So far, it seems like all the luck in the world has been on driver Jimmie Johnson's side throughout the 2009 Sprint Cup chase, and things have been so lopsided between Johnson and his Nascar competitors that some fans feel they should just throw him the trophy and call it a season. While Johnson remains the odds-on pick to win the whole shebang, he didn't fare so well this past Sunday at the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. And we got the footage right here...(and by the way, I have no clue what's up with the opera singer at the beginning of this clip).
Right away we cut to Lap 3 where Sam Hornish Jr. makes contact with Jimmie Johnson, sending his 48 car spinning into the wall and across the track again. The damage was significant, and this debacle eventually put Johnson over 100 laps behind and put a serious dent in his points standing.
With that crash out of the way, we pick up later into the race with Kyle Busch in the No. 2 car holding onto the lead. Kyle forgoes a stop for fuel so he can try to hang on to the lead, but eventually his car starts sputtering as it begins running out of gas, and right behind him is his brother and teammate Kurt Busch, who (probably reluctantly) capitalizes on Kyle's miscue to grab the lead.
A mere couple laps later, Kurt Busch gets the checkered flag and wins the Dickies 500.
My video blog yesterday featured the footage of Nascar driver Ryan Newman in a death-defying blow-over flip from Sunday's Sprint Cup chase race at Talladega Speedway. Well, the excitement didn't end there, as you'll see in today's video clip from the final moments of the 2009 AMP Energy 500 featuring a crazy multicar collision, flips, and even a car fire. Here's the evidence:
What appears to happen here is Kurt Busch's car gets nudged--he'd been testing other cars with a little bangin' and bumpin', and here he comes up on the short end of such a battle. Busch's vehicle is pushed sideways and backward across the track, and ends up catching several other drivers including Jeff Gordon, Robby Gordon, and Juan Pablo Montoya. Mark Martin's car suffers the worst fate, sent spinning and doing more flips than Shamu at Sea World and briefly catching fire as well. However, this clip ends on a pleasant note as Jamie McMurray gets the checkered flag and achieves his first victory in 85 Nascar events. Congratulations!
Yesterday Jamie McMurray pulled off a significant upset by winning NASCAR's AMP Energy 500 Sprint Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway. Not that we here at The Car Tech blog would promote gambling, but if you had bet on McMurray, then you would have made out like a bandit with his reported 25 to 1 odds of winning at Talladega. As much as this victory is a feather in McMurray's logo-ridden cap, it doesn't matter much, as it appears that based on points alone Jimmie Johnson is gonna take yet another Sprint Cup championship. Yawn.
But what seems to be getting the most lip service on sports news shows and within the Nascar universe is about the nasty flips and crashes that took place yesterday at the AMP Energy 500. This clip here recaps the first of these accidents, and boy are we glad that no one was seriously injured.
This video begins with just five laps to go in the race, and it looks like Ryan Newman's 39 car gets nudged just enough to set his vehicle into a spin that eventually flips over the hood of Kevin Harvick's 29 car and continues its blowover flip onto its hood into the wall and finally off the track. Newman luckily managed to walk away from the wreck, but his car was mangled something fierce. As always, this Nascar.com clip shows how it happened from every angle imaginable, but perhaps the most horrifying view is the flip happening in real time at the 5:15 mark--it's breathtaking. I think I speak for everyone when I say we're all glad that Ryan escaped this accident with no major injury.
Over this past weekend, Denny Hamlin managed to upstage Nascar golden boy Jimmie Johnson at the Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway as part of the current Nascar Sprint Cup chase series. Yeah, Hamlin's probably not going to win the championship this year (my prediction is Mr. Johnny Obvious aka Jimmie Johnson--look at the points advantage!), but still it's a career-highlight victory that stakes his claim as one of Nascar's stars. But while most drivers have their moments of brilliance, they usually also have at least a few moments in their career they'd rather forget and Denny Hamlin's just one of the many who've had a light brush with death. Today's video clip is just one of those scenarios.
This video is from a Nascar Nationwide race from earlier this year in Las Vegas. The clip cuts right to the chase and shows Denny Hamlin (in the No. 20 car) breaking a tire and getting entangled with Mike Bliss (cool name, eh?) and the car catches fire. Shortly the flames extinguish to only smoke, but still that's got to be a scary situation. The video follows up with the cleanup as well as multiple angles of the accident, and you can get the best look at the No. 20 car's combustion about the 2:15 mark.
Chances are if you're reading this, you're probably aware by now that Nascar driver Denny Hamlin won the Tums Fast Relief 500 "chase race" in Martinsville yesterday, where he led the race for over 200 laps. It's a big victory for Hamlin, not just because he guaranteed victory in Martinsville where he was squeezed out earlier this year by rival Jimmie Johnson, but also because it breaks Johnson's fall winning streak at this famous speedway. Hamlin's win on Sunday also broke Johnson's winning ways in this year's Chase as well.
But all everyone seems to be talking about is Jimmie Johnson, who came in second place at yesterday's event and how his advantageous points lead in the Sprint Cup Chase almost make him the winner as a foregone conclusion. ESPN even did a feature about this very concept, and here I am doing the exact same thing. It's really too bad, as this was one of the biggest victories of Denny Hamlin's career. Here's the final few laps that cemented Hamlin's win at Martinsville yesterday. However it's probably a bittersweet victory for Hamlin, who at one point declared himself the man to beat in the Sprint Cup Chase, as Jimmie Johnson still looms large as the seemingly sure bet to claim the Nascar championship once again this year.
Roughly a week ago NASCAR representatives announced the members of the inaugural class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame at the Charlotte Convention Center. The inductees into the 1st HoF class included NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., his son Bill Jr., Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Junior Johnson. One name not included on this list was the NASCAR legend David "Silver Fox" Pearson. The 74 year old Pearson took the denial in stride, but many fans and critics perceived it as either an oversight or an outright snub. Regardless of HoF status, Pearson is a classic racing hero, and this video today shows us why he is held in such high regard.
This is a neat little video of David Pearson being interviewed by Kyle Petty, son of the "King" himself, Richard Petty. This piece produced by NASCAR notes his many historical accomplishments in the sport as well as his legendary rivalry with Petty in the '70's. This clip plays out as biography, but fear not car geeks: there's lots of great historical footage of auto racing's yesteryear with some pretty cool footage of those old school race cars kicking up dust on the track (not to mention some embarrassing footage of bad '70's hair and apparel). Perhaps the highlight of this video comes toward the end where Pearson and Petty go nose-to-nose at the 1976 Daytona 500 where the two drivers collided and Pearson squeezed a very lucky victory. I know what I think, but I'll leave it up to the fans to decide whether Pearson got shafted by not being included in NASCAR's first Hall of Fame class.
Let's face it, Nascar driver Jimmie Johnson is a winner. This guy is never far from the top of the points rankings and damn near always a top finisher in NASCAR events, especially in races that count the most such as those that take place at the end of the Nascar season, the Chase for the Sprint Cup series. Roughly a week ago, Johnson finished in first place and ranked first in the Pepsi 500 race in California, and this past Saturday, Jimmie continued his winning ways for the second week in a row by claiming yet another victory. So here it is--the final laps of the 2009 Nascar Banking 500
The Banking 500 took place at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., and as (seemingly) always, Johnson positioned himself at the top of the racing pack basically from beginning to finale (despite a late rivalry with Jeff Gordon). Speaking of finishing, by the end of the race, Johnson had swept the poles by starting, finishing and ranking No. 1. This not only marks Jimmie's second first-place finish in a row, but it's also notable because he has now won three of the first five Chase races, and it looks like he is the front runner for yet another Nascar championship title.
This last Sunday another installment of the Chase for the Championship series for the 2009 Nascar season took place at Kansas Speedway. This event, the "Price Chopper 400," ended with a crucial win by Tony Stewart that keeps him in the thick of the hunt to capture this year's Sprint Cup. But Tony's not the only one who's on-track action at Kansas made the highlight reel from this year's event. Two accidents happened early in the race that affected several of Nascar's most noteworthy stars. This video clip here shows how it all went down.
The first incident on this vid shows Joey Logano's car smokin' on the asphalt and skidding sideways off the track and into the green. This clip shows multiple angles of the incident from both outside and inside the car. Then at about 1:10 in we witness yet another accident coming into turn 2, this time involving four drivers including Bobby Labonte and Michael Waltrip. Joey Logano barely gets away from a second accident in the same day, and Kyle Busch also dodges this collision by the skin of his teeth.
There are many fans and journalists who have been more than ready to write off Tony Stewart as a potential Nascar champion, partially due to this year's success of Nascar heavyweights Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin. But this past Sunday, Tony Stewart proved that his love for the Sprint Cup is even bigger than his love for the Whopper by winning the Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway.
This video clip pretty much condenses all the important moves and activity from the Price Chopper 400 in Kansas. One thing I like about this video is that not only do we get the requisite commentator analysis and banter, but we also get occasional headset feeds from the drivers as well. At the beginning we see the cars setting pace, and before you know it Jeff Gordon starts making moves and making his presence felt on the track against Greg Biffle (who led the most laps throughout the race). On a subsequent pit stop, Tony's crew chief Darian Grubb made a gutsy call by going with only a two-tire replacement on Stewart's car when most of his competitors got all four. Gordon was definitely gaining on Stewart late in the race, but Stewart manages to hold him off in order to get the checkered flag and claim victory. With this win, Tony Stewart moves into fourth place in point standings and remains a contender in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
For some reason, spectators and Web video watchers love an exciting car crash, or to watch two celebrities getting in fights. Well today you're gonna get two for the price of one as we watch Nascar stars Kevin Harvick and Juan Pablo Montoya get in a scuffle after a crash on the track back in 2007.
On lap 72, it appears that JPM gets bumped and in turn collides with Harvick, sending their cars spinning. Not surprisingly, neither driver takes kindly to the accident, and some (probably) heated words get exchanged, and soon enough helmets are being grabbed and pushing ensues. Unfortunately for us viewers, the would-be fight gets broken up before any serious physicality takes place. Regardless, this is still pretty fun (especially a postfight interview where Harvick claims he woulda kicked Montoya's ass). I know this is only tangentially related to this blog's specialty, but it's a detour I felt could add a little humor into the middle of a sluggish work week.
