| RANK | +/- | DRIVER | POINTS | BEHIND | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | -- | Jimmie Johnson | 6248 | Leader | |||||
| 2 | +2 | Carl Edwards | 6065 | -183 | |||||
| 3 | -1 | Greg Biffle | 6063 | -185 | |||||
| 4 | -1 | Jeff Burton | 6030 | -218 | |||||
| 5 | +1 | Kevin Harvick | 5941 | -307 | |||||
| 6 | +1 | Jeff Gordon | 5936 | -312 | |||||
| 7 | -2 | Clint Bowyer | 5934 | -314 | |||||
| 8 | -- | Tony Stewart | 5847 | -401 | |||||
| 9 | +1 | Matt Kenseth | 5835 | -413 | |||||
| 10 | -1 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 5829 | -419 | |||||
| 11 | -- | Denny Hamlin | 5823 | -425 | |||||
| 12 | -- | Kyle Busch | 5783 | -465 |
Who knew that with Jr and Jimmie doing these commercials together that one day they would be teammates?
While looking for videos to post on the new blog (by the way it's up and running!), I came across this commercial.
| RANK | +/- | DRIVER | POINTS | BEHIND | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | -- | Jimmie Johnson | 6073 | Leader | |||||
| 2 | +1 | Greg Biffle | 5924 | -149 | |||||
| 3 | -1 | Jeff Burton | 5921 | -152 | |||||
| 4 | -- | Carl Edwards | 5875 | -198 | |||||
| 5 | -- | Clint Bowyer | 5827 | -246 | |||||
| 6 | -- | Kevin Harvick | 5817 | -256 | |||||
| 7 | +1 | Jeff Gordon | 5798 | -275 | |||||
| 8 | -1 | Tony Stewart | 5735 | -338 | |||||
| 9 | +1 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 5694 | -379 | |||||
| 10 | +1 | Matt Kenseth | 5665 | -408 | |||||
| 11 | +1 | Denny Hamlin | 5653 | -420 | |||||
| 12 | -3 | Kyle Busch | 5628 | -445 |
CONCORD, N.C. – JR Motorsports officials announced Friday at Lowe's Motor Speedway a 10-race sponsorship of the No. 5 Nationwide Series team for 2009 with Unilever and its Hellman's mayonnaise, Ragu pasta sauce, Klondike ice cream and Lipton tea brands.
Landon Cassill will drive the No. 5 Chevrolet for seven of the events, team co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. two and Mark Martin one, according to Kelley Earnhardt, general manager of the team.
The sponsorship will begin with the season-opening Nationwide race at Daytona, with Earnhardt Jr. driving a Hellman’s-sponsored car.
Earnhardt Jr. said the team is close to signing sponsorship for the remaining 25 races for the No. 5, as well as the entire schedule for the No. 88 Chevrolet driven by Brad Keselowksi.
“We’ve got it just about entirely finished as far as putting together a program for all the races for each car,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We still have a couple of gaps to fill. We started working pretty early and we had a lot of interest. We’re more fortunate than most I’m sure. I feel very confident that we’ll be able to get it wrapped up.”
Kelley Earnhardt said JR Motorsports is committed to two full-time cars next season.
“It’s very disconcerting,” Earnhardt said. “We’ve got people trying to put cars together and firesuits and get our marketing together for next year, and every day I have e-mails hitting my inbox: ‘Have you got nay news? Have you got any news?’
“But we’ve got some things working. I think we’re going to have it wrapped up, hopefully, within the next 30 days.”
Cassill, who has shared the No. 5 this year with several drivers, said an announcement should be forthcoming on his remaining schedule with the team next year, and it should include more races for him.
“We’ll have something soon,” Cassill said. “It’ll be cool.”
 | | | | | | | | | |
| RANK | +/- | DRIVER | POINTS | BEHIND | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | -- | Jimmie Johnson | 5878 | Leader | |||||
| 2 | +2 | Jeff Burton | 5809 | -69 | |||||
| 3 | -- | Greg Biffle | 5792 | -86 | |||||
| 4 | -2 | Carl Edwards | 5710 | -168 | |||||
| 5 | -- | Clint Bowyer | 5693 | -185 | |||||
| 6 | -- | Kevin Harvick | 5671 | -207 | |||||
| 7 | -- | Tony Stewart | 5650 | -228 | |||||
| 8 | -- | Jeff Gordon | 5633 | -245 | |||||
| 9 | +2 | Kyle Busch | 5552 | -326 | |||||
| 10 | -- | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 5524 | -354 | |||||
| 11 | -2 | Matt Kenseth | 5518 | -360 | |||||
| 12 | -- | Denny Hamlin | 5498 | -380 |
| | | | | |||||
| RANK | +/- | DRIVER | POINTS | BEHIND | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | -- | Jimmie Johnson | 5718 | Leader | |||||
| 2 | -- | Carl Edwards | 5646 | -72 | |||||
| 3 | -- | Greg Biffle | 5641 | -77 | |||||
| 4 | -- | Jeff Burton | 5619 | -99 | |||||
| 5 | +2 | Clint Bowyer | 5566 | -152 | |||||
| 6 | -1 | Kevin Harvick | 5547 | -171 | |||||
| 7 | +4 | Tony Stewart | 5515 | -203 | |||||
| 8 | -2 | Jeff Gordon | 5486 | -232 | |||||
| 9 | -- | Matt Kenseth | 5473 | -245 | |||||
| 10 | -2 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 5469 | -249 | |||||
| 11 | +1 | Kyle Busch | 5387 | -331 | |||||
| 12 | -2 | Denny Hamlin | 5383 | -335 | |||||
TALLADEGA, Ala. -- If Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans decide to throw beer cans at Jeff Gordon again, they'd better be careful, they might just hit their favorite driver.
The Hendrick Motorsports teammates, two of the greatest restrictor plate racers in the sport, have a plan for Sunday's Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Both men have agreed to set aside their competitive differences, for a portion of the race at least, and work on their team building skills.
"Me and Jeff are thinking about going up front, running hard ... go up there and try to learn how to work together," Earnhardt said. "I think it will work good, we got to make it work."
Teammates or not, Junior Nation may find this pairing a bit unsettling.
Talladega Superspeedway is sacred ground for the Earnhardt family and the fans don't take kindly to interlopers. The city of Talladega has become a Mecca of sorts, a holy city. Thousands of Earnhardt fans make the pilgrimage to 'Dega twice a year to worship their beloved driver. Needless to say, the place has special meaning for Earnhardt.
Special not only because he has five wins and his late father 10, but because it feels like home and the fans, evident by the loud roar that rolls from the stands whenever he takes the lead in the race, adore him.
"Well, to me it's special. I don't think everyone gets that sensation going into the race," Earnhardt said. "But to me it's a pretty important place just because my family's done so well there. And the way the fans treat us there make it exciting, make it a place you look forward to. I think that's probably the biggest key, the fans and how they've treated us at that track."
His fans are loyal -- to the point of dangerous.
Last year when Gordon bettered the late Dale Earnhardt's all-time victory list with 77 wins at the revered track, fans were enraged and began chucking beer cans onto the track pelting Gordon's No. 24 (watch video).
But a year later, Gordon and Earnhardt are in a position to align, combining their knowledge and ability to master the draft.
"We just said we'd go up there and work together and enjoy working together instead of being so competitive," Earnhardt said after posting a 15th-place qualifying lap Saturday. The No. 88 driver was forced to qualify a backup car after an early crash in practice Friday caused by a blown right rear tire (watch video). "We should be fine. I'm pretty happy with the way the guys rebounded and I feel like really prepared going into the race even after the day we had yesterday."
Of course at the end of the day, nearing the final laps of the race, Earnhardt said both drivers will go for the win, determining the dominant plate racer for the time being.
"Well we both think we are the best so that's where the conflict comes in. Who is supposed to be out front and who is supposed to be helping who," Earnhardt said. "We do a pretty good job at it ... we are getting better working together for 75 percent of the race. [Gordon] knows what he's doing, he can be a great help to you. You get what you give and maybe sometimes I'm not as giving as I should be."
TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s day at Talladega Superspeedway started out poorly when the engine on his No. 88 Chevrolet went sour just eight laps into Friday's first practice session.
But things went from bad to worse in an instant when the right rear tire exploded while he was leading a pack of cars during final practice for Sunday's Amp Energy 500, setting off a chain-reaction accident that damaged at least six cars Earnhardt had no warning when the tire exploded and sent him out of control. "I think the tire seemed to come apart at the tread and the sidewall," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We looked to the car, and really nothing has fell off of it. Normally you look at exhaust straps and stuff like that, but it just come out of nowhere.
"It is hard to say. I will look at some of the replays to see if anything came out from under it. Maybe we can find it on the replay, something we might have run over."
David Gilliland's No. 38 Ford was directly behind Junior and had a close-up view of the incident as the single-file pack exited Turn 2 nine minutes into the final practice session. Earnhardt was leading Gilliland, Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne when chaos reigned.
"Junior blew a right-rear tire," Gilliland said. "In the middle of the corner, the thing just came apart. It's just an unfortunate incident.
"There was nothing he could do and there was nothing I could do. It was just kind of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
While Earnhardt and Gilliland collided and blocked the top groove, several other cars took evasive action. Stewart was sent on a wild ride through the infield grass. Kahne nearly had the incident missed, but his right front fender clipped one of the spinning cars, and the resulting flat tire did serious damage to the quarterpanel.
Kahne said it happened so fast, he didn't have much time to react.
"I was right in the middle of a pack of cars when all of a sudden, I just saw tire rubber everywhere," Kahne said. "I tried to get by without hitting anything, but just got clipped in the right front."
Goodyear officials were inspecting what remained of Junior's tire to determine if it had been cut by something externally rather than suffering internal failure. The explosion and resulting accident was severe enough to tear nearly all of the sheetmetal off of the No. 88, from the rear window to the back bumper.
"From what we can determine, it has all the signs of a puncture," said Goodyear spokesman Rick Heinrich.
Earnhardt and Gilliland were checked and released from Talladega's infield medical facility. While that was going on, their crews were busy unloading backup cars from their haulers. In addition, the damage on Kahne's Dodge, Clint Bowyer's Chevy and David Reutimann's Toyota was significant enough for them to decide to pull out the backups.
The track reopened for practice nearly 30 minutes after the incident.
