April 2010

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1 29 11 Denny Hamlin FedEx Ground Toyota
2 4 48 Jimmie Johnson Lowe’s Chevrolet
3 7 18 Kyle Busch Interstate Batteries Toyota
4 11 2 Kurt Busch Miller Lite Dodge
5 5 9 Kasey Kahne Budweiser Ford
6 30 5 Mark Martin Hendrickcars.com/GoDaddy.com Chevrolet
7 19 29 Kevin Harvick Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet
8 9 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet
9 14 56 Martin Truex Jr. NAPA Toyota
10 3 16 Greg Biffle 3M Post-it Ford
11 10 39 Ryan Newman U.S. ARMY ROTC Chevrolet
12 6 31 Jeff Burton Caterpillar Chevrolet
13 17 43 A J Allmendinger Insignia/Best Buy Ford
14 37 12 Brad Keselowski Dodge Dodge
15 13 6 David Ragan UPS Ford
16 23 82 Scott Speed Red Bull Toyota
17 32 47 Marcos Ambrose Scott Branded Products/Kingsford Toyota
18 39 19 Elliott Sadler Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford
19 2 77 Sam Hornish Jr. Mobil 1 Dodge
20 28 17 Matt Kenseth Crown Royal Black Ford
21 26 78 Regan Smith Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet
22 27 13 Max Papis GEICO Toyota
23 41 71 Bobby Labonte Perry for Governor Chevrolet
24 35 34 Travis Kvapil Long John Silver’s Ford
25 36 21 Bill Elliott Motorcraft/Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center Ford
26 38 7 Robby Gordon Monster Energy Toyota
27 40 38 Kevin Conway # Extenze Ford
28 18 20 Joey Logano Home Depot Toyota
29 31 37 David Gilliland Taco Bell Ford
30 15 1 Jamie McMurray Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Chevrolet
31 12 24 Jeff Gordon DuPont/National Guard Special Forces Chevrolet
32 1 14 Tony Stewart Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet
33 20 99 Carl Edwards Scotts Ford
34 21 42 Juan Pablo Montoya Target Chevrolet
35 25 98 Paul Menard Quaker State/Menards Ford
36 8 33 Clint Bowyer Cheerios/Hamburer Helper Chevrolet
37 16 00 David Reutimann Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota
38 42 83 Brian Vickers Red Bull Toyota
39 43 32 Reed Sorenson Dollar General Stores Toyota
40 22 87 Joe Nemechek Crosby Roofing Toyota
41 33 66 Michael McDowell PRISM Motorsports Toyota
42 34 09 Mike Bliss Phoenix Construction Chevrolet
43 24 55 Dave Blaney PRISM Motorsports Toyota

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Guest Column by Cathy Elliott

Each January, the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) holds its annual convention and awards banquet in Charlotte. It’s a fun event, and it’s always nice to see the sometimes underappreciated motorsports media corps rewarded for its hard work.

The portion of the program attendees either look forward to most or absolutely dread, depending on how photogenic they are, is a slide show of media members going about their business during the previous season, punctuated by pithy comments from a current NMPA executive board member.

On one particularly memorable evening a few years back, the slide show included several totally random shots of Kasey Kahne, to which Mike Hembree, current NASCAR editor for SPEEDTV.com and that year’s purveyor of pith, would simply deadpan: “Kasey Kahne. He’s dreamy.”

About the third time this happened, the audience joined in with the refrain, and I have to confess I haven’t seen a photo of Kahne since without “He’s dreamy,” providing the background music in my head.

Silly, yes, but it now seems that others share this opinion with the NMPA.

There’s a slight chance you missed this snippet of recent NASCAR news, because I have it on pretty good authority that some people actually do live in caves, hide under rocks and vacation on the moon. So for all two or three of you, here’s the deal.

Hendrick Motorsports announced on April 14 that Richard Petty Motorsports driver Kasey “He’s Dreamy” Kahne would be taking over the No. 5 Chevy, currently piloted by Mark Martin, beginning with the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.

The contract was described as being “long-term,” which after further investigation turns out to mean something like “five years and then we’ll see.”

Drivers change teams all the time, for a lot of different reasons, but this is an unusual case. Speculation has run rampant since the announcement, as even the most mathematically challenged among us figured out fairly quickly, that something significant lies between the current NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and the 2010 season; namely, that would be the year 2011. There are so many theories flying around that all we seem to be missing is a grassy knoll.

What will KK do next year? Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. both have contracts extending to and through the end of 2011, and call me crazy, but I’m guessing that Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson’s deals with HMS extend into the afterlife. So why, fans are wondering, would Hendrick Motorsports sign a contract with such a talented and popular driver without having a car for him to drive?

Just think of it like shoe shopping. Man, woman, child or horse, there are certain styles of footwear that fit us better than others. So naturally, whether it is Cole Haan or Converse, Ferragamo or a farrier’s iron, we naturally gravitate toward those same choices over and over again. They suit us.

Hendrick Motorsports is like that. Their drivers are unique individuals with their own personalities and driving styles, but they have some similarities, too. They look, dress, speak and conduct themselves in an appropriate way. They are not only role models; they are NASCAR poster boys. They convey a positive image for the sport.

Kasey Kahne – who is dreamy, in case you didn’t know — is a brand that fits well in this closet. He definitely looks the part; still young with a long racing future ahead of him, his good looks have been the subject of many an amusing TV commercial. Anyone who has watched the annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Awards Banquet has probably noticed he isn’t all that comfortable with formal speech-making, but he’s a generally cordial person with a calm manner of speaking and a low-key personality not much given to controversy.

And lest we forget, he’s a good driver. He was the Cup Series’ Raybestos Rookie of the Year in 2005, and made the Chase for the Sprint Cup field in 2006 — when he won six races — and in 2009.

No one can say with any degree of certainly at this point exactly what car Kahne will be driving in 2011, but why get so worked up about it? There are plenty of options, with Stewart-Haas Racing being the most commonly mentioned for now. What we do know is that Rick Hendrick has said he will be competing in the Cup Series full time in 2011. And we know the car will be a fast, competitive one.

How can we be so sure? That’s easy; the legendary Rick Hendrick agrees that Kasey Kahne is, in fact, dreamy, and if you want to second-guess THAT guy, you’re entirely on your own.

Because Mr. Hendrick understands full well this time honored purchasing principle: If the shoe fits, buy it. Or at least sign it to a long-term contract.

The opinions expressed in this articles are solely those of the author and not this website.

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By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

FORT WORTH, Texas — Kyle Busch won his fifth straight NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, beating Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Joey Logano to the finish line by .688 seconds in Monday’s rain-delayed O’Reilly Auto Parts 300.

Busch is the third driver in series history to win five consecutive races at one track, sharing that distinction with Dale Earnhardt (Daytona) and Jack Ingram (South Boston).

With Denny Hamlin having won the rain-delayed Samsung Mobile 500 Sprint Cup race earlier in the day, Busch completed the sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing, marking the first time an organization has won both legs of a same-day NASCAR doubleheader. Busch finished third in the Cup race behind Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson.

Busch led 153 of 200 laps at the 1.5-mile track. In his five wins at Texas, Busch has led 810 of a possible 1,000 laps. The victory was his third of the season and the 33rd of his career.

“It was just a phenomenal day,” said Busch, who pulled away from a Lap 174 restart after contact in Turn 2 between the Fords of Roush Fenway Racing teammates Colin Braun and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. caused the fourth caution of the race on Lap 167.

“We were able to just run around there all day and bide our time, and there at the end, we were going to try and save fuel and go the rest of the way if need be. But that caution came out, and we had to race Joey for it.

“He kept me on my toes there. We were a little too loose to try to go real, real hard. I couldn’t get away from him, but then it seemed like he got a little bit tight, and I started moving away.”

Busch, the reigning Nationwide champion, took a 20-point lead over fourth-place finisher Brad Keselowski in the series standings. Carl Edwards, the 2007 champion, broke an axle late in the race and finished 30th. Edwards dropped three positions to fifth in the standings, 106 points behind Busch.

Reed Sorenson finished third. Kevin Harvick was fifth, and Jamie McMurray sixth in his first start in JR Motorsports’ No. 88 Chevrolet. All three also ran the Cup race.

Asked whether his success this year might make him reevaluate his decision not to run a full Nationwide schedule, Busch deferred to team owner Joe Gibbs.

“I had no more gotten to the winner’s circle when about three of the crew guys are going, ‘Hey, can we run for a championship?’ ” Gibbs said. “I think we’ve laid out a plan there. We’ll talk it over with Kyle.”

Busch said the noncompanion events would pose a logistical problem in running full schedules in both the Cup and Nationwide series, though he did so last year.

“I want to, but it’s up to these guys,” Busch said, pointing to Gibbs. “I’d like to, but we know how difficult it is to run both, and what it takes away from the premium spot, which is the Sprint Cup Series title.

“When you go from Sonoma to whatever the new road course is in Wisconsin (Road America, with both races scheduled for the June 18-20 weekend), you’re going to have to skip all of Saturday in Sonoma to be there for that event in the Nationwide Series in Wisconsin, so you really hinder your chances to get a good racecar setup for the race that’s going to be on Sunday in Sonoma.

“That’s the biggest thing that I look at, but all the other ones aren’t too bad, so maybe we skip one and can still win the deal—I don’t know.”

Note: Busch won a Camping World Truck Series/Nationwide doubleheader at Auto Club Speedway (Fontana, Calif.) in February 2009 for two different owners—Billy Ballew in the truck series and Gibbs in Nationwide.