Wild, Record-Tying Finish At Talladega
Two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Records Matched In Sunday’s Aaron’s 499

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (April 17, 2011) – Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway tied two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series records – number of lead changes and closest margin of victory.
There were 88 lead changes at the start/finish line, tying an all-time NASCAR record set in last season’s April event at Talladega. The final lead change occurred on the last lap – eight of the last 12 Talladega races featured a last-lap lead change.

Jimmie Johnson edged Clint Bowyer by .002 seconds, which matches the closest margin of victory since the inception of electronic scoring in May 1993. That mark was originally set at Darlington Raceway on March 16, 2003, with Ricky Craven beating Kurt Busch.

Since 1993, every race at Talladega finishing under green – 29 in all – has had a MOV under .400 seconds.
Johnson, with his 54th-career victory, moved into a tie with NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Lee Petty for ninth on the all-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins list.
Passing numbers – for the lead and otherwise – also were high.

There were 159 green flag passes for the lead all around the race track, with a total of 11,025 green flag passes throughout the field.

Sunday’s race capped off a record-breaking weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.
In Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race, there were 56 lead changes, an all-time record since the series’ inception in 1982.

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(April 17, 2011)

TALLADEGA, Ala. — In a wild, three-wide, six-car finish at Talladega Superspeedway, Jimmie Johnson nipped Clint Bowyer by a record-tying .002 seconds to win Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Aaron’s 499 race.

With a push from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., Johnson surged past Bowyer about six inches from the finish line. The finish tied Ricky Craven’s victory over Kurt Busch at Darlington in 2003 for the closest since the introduction of electronic timing and scoring in 1993.

The victory was Johnson’s first of the season and the 54th of his career. Jeff Gordon ran third and Earnhardt was fourth.

Kevin Harvick, who was pushing Richard Childress Racing teammate Bowyer, finished fifth. Roush Fenway Racing teammates Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle finished sixth and seventh, and Mark Martin, who spent the afternoon in tandem with Hendrick teammate Gordon, finished eighth.

A wreck on Lap 140 wiped out two of the top championship contenders, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch. Contact between Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Joey Logano and Busch triggered the incident. Pushed by Logano, Busch spun to the inside and wiped out Kenseth in the process.

The cars of AJ Allmendinger and Denny Hamlin also sustained damage but were able to continue.

“I was just going straight on the bottom following Kurt (Busch) and got hit in the right-rear and put me straight in the wall,” Kenseth said. “I don’t really know what happened to cause that. Obviously, something happened beside me that got somebody into my right rear. I didn’t even know it was coming, just driving straight hoping to miss the rest of the bullets and get to the end and just got in a wreck.”

As the lead pack of cars headed into Turn 3 on Lap 90, fire erupted beneath David Ragan’s No. 6 Ford. As the field began to slow, contact from Kurt Busch’s No. 22 Dodge sent the No. 2 of Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski hard into the outside wall.

The Toyota of Kasey Kahne and the Fords of Marcos Ambrose and Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne were collected in the melee.

“That was one of the harder hits I’ve taken, just because it was so much of a frontal impact across the track, off the apron, all the way to the wall,” Bayne said. “I don’t know who got us. I saw the 6 blowing up in front of us, so I keyed up the mic. I’m like, ‘It’s getting crazy in front of me, Greg’—I was on Greg Biffle’s radio at the time. As soon as I said that they blew up, Greg got off of me because I yelled, ‘Blowing up, blowing up.’

“He got off of me and at the same time the 2 car got hooked somehow. I don’t know that they triggered each other; I just saw the 2 get hooked at the same time the 6 was on fire. He (Keselowski) goes across the track, I saw him hit the outside wall, but then I don’t know who caught us in the right rear and sent us. But I thought we were safe. I was like, ‘Man, that was close,’ and about the time I said that I was headed toward the outside wall. So not a fun ride.”

3M AND GREG BIFFLE SIGN
FOR THREE MORE YEARS WITH ROUSH FENWAY RACING
CONCORD, N.C. (April 16, 2011) – Roush Fenway Racing announced today that both 3M and Greg Biffle have renewed their contracts for three more years. The new contracts will take 3M, Biffle and Roush Fenway Racing through the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. 3M has been a Roush Fenway partner since 2005 and Biffle began his NASCAR career with the team in 1998. Terms of the contracts were not disclosed.

“I am thrilled with the prospect of continuing the relationship we have with 3M and what that, paired with the talent of Greg Biffle, means for the success of the No. 16 team at Roush Fenway Racing,” said team owner Jack Roush. “Our endeavors with 3M have been successful both on and off the track and will ideally culminate with a championship season for Greg and 3M in the near future.”

On February 27th, 2005 3M made its debut on Roush Fenway Racing’s No. 16 Ford with Post-it brand on the hood. That day Biffle led 46 laps on his way to victory lane at Auto Club Speedway. Five weeks later with Post-it on the hood for only the third time Biffle took the victory at Texas Motor Speedway by over three seconds.

“We set the bar pretty high early on with 3M and they have stood by us on our best and worst days over the years,” said Biffle. “The people at 3M have found a way to innovate and make their NASCAR program work for their incredibly diverse businesses and brands in a way that continues to amaze me. I couldn’t ask for a better sponsor relationship as I continue my career at Roush Fenway Racing.”

Following the 2005 season when Biffle drove the Post-it Ford for nine races including two wins and five top-five finishes, 3M signed on in 2006 as a primary sponsor for Roush Fenway in the Nationwide Series. In 2008, 3M took over primary sponsorship of the No. 16 Roush Fenway Ford in the Sprint Cup Series, earning an additional three wins, 28 top-fives and 48 top-10 finishes to date.

“Our relationship with Greg, Jack and the entire Roush Fenway organization has been great for our business,” said Bob MacDonald, 3M senior vice president of sales and marketing. “We’re very excited about taking our NASCAR program to the next level over the next three years.”

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(April 16, 2011)

TALLADEGA, Ala. — In a wild ending that had Mike Wallace’s Chevrolet spinning upside down and landing on its roof, Kyle Busch won Saturday’s Aaron’s 312 Nationwide Series race at Talladega Superspeedway when a caution flag on Lap 124 froze the field.

Busch got the win on the second attempt at a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the race seven laps past its scheduled distance at the 2.66-mile track. Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Joey Logano, had just pushed Busch to the lead when Wallace’s wreck brought out the record 11th caution of the race.

Logano was credited with second place, followed by Joe Nemechek, Brad Keselowski and polesitter Elliott Sadler.

A huge 21-car chain-reaction crash on the backstretch after a Lap 88 restart thinned the field and collected several of the strongest cars, among them the No. 18 of Busch, the No. 1 of Jamie McMurray and the No. 66 of Steve Wallace.

Contact between Busch and Clint Bowyer started a spin that collected Michael Waltrip and sent half the field sliding and spinning out of control.

Waltrip blamed Sadler and McMurray who were separated on the track but were trying to hook up together in a two-car draft.

“It happened on the radio before the restart,” Waltrip said. “The 2 (Sadler) decided that he would manipulate the restart so that the 1 could get behind him, and they could work together like they had before.

“It’s the way you race, but the 1 and the 2 messing around got me crashed.”

McMurray agreed that he and Sadler were trying to get back together.

“I really don’t know what happened,” McMurray said. “I was obviously trying to get back to Eliiott—we worked together really well all day. Elliott was trying to get away from the 99 (Waltrip) so that I could get hooked up with him.

“I pulled to the inside, and I think the 18 behind me gave me a big shove, and I thought I was just going to have to go with him, because of the momentum we had, and then I just kind of got hit in the right rear.”

After a stoppage of 6 minutes 45 seconds—the second red flag of the afternoon—the race restarted on Lap 93, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the lead.

Earlier, on Lap 69, contact between the Fords of teammates Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. sent Stenhouse, the series points leader entering the race, into the outside wall and out of the race.

After the wreck, NASCAR red-flagged the race for 5 minutes, 33 seconds to clean the debris from the racetrack.