “Hmmm?”
I knew watching practice on Saturday that Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet maybe didn’t have that short-run speed, but he definitely had long-run speed and that showed up yesterday.
And as much as we think that once you get them in a hole, they’re not going to get out, they continue to prove, yes they will get out. It’s almost like this situation that they were in motivates them. We’ve seen it for 2 ½ years now. Nobody probably does it better than they do.
The last seven races at Kansas, Harvick has been with two different organizations, and had to race with rules packages all over the place, and yet still, he’s finished first or second five times in those seven races. Harvick told me he’s figured something out there, but he wouldn’t expand on it, and I think the numbers support it.
After his victory, then you look at how the Chase is formatted and how the Round of 12 is playing out.
The top six finishers were all Chase drivers. Austin Dillon raced his guts out and he finished sixth and basically gained three points. He’s still on the outside of the Chase bubble looking in.
Joey Logano finished third and gained six points, but he’s still just barely above the cut line. So that, to me, is what makes this whole format interesting.
But I will say this in closing: For a track to have a repave not too long ago, that place is racing nice and it has a groove from the top to the bottom. So I commend the job that was done on that race track.
Normally, when a mile-and-a-half track gets repaved, you dread the racing for five, six or seven years, knowing you’re going to have one, maybe, two grooves. But at Kansas Speedway, they’re running from the top to the bottom of that race track. And that’s a good thing.
The battle of the Chase bubble:Logano in for now,Dillon just outside
After finishing sixth Sunday at Kansas,Austin Dillon feels confident that he can finish well enough at Talladega Superspeedway next weekend and advance to the Round of 8 in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.
“I’m just proud of my guys, we did a good job,” Dillon told NBC after the race. “The last four-tire call was really good. I really wanted a top-five there, that was our goal or a win, and just missed it by one.
“We have a shot to make it to the next round at Talladega, and that’s all you can ask for. … We’re just going to have some fun at Talladega and see if we can make it to the next round.”
But Dillon will have to worry not only about how well he finishes at Talladega, he’ll also have to worry about how Joey Logano does.
Logano and Dillon enter the final elimination race of the Round of 12 tied, 37 points behind points leader Jimmie Johnson. Logano is scored in eighth place in the standings after Kansas, while Dillon is scored ninth. The tiebreaker is best finish in the round. Logano finished third at Kansas to hold the tiebreaker on Dillon for now.
“We did what we had to do today, went and were flawless on execution, just need to be a little faster to win,” Logano told NBC. “It was a good recovery (from last week’s wreck at Charlotte), but I wouldn’t say it’s a full recovery yet. We’re going to be needed the race pretty hard at Talladega and try to get a few more points there.”
Logano said Talladega is “not a must win, either. We’re in (a transfer spot) right now, but it’s obviously a little bit too close for comfort. We have to push harder next week.”
Kevin Harvick - Kansas -'NASCAR Victory Lane'
CUP: Kevin Harvick checks in with the 'NASCAR Victory Lane' crew after winning the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Jeff Gordon talks new book, NASCAR career, and hip-hop on SiriusXM
Gordon was an open book in the interview, no pun intended.
He talked about everything from his early start in auto racing, to his days of break dancing as a kid in California, and more.
When a comment was made about how open Gordon was in his book, he elaborated on its purpose to be a reflective chapter for his fans of his NASCAR career.
"This book happened because it’s not just the 23-year NASCAR career, this all started when I was 5 or 6 years old," Gordon said on Shade 45. "This gets very in-depth and even my parents showed a lot of how the process started to get me into a race car. There was a lot going on with my mom and dad then, too.
"I like to be transparent and open. Knowing my career was ending in 2015, I wanted to bookend it with this, and we had the opportunity to talk about some fun and exciting moments but also some of the adversity."
The entirety of the interview hasn't been released outside of SiriusXM but will likely be posted on the Sway in the Morning YouTube channel later today or tomorrow.
During a break in the segment, Sway played hip-hop artist Nelly's 2000 song, "E.I." which features a line about Gordon.
When the song ended, Jeff rapped the part featuring his name -- "I'm flashy, double takes when you walk past me, nasty, don't be scared boo, go 'head and ask me, I drive fastly, call me Jeff Gordon in the black SS with the navigation."
And afterward, Gordon said he wasn't even aware of the song when it released, despite liking Nelly's music.
"I didn’t even know about being in that song until hearing it," Gordon said. "I was living in Florida at the time and some family members in California called me and told me to listen to the song. I thought 'that is awesome, that is so badass'. After that, I went to Nelly’s concert and met him and told him how amazing it was that he'd do that.'
Jeff jokingly added, "I know one thing I definitely took full advantage of it when I was in the clubs."
To hear more from Jeff, check out his appearance with NASCAR Race Hub’s Danielle Trotta and Kaitlyn Vincie on their new weekly digital show, "Off Track", which premieres today, Oct. 18 at 3:30 p.m. ET on Facebook Live. To watch live, go to the NASCAR on Fox Facebook page.
NASCAR America: Should Sprint Cup drivers be allowed in Xfinity races?
After a weekend that saw Sprint Cup regular Kyle Busch win the Xfinity race at Kansas Speedway and Cup driver Kyle Larson hinder Xfinity title contender Erik Jones‘ chances of a win or strong finish, talk has again surfaced on if Cup drivers should be competing in the Xfinity Series.
Earlier this week, NASCAR executiveSteve O’Donnell told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that fans should “stay tuned” for an announcement “fairly soon” on the issue.
With all of that brewing, NBC Sports analysts Jeff Burton and Parker Kligerman debated the issue.
“It’s a very difficult solution,” Burton said on NASCAR America. “The reason I became a Cup driver is because of the opportunity to run in the Xfinity Series and race against Harry Gant, Mark Martinand Dale Earnhardt. Every now and then I could run with them. If none of them were there, I could win. But that propelled me, that gave me the opportunity to get to the Cup Series. A Cup owner, Billy Stavola and Mickey Stavola, they watched me run in the Xfinity Series, they said, ‘Hey that guy every now and then can run with Mark Martin, maybe he can be a Cup driver.’ Without that opportunity I don’t think I’m ever a Cup driver.
“I will say this, when I raced against Mark Martin, he didn’t drive (in the Xfinity Series) for Jack Roush. When I raced (against) Harry Gant, he did not drive for his Cup team. When I raced Dale Earnhardt, he ran his Xfinity team out of a small shop on his property. I wasn’t racing against Richard Childress Racing. I was racing against smaller race teams. As the Xfinity Series has evolved, they’re not miniature Cup teams.”
Burton also said that permitting Cup drivers to race in the series allows Xfinity drivers to stand out to show that they can compete in the Cup level.
Kligerman said: “I’m going to play some devil’s advocate with you and say, ‘OK, if tomorrow Kyle Busch and all the other Sprint Cup regulars could not run the Xfinity Series, then we would not evaluate drivers, young drivers coming up by saying ‘If they can beat Kyle Busch or beat Brad Keselowski.’ ”
Burton noted that “the way we’ve always done things doesn’t mean that is the right way to do it. Racing is always an evolution … and we need to be looking at better ways to do things.”
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