Wimmer leads 1-2 Childress team finish
Scott Wimmer passed Richard Childress Racing teammate Clint Bowyer with 21 laps to go and held on to win the Nationwide Series’ Pepsi 300 on Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway in Gladeville, Tenn.
The Childress cars took the top two spots, six days after the team swept the top three positions in the Sprint Cup series race at Bristol, Tenn.
Wimmer edged Bowyer by 0.578 seconds for his sixth victory in 149 Nationwide Series starts and first since 2003. Carl Edwards was third, followed by Brad Keselowski and Kelly Bires. Bowyer took the series points lead from Kevin Harvick, the fellow Childress Sprint Cup driver who skipped the Nashville race.
“I felt like we let three or four races get away from us last year, including this one, so it was nice to get the job done today,” Wimmer said.
Kyle Busch started on the pole and was the class of the field, leading a race-high 125 laps before spinning out with 62 laps left. The Sprint Cup points leader grazed Bowyer, who was passing on the inside, and was forced to pit for repairs. Busch finished 16th.
“It was just driver error,” Busch said. “I just messed up and lost it. I’m sure it’s going to bother me all week.”
It was the first standalone Nationwide race of the year and Wimmer became the first non-Sprint Cup regular to win in the series.
“I’ve raced in the Sprint Cup Series but not a lot lately,” Wimmer said. “Sitting down and running a partial Nationwide schedule is not what I want to be doing, but those are the cards that are dealt to me now and I’m with a great team.
“You can struggle with a single-car operation or a lower budget team and that’s not where any driver wants to be. I’m just trying to do the best I can for Richard right now and hopefully sometime I’ll get back to racing Nationwide or Sprint full-time.”
Reutimann replaces Jarrett
With Dale Jarrett’s retirement following the Bristol race, David Reutimann will take over driving duties of the No. 44 Michael Waltrip Racing Camry – leaving the No. 00 Toyota in the hands of Michael McDowell, beginning next week in Martinsville.
Both cars are guaranteed starting spots at Martinsville based on owner points, with Reutimann leaving the 00 in 27th and Jarrett stepping away from the 44 in 34th.
“It will be nice to show up at a racetrack and know that we are locked into the race,” Reutimann said.
Doctor tells Waltrip to limit talking
NASCAR on Fox analyst Darrell Waltrip, who lost his voice during last week’s race at Bristol, has been diagnosed with severely inflamed vocal cords and is under doctor’s orders to severely limit his speaking.
Waltrip, whose gravelly voice was almost painful to listen to during the Bristol telecast, saw Dr. Katherine Grant at the Vanderbilt Voice Clinic in Nashville, Tenn., on Wednesday. Grant, who has treated Charlie Daniels and other Nashville music stars, told the irrepressible former Cup champion to keep quiet for a while.
“It took eight years, but I finally figured out a way to get more air time,” joked Waltrip’s Fox colleague and former crew chief Jeff Hammond.
Waltrip is expected to be back in the booth in time for the Martinsville race on March 30.
Bowyer shows Kansas pride
The majority of Cup drivers polled on their picks in the NCAA basketball tournament chose North Carolina as the eventual champion.
That’s not surprising, since most of the Cup drivers live in the Tar Heel state.
But there was a surprising number of drivers voting for Kansas, led by Kansan Clint Bowyer, who has it all figured out.
“When Kansas beats (coach) Roy Williams and North Carolina on Saturday (of Final Four week), I’ll head to San Antonio after the Cup race in Texas for the national championship,” Bowyer said. “It looks like Kansas was meant to beat Roy Williams and I was meant to go the national championship. I love it when a plan comes together.”
Ferrari’s Massa takes pole
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were penalized five grid places for impeding other drivers and rival Ferrari took pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang, Malaysia.
Felipe Massa claimed the pole ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen for today’s race. An investigation by race stewards found McLaren guilty of interference during qualifying.
Kovalainen had qualified third and Hamilton fourth, but the penalty moves them back to eighth and ninth, respectively.
Ferrari needs to make up ground on McLaren after a dismal start to the season in Australia last week, collecting just one championship point against McLaren’s 14.
The penalty for McLaren came after BMW Sauber driver Nick Heidfeld and Renault’s Fernando Alonso were impeded in the closing seconds of qualifying as the McLarens cruised slowly on the racing line, having completed their sequence of quick laps.