AUTO RACING: Junior ready for road course
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is generally an afterthought when people talk about NASCAR’s best road racers.
That is something stock car racing’s most popular driver would like to change today in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.
“This weekend is important to me because I’m sick of hearing people say ‘Oh, he can’t drive on a road course,’ ” Junior said.
It’s not that Junior has been terrible on the tracks with left and right turns. While Earnhardt’s best finishes in seven tries on Infineon’s 1.99-mile circuit have been a pair of 11ths, he has a third, a fifth and a 10th at Watkins Glen International, the only other road course the Nextel Cup races.
But Earnhardt feels he has something to prove, particularly on this picturesque Northern California course with rolling hills and treacherous turns and elevation changes.
“We’ve been so close here before and have always come away with some sort of issue that takes away from what we can really do,” said Earnhardt, who qualified third in the 43-car field. “I want a top-10 so bad here, I can taste it.”
Johnson, Gordon return
Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon wasted no time returning to the track after NASCAR inspectors approved their cars.
Johnson, the reigning Nextel Cup champion, and Gordon, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate and four-time series champion, were the first cars on the 1.99-mile Infineon Raceway road course for practice Saturday.
The two had an unexpected day off Friday after their cars failed to pass inspection. NASCAR deemed the front fenders on the No. 24 and No. 48 Chevrolets illegal and banned the two drivers from the day’s practice and qualifying.
Busch Series
After missing the start of the race because his helicopter couldn’t find a place to land, Denny Hamlin rallied to take the checkered flag in a wacky NASCAR Busch Series race at the Milwaukee Mile at West Allis, Wis.
But because a substitute driver, Aric Almirola, started the race in Hamlin’s car, NASCAR officially will credit Almirola with the victory. According to NASCAR officials, it was the first time a relief driver had won a Busch series race since Jack Ingram turned his car over to Harry Gant at Darlington Raceway on April 13, 1985.
Hamlin arrived late to the racetrack and took the wheel from Almirola during an early pit stop.
Champ Car
Sebastien Bourdais, who has been turning Champ Car races into checker-flagged Sunday drives this season, won the pole for the Grand Prix of Cleveland by holding off rookie Simon Pagenaud and a pack of first-year racers.
Flying around the 2.106-mile course laid out on the runways and taxiways of Burke Lakefront Airport, Bourdais had a best lap of 56.363 seconds – .080 seconds behind the track mark set by defending champion A.J. Allmendinger in last year’s qualifying.
IRL
Scott Dixon earned his first pole of the season during qualifying for the inaugural Iowa Corn Indy 250 in Newton, Iowa.
Dixon qualified for the top spot with a top speed of 182.360 mph, grabbing the seventh pole of his career and his first on a short oval since 2003.