Mark Martin puts his #5 Hendrick Motorsports machine on the pole for the second race in a row.

Mark Martin1 5 Mark Martin
2 39 Ryan Newman
3 48 Jimmie Johnson
4 16 Greg Biffle
5 9 Kasey Kahne
6 00 David Reutimann
7 43 Reed Sorenson
8 66 Dave Blaney
9 26 Jamie McMurray
10 24 Jeff Gordon
11 82 Scott Speed #
12 42 Juan Pablo Montoya
13 47 Marcos Ambrose
14 71 David Gilliland
15 14 Tony Stewart

Photo: CIA Stock Photo

16 64 Todd Bodine
17 28 Travis Kvapil
18 8 Aric Almirola
19 18 Kyle Busch
20 1 Martin Truex Jr.

Continue reading “Mark Martin on Cup Pole at Bristol”

Kerry Murphey and Ricky Carmichael
Kerry Murphey and Ricky Carmichael

KERNERSVILLE, N.C. (March 17, 2009) – Ricky Carmichael has been entered in the No. 4 Oakley / KHI All-Stars team Chevrolet Silverado for the Kroger 250 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway Saturday, March 28. Carmichael was not originally scheduled to compete at this event, but Oakley has signed a sponsorship agreement with Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI) to back the rookie driver and the KHI All-Stars team at Martinsville for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) race.

–LISTEN TO THE AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH RICKY

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In the history of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), no other rider has won as many championships (15) and races (150) as Carmichael, earning him the nickname the GOAT (Greatest of All-Time). Carmichael was a record five-time AMA “Rider of the Year.”

Continue reading “Ricky Carmichael Adds Martinsville”

Greg Biffle

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR RIBS? “I wish I had a better story, I really do. Me and a couple buddies went out fishing on Tuesday night and we were just messing around in our cove right there and we came back to the dock. I jumped over to the dock and the boat was kind of drifting out a little bit. One guy had the front corner and I said, ‘I’m gonna jump back over and grab a rope and then jump back again.’ It was about 11:30, so there was a little bit of dew in the air and the platform must have been wet, and when I jumped over it just shot my foot out from underneath me. It turned me around backwards and put me right on my side and on my back on the edge of the boat. It’s not a normal boat. It’s got a sharp edge on it because it has a platform on the front, so it’s just one of those freak, stupid accidents where you take a fall and you have no way to stop it or brace it or grab because I was over top of water. You’re gonna land on your ribs with all your weight, plus you jumped on top of it, so it was a stupid deal. If I had to do it over, I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Everybody’s jumped onto a boat before, but I just lost my footing.”

IT’S 500 LAPS HERE ON SUNDAY. “It’s 500 laps and it’s my right side. I went down yesterday as a precaution and got in my Martinsville car because the Bristol car had already left, and I feel better in that seat than I do sitting in anything. I drove over there in my truck and I actually feel better sitting in that seat (race car seat) because it’s hard foam and it’s molded. It doesn’t create any pressure points. When you sit in a seat that has a lumbar support cushion, it’s pushing in on you when you’re naturally sitting in it like an easy chair or something, whereas this is hard and rigid and it fits your body. It doesn’t have the ability to push in on you anywhere. Remarkably, I cannot believe how much better I feel in three days. I did it Tuesday night and I was really hurting Tuesday night. I felt a fair amount better by the end of the day Wednesday and yesterday I was up and doing all kinds of stuff, stretching and getting ready to go, so I feel pretty good now. I got in the car, just bruised, and the reason why I’m just focusing on the Cup race is you’re bruised and if you get in a wreck in the Nationwide car, you blow a tire, you know how easy it is to get in a chain-reaction crash here. I’m thinking, ‘Why be even more sore for Sunday if something happened?’ Matt and I were fighting over this race to see who was gonna get to run it, so we’re just gonna swap Daytona or something like that so we keep the same amount of races. But I’m disappointed, trust me, that I’m not running the Nationwide race.”

Continue reading “Greg Biffle's Ribs Keep him out of NNS Race”

Top 35: After Bristol, Current Points Determine Automatic Starts

Ryan Newman blown tire at DaytonaFour races are down, meaning it’s one to go before this season’s car owner points determine the top 35 automatic starting spots on a weekly basis. For the first five races of each season, the previous season’s final owner points determine the guarantees.

This makes always-precarious Bristol seem even more so for those teams occupying space “on the bubble” heading into the half-mile oval next week. If they find themselves on the wrong side of the top-35 bubble post-Bristol, they’ll be forced to rely on qualifying speeds to make the field.

As in recent weeks, three teams in trouble literally leap off the stats sheet, at first glance:
•The No. 5 Chevrolet driven by Mark Martin (owned by Rick Hendrick) is 35th.
•The No. 39 Chevrolet driven by Ryan Newman (owned by Tony Stewart) is 32nd.
•The No. 20 Toyota driven by Joey Logano (owned by Joe Gibbs) is 33rd.

Continue reading “After Bristol, This Years Points Are Used”