Another new face in victory lane

A long time ago, 4 years ago to be exact, in another open-wheel series, Champ Car, Ryan Hunter-Reay won a race in Milwauke, but carrer went into a bit of a tail spin soon enough he found himself out of a ride, only doing part time work in the Grand-Am series. That was until late last year when he got a call from Bobby Rahal asking him to drive his car and in six races he scored three top 10s and took rookie of the year honors, but the was because he was really the only rookie around.
2008 for Hunter-Reay showed moments of greatness and moments of frustartion. But on Sunday things went all the way to the good as Hunter-Reay took his first Indycar victory at Watkins Glen.

"For something to finally go our way is great," Hunter-Reay said. "It didn't land in our lap; we had to go out there and earn it. Then we just checked out at the end, which was the best. We put an exclamation on the end of that one. It was a beautiful deal."

While Hunter-Reay got the victory, the race was dominated by the strong cars of Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe, but the two tangled during second to last caution, when Dixon accidently spun himself out leaving Briscoe nowhere to go, but to collide with him, that left them both out of contention.

"It was like a scene out of Days of Thunder," Hunter-Reay said about the collision. "I couldn't see where they were or where the opening was. I couldn't see any cars, just a dirt cloud. I picked left, and luckily it was open. I got through there, and then I immediately thought, 'This is the point where I get paid back for all the bad luck.'"

The incident moved Hunter-Reay up to 2nd behind Darren Manning and Hunter-Reay quickly dispatched Manning for the lead and held on to the take the victory.

The victory would also be the first for the Rahal-Letterman team since 2004 when Buddy Rice took victory at Michigan for the team. "This is vindication," team co-owner Bobby Rahal said. "Some guys who have driven for us in the past said this team doesn't have the will to win. It's all about having the right driver."

Manning held off Tony Kannan, who was driving with a hurt wrist, to take second. Buddy Rice and Marco Andretti rounded out the top five.

Meanwhile, Scott Dixon, despite all of the late race silliness, was still able to extend his points lead on Helio Castroneves to 48. The next round of the Indycar Series will be held at Nashville Speedway on Saturday night.

Hunter-Reay scores maiden victory [Autosport.com]

Lewis Hamilton pulls it off at Silverstone

One of the most greatest things you can do in your Formula 1 career is have a victory in your home country. It only took Lewis Hamilton two years to accomplish that feat as he took victory Sunday in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in a difficult wet race winning by over a minute ahead second-place finisher Nick Heidfeld.

"This was the toughest race, but also one of the best ones I have ever driven," Hamilton said. "It was so extreme and slippery out there, very similar to the Japanese Grand Prix in Fuji last year. I had troubles with my visor and tried to clean it a couple of times. I thank my team for a great job; they did fantastic work and we always made the right decisions with the tires in the difficult conditions. When I came round the last time, I saw the crowd standing up and I prayed: 'Just finish, just finish.'

"It was a very emotional moment to win my home grand prix, and I want to dedicate this victory to my family. As everybody knows, I had some troubles over the past few weeks, and they have always been there for me and supported me."

For Nick Heifeld it was "close, but no cigar" once again. "It was a good race," Heidfeld said. "I am happy with second place because today it was the best I could achieve. Qualifying went well and in the race we did everything right. Obviously, it was crucial to make the right tire decisions. At the first stop we were wondering if we should stay with the used set of inters, but luckily we then decided on new tires. We were expecting a small shower, but when I drove down Hanger Straight and saw a black wall in front of me, I thought I should expect more than that!"

"The most difficult moments in the race were when cars were overtaking me who had been lapped but were just on better tires for the conditions at that time. There was so much water, and I couldn't see where it was lying. Once before Abbey I almost spun but just managed to keep the car on the track."

For Hamilton it had been a season of ups and downs. Amazing moments like wins at Australia and Monaco and disappointing moments like at Canada where ran into the back of Kimi Raikkonen on pit road.

Another feel good story was that Rubens Barrichello had a podium finish for the first time since left Ferrari back in 2005.

"It's a great feeling to be back on the podium today after such an exciting race where the weather conditions really helped us to get the best out of the car. The most important decision of the race for us was switching to the extreme wet tire when the heavy rain started to fall at half distance. I had a real moment at Club, going off at high speed and almost hitting the wall, and that made me realize that we needed to make a quick decision. After fitting the extreme wets, I was able to overtake the cars in front easily, which was a great feeling. Making such a crucial decision at a key time comes from experience and from the team having the confidence in me to make the call."

"I would like to say a big thank you to the team today -- to everyone back at the factory and also in Japan. Life is about learning from your experiences, and we have been through some tough times over the last couple of years. But I always had faith that there were good times ahead and I know there are plenty more to come."

Kimi Raikkonen, Heikki Kovalainen, Fernando Alonso, Jarno Trulli and Kazuki Nakajima rounded out the top 8 postions.

Meanwhile the battle for the world championship has tighten up even more as Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen are all tied for the points lead and Robert Kubica is only two points behind. The next race is the German Grand Prix in two weeks at Hockenheim.

Hamilton earns historic victory in British GP [Motorsport.com]

Kyle Busch does it again at Daytona

Kyle Busch pulled another win out last night in last nights Coke Zero 400. Busch held off a spirited charge by Carl Edwards in a green-white-checkered situation to take his sixth win of the year.

"We didn't have the best car tonight," Busch said. "But these guys never gave up. Luckily, we were leading when the caution came out."

The night was bit of wreck fest with the yellow flag coming out 11 times during trace which included two large crashes at the end of the night, including one that sent the race into overtime when Jimmie Johnson spun and collected six others. Kyle Busch was given the narrow lead on Jeff Gordon for the final restart. The field was bunched up when the green flag came out for the final time and Carl Edwards turned Jeff Gordon spinning him out which made Gordon's car stall and relegated him to a 30th place finish. Meanwhile with Edwards and Busch duking it out for the lead, the rest of the field behind them decided it would be cool to play bumper cars that worked pretty well until Michael Waltrip and others got together on the final lap in turn 1 bringing out the caution and ending the race.

"I was driving as hard as I could," Edwards said. "Man, I hate to lose that thing like that. I was doing everything I could."

Meanwhile Jeff Gordon wasn't really surprised on how the race ended.

"We had such an awesome night going," Gordon said. "I'm so excited about the way we ran, obviously disappointed with the way it finished. � They were all laying back, we were all playing kind of cat and mouse on that last restart, you know on a green-white-checkered. � We were going for the win, trying to get the momentum and the 99 [of Edwards] got a run and I went low to block him and he kept going low and I guess I must have come across the front bumper."

"I knew it was just a matter of time before we got wrecked the way they were bump-drafting and getting pretty crazy out there," Gordon said. "I'm excited about the way we ran. We had a great opportunity to win the race. I have to look at the videos. It might have been my fault, I don't know."

After Busch and Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch and David Ragan rounded out the top five.
And Kyle Busch extends his points lead to 182 over Dale Earnhardt Jr. The next Sprint Cup race will be next Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway.

Late-race crash didn't surprise Gordon [Scenedaily.com]

Busch wins again- this time at Daytona International Speedway [Scenedaily.com]

The fireworks started early

Holy hell, what a finish last night in the Grand-Am Brumos Porsche 250 at Daytona. Scott Pruett edged out Alex Gurney it what would be the closest finish in Grand-Am series history. Heres the vid:



Jeff Segal also had a nasty flip towards the end of the race when his Mazda collided with Bill Lester's Lexus:

Kahne takes victory again at Pocono

Kasey Kahne took home his third victory in four weeks wining the Pocono 500 beating Brian Vickers by 3.7 seconds. Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt, Jr and Jeff Burton rounded out the top five.

"It was a great afternoon," said a drained Kahne following the race. "The car ran so well here. Nothing close to us when we were up front. We had such a good car all weekend from the time practice started to qualify first and winning this deal feels really good.

"It seemed like the hottest race of the year. The track was hot. The lines, the grooves, my car was super, super good."

Even though Kahne took pole, holding on to the lead was quite the difficult task, different pit strategies and pit crew miscues left Kasey having to start over from scratch on just about every restart. The miscue by his pit crew had Kasey in his worst postion of the day, restarting in 38th. But Kahne overcame every mistake and took the lead from Brian Vickers with 19 laps to go and never looked back.

Meanwhile, points leader Kyle Busch had his worst day of the year finishing dead last on Sunday after going for an opening that wasn't there and collided with Jamie McMurrary. Busch ended up 105 laps down to winner Kahne. Busch troubles also didn't help his teammate Tony Stewart as Busch spun out late in the race and brought out the caution trapping Stewart a lap down, Stewart finished 35th.

Just about half of the cautions were caused by the open-wheel rookies with Dario Franchitti, Sam Hornish and Patrick Carpentier invovled in two to three incidents each. Franchitti was none too happy when Hornish collided with him lat in the race.

"The Hornish deal, I don't know," Franchitti said. "I went in there pretty deep compared to everybody else I was racing with and braking about the same point all day and I got to the apex and he drilled us. He must have been doing 50 miles per hour more. Maybe his brakes failed or his brain failed, I don't know."

With the win Kahne now moves up from 12th to 9th in points, while Kyle Busch holds on to a narrow 21 point lead over Jeff Burton. The series now moves on to Michigan where I hear that red-colored and beer sponsored number 9 cars do well at this track.

Kahne takes victory at Pocono (Autosport.com)

Kubica flies to victory in Canada

One year ago, Robert Kubica was involved in a terrifying crash that had him sitting out the next race. Now the young driver from Poland is on top of the podium for the first time in his young career taking victory in the Canadian Grand Prix becoming the first Polish driver to win a Formula 1 race and the getting the first victory for the BMW Sauber team.

"It is fantastic to win for BMW Sauber," said Kubica. "We grew up together and thanks to team for providing a good car we managed to do first and second. Maybe our pace is still not best as I couldn't match Lewis's [Hamilton] pace."

It seemed that was case as Lewis Hamilton quickly pulled away from Kubica at the start until Adrian Sutil parked his Force India car on the side of the track which called for the safety car on track. Then came pit stops, Ferrari�s Kimi Raikkionen and Kubica quickly pulled out of their stalls and beat Hamilton, but had to stop at the end of the pit road, Hamilton then pulled out, but had a brain fade and ran into the back of Raikkionen's car, Nico Rosberg quickly followed and ran into the back of Hamilton. The Finn was none to happy about the incident.

"There's not much I can say. My race was ruined by Hamilton's mistake," said Raikkonen. "Obviously, anyone can make mistakes, as I did two weeks ago in Monaco, but it's one thing to make a mistake at two hundred per hour but another to hit a car stopped at a red light. I am not angry because that doesn't achieve anything and does not change my result."

"I am unhappy, because I had a great chance of winning. Once the graining had gone from the tyres, the car was going very well. I have failed to score in these last two races and now it's time to start winning again. There is still a long way to go in the championship and it is still very close and we have everything we need to regain the ground we have lost."

The race after that would then become a showdown between BMW Sauber Kubica and Nick Heidfeld as whose pit stratgey would win the race, in the end Kubica strategy would pay off as he would take the win over Heidfeld and David Coulthard. Timo Glock, Felipe Massa, Jarno Trulli, Rubens Barrichello and Sebastian Vettel would round out the top 8.

"It's fantastic for me, the team, my country and my fans." Kubica said. "Last year I struggled a lot but I fixed some issues that were not working properly. I am doing pretty well this season."
"Winning in Canada where I had big shunt last season and the goal to win a grand prix this season... We have done it and I'm leading the championship, so I hope the team will give me 100 percent support to defend it until last race."

Kubica now takes the world championship lead by four points over Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari still holds a three point lead over BMW in the constructor points.

Kubica celebrates 'fantastic' maiden win (Autosport.com)

Raikkonen 'unhappy' about Hamilton's error (Autosport.com)

Dixon domination continues

Scott Dixon last night continued his path to a second Indycar Championship with another win in the Bombardier Learjet 550k. Dixon passed Marco Andretti with six laps to go to take his third victory of the year. Helio Castroneves finished second, Ryan Briscoe, Dan Wheldon and Tony Kannan rounded out the top 5.

"We're riding a wave at the moment," Dixon said. "We're just trying to keep it going. From the middle part of last year until now, we've won a serious amount of races.

"Over the winter, these guys spent a lot of time making these cars super fast. You've got to put this down to the many people back at the shop who have worked on these cars non-stop."

"At the end, he left it wide open. I don't know what he was doing. Marco's car was good on the high line, so maybe he couldn't sit on the bottom. If it was me, I wouldn't have given up that much room."

Unfortunately for Marco Andretti he wouldn't keep second place as he and Ryan Hunter-Reay tangled with six laps to go:

Marco was not too happy about the crash. "There are some guys you can run close with and some guys you can't," Andretti said of Hunter-Reay. "He clearly hit the white line, and that is that. We ran well today, but to me, that doesn't matter. We need to bring home results. It's very disappointing."

Meanwhile Scott Dixon extends his points lead over Helio Castroneves to 35.

Dixon wins again in texas (Autosport.com)

In other action yesterday:

Scott Dixon and Memo Rojas took victory in the Six hours of the Glen.

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr held off a late charge from Scott Speed to take his second ARCA victory of the year at Pocono

And Brad Keselwoski took his first Nationwide victory at Nashville last night passing Clint Bowyer with 5 laps to go.

Hornaday holds off Busch for win

Last night Ron Hornaday held off Kyle Busch for the win in Texas last night.

"I wanted to win this race so bad and Kyle got up there," Hornaday said. "I think maybe [Busch] spun the tires," Hornaday said. "We were having some problems in Turn 2 and we got the truck up on the high side to get through there."

Hornaday dominated the race leading all but 27 laps. Johnny Benson, Jack Sprague and Todd Bodine rounded out the top 5.

Hornaday holds off Busch for Texas truck win (Scenedaily.com)

One Great Night

Tony Stewart put on a dominating performance in last night's Prelude to the Dream leading just every about every lap and holding off Robby Gordon for the victory at his own track. The night though was filled with carnage, the feature race itself had seven cautions. Most of them caused by J.J. Yeley.

The night itself almost didn't happen with lots of rain occurring over the past few days at Eldora Speedway the track was in a sloppy condition with Stewart almost having to call off the race six hours before showtime, but Mother Nature gave Eldora Speedway a break and the show was on. The night started off with qualifying in which Dave Blaney won the pole set a new track record. The first heat was a replay of last year with Clint Bowyer dominating and winning the heat, the race also featured a major crash as J.J. Yeley, Aric Almriola and Mark Martin piled into one another ending Martin's night. The second heat was won by Stewart and first-time Prelude driver Robby Gordon took heat 3 which featured David Reutimann hood popping off his car while leading.

The carnage of the heats led to the cancellation of the B-main so the drivers could have time to work on their damaged cars. Coca-Cola 600 winner Kasey Kahne had troubles getting his car to run and spent most of the night working on his car rather than racing it. Last week's winner at Dover Kyle Busch found the wall twice tearing his spoiler each time, Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman also found the wall and to had their cars repaired. But the break period really help the teams in trouble and all but two cars (Mark Martin and Bill Elliott, who had engine woes) missed the main feature. As soon as the race started Stewart quickly took the lead from Kevin Harvick and never looked back and with superb restarts Stewart seemed to be in his own zip code compared to the other cars.

Of course the night was truly for the children and Stewart donated a 1 million dollar check to Kyle Petty in victory lane to go to the Victory Junction Gang Camp. The night was truly a lot of fun, to see the drivers being their true selves and not being all business even though some took the race a little too seriously with all but 2 of the drivers going out and testing their cars, to see such oddities such a 2-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson asking Clint Bowyer for advice to get around Eldora for the first time, in most cases that would be the other way around with Bowyer asking for advice. But it is those things that makes this event such a grand spectacle and I can�t wait for next year.

It was the same old song and dance

Yesterday, I talked about anyone having a chance to put the juggernaut that was Kyle Busch down. Unfortunately that wasn't the case towards the end of the race as Busch dominated the last half of the race to take his fourth win of the year at Dover holding off Carl Edwards for the win.

"We didn't have the car to beat [Sunday]," said Busch. "Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle did. But our guys on pit road [were] phenomenal -- got us out front -- and that's what won the race for us. The guys that pitted this thing on pit road definitely won the race for us."

And Busch was right it seemed that was going to Biffle's or Edward's day. Of course many contenders for the win on Sunday were taken out in a lap 18 crash.



And while were talking about the crash lets give the brain-dead move of the race to Denny Hamlin. Seriously, Denny do you know where the brake pedal is?

After a 20 minute red flag session the race got underway again and looked like it would be Greg Biffle's race until electrical gremlins struck him halfway through the race, Biffle would have to struggle the rest of the day without air conditioning and brake fans to finish third. Biffle's problems handed the lead to his teammate Carl Edwards, but a slow final pit stop would cost him the victory. With very few cautions and lots of green flag runs only six cars managed to finish all 400 laps, the same amount did it last fall. Along with Busch, Edwards and Biffle. Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon rounded out the top five.

With this win Busch extends his point lead to 142 over Jeff Burton who finished eighth on Sunday. The Sprint Cup series heads off to Pocono where TNT will take over the TV coverage and sadly that means Bill Weber has arrived.

Good pit stops help Busch pull away to an easy victory (NASCAR.com)

Hamlin wins, Kyle Busch still a total douchebag

Denny Hamlin won his second Nationwide Series race at Dover holding Carl Edwards for victory. �It�s a great win for us,� said Hamlin, who won for the seventh time in 101 career series starts. �We just bided our time and ran as hard as we needed to at certain points of that race and everything paid off there at the end.�

The race started three hours late due to rain and severe weather in the Dover area, but soon enough
they dried the track and dropped the green flag and Denny Hamlin quickly ran away with the lead, but soon enough Kyle Busch showed up and took the lead. The race seemed to be in Busch's hands until he and Brad Keselowski collided on pit road sending the Busch to the tail end of the lead lap with damage. Busch worked his way back up through the field, but then got tangled up with teammate Jason Leffler with 32 laps to go leading Kyle Busch to go off on another crybaby rants:


"I just have a teammate who can't stand being number two," Busch said. Wow, Kyle, just wow. Kyle just finds new ways to blow my mind everyday with that kind of douchebagery. Meanwhile those chain of events let Denny Hamlin have the lead and the victory. Edwards, David Stremme, David Reutimann and Greg Biffle rounded out the top 5. Young Joey Lagano finsihed 6th in his first Nationwide start.

Hamlin cruises to consecutive Dover victory (Scenedaily.com)

Scott Speed is down with that

Another week, another first time winner in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series as Scott Speed took victory last night in Dover. Speed in only sixth start took held off Kevin Harvick Inc. teammates Jack Sprague and Ron Hornaday for the victory.

"We had a good strategy and an awesome truck, and we got everything we could out of it," Speed said of his No. 22 Bill Davis Racing Toyota. "The learning curve I've had has been amazing. Every time I go out on the track, I feel I come away with a lot of knowledge.

"I'm just having an awesome time trying to learn this sport."

Speed and his Bill Davis team used some strategy to get his truck towards the front by taking to two tires on their final stop on lap 133 and with about 50 to go Speed grabbed the lead from Todd Bodine and never looked back, but sealing the deal wasn't easy as Ron Hornaday was on his tail end the majority of those final laps. Speed's chance for victory went into serious jeopardy when Bodine smacked the wall with 30 to go, putting Hornaday, the "king of restarts", on his back bumper. But by then Hornaday had devloped a problem with his motor and Speed pulled away for the victory with ease.

The Craftsman Truck Series now heads off to the high banks and high speeds of Texas Motor Speedway, next Friday night. Rick Crawford is now your points leader with a 20 point lead over Matt Crafton.

Speed out runs Sprague, Hornaday for first victory (NASCAR.com)

Hamilton takes rain-soaked Monaco victory

Lewis Hamilton came back from a tire puncture early in the race to take the win in the Grand Prix of Monaco winning by three seconds over Robert Kubica.

"I am absolutely over the moon," said Hamilton, whose margin of victory over Kubica was 3 seconds. "To win here in Monaco is the highlight of my career and an occasion I will always remember."

Hamilton started third and qucikly took away second from Kimi Raikkonen at the start, but Hamilton bounced off a wall and quickly found himself with tire puncature and had to pit, but with pit strategy and the help of a safety car period, Hamilton quickly found himself back in the lead holding off Kubica and Felipe Massa for the victory. Mark Webber, Sebastain Vettel, Rubens Barrichello, Kaz Nakajima and Hekki Kovalainen rounded out the top eight. The win also helped promote Hamilton to the world championship lead over Raikkonen who didn't have the best of days. Raikkonen quickly found himself being penalized early in the race for not having his tires on his cars at the prestart time and then made mistakes throughout the race including knocking out Adrian Sutil who seemed to be on the greatest run of his young carrer.

The race was shortened by two laps due to the two-hour time limit in a race marred by rain and saftey car periods. Many drivers had problems keeping there cars clean and free from damage like Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg, who had to come in many times to change nosecones. Rosberg's day came to an end though when crashed hard in the swimming pool section on lap 58. Alonso, the defending winner of the race, finished a lap down in 10th. The Forumla 1 circus moves on to North Ameica for the Candian Grand Prix in a couple of weeks.

GP2 update: In the top step of the F1's devlopment ladder a famous name was back on top of the podium as Bruno Senna, newphew of 6 time Monaco winner Ayrton Senna, won the feature race while Mike Conway got his first GP2 win in the sprint race.

Hamilton rain-dances to victory at Monaco (Motorsport.com).

Delight for the de Ferran, Disappointment for da Matta

In two different series at two different tracks, two drivers were making a return to racing. Gil de Ferran making his first completive start since 2003, had a spectacular performance. He and teammate Simon Pagenaud quickly moved up through the back of the field and even took the lead for a while, de Ferran eventually finished third in his Acura behind the two Penske Porsches. "It really was a great day for us. To get on the podium and finish so close to the leader is a fantastic result.
"I had to be careful coming from the back of the pack but the car certainly had good speed. The first yellow was a little too early for us but the end result is outstanding --- I couldn't be more pleased�, de Ferran said. "Simon did a brilliant job at the finish, but for me, sitting on the pit wall, the final 10 minutes seemed to take forever. We now have a large break before the next race at Lime Rock so we will have plenty of opportunity to regroup, take a breath and put some more testing miles under our belt to be even better prepared for our second race. Thanks again to Acura, Panasonic and all our guys on the crew -- everyone is delighted with the day."

Meanwhile in Laguna Seca, a different return was taking place with Christiano da Matta making his first return to racing since his heavy crash in 2006 at Road America. Da Matta teamed up with Jimmy Vasser started 6th and soon enough da Matta took the lead, but unfortunately their day came up short due to engine troubles. Da Matta fought hard though driving with a case of food poisoning. "Man, it felt like I had a cat in my stomach," said da Matta, who was wearing a cool suit for the first time in his career and didn't have a heat-related illness. "It started feeling bad right when I got in the car on that very first yellow, but just a little bit, a very little bit. Under green, it was fine, but with all of the yellows, my stomach just started feeling worse. It was very strange. I am fine now, but I know we could have done much better, not just me getting sick, but some of the other things we did. It's just all part of racing, but for a comeback race, it went very well. It is important that I could see the performance is there now and for the future."

Bob Stallings Laguna Seca Race Report (Motorsport.com)

De Ferran Motorsports Utah Race Report (Motorsport.com)

The Fans' Winner

Last night the fans of NASCAR made the move of the race by voting in Kasey Kahne in the Sprint All-Star Race. Kahne would use that vote to his advantage and take the win, but the road to that win would be a long one.

The event started off with the Sprint Showdown, the last chance for drivers to get into the main event. At the end of 40 laps it was A.J. Almindinger and Sam Hornish, Jr who would be transferring to the main event. Kahne finished 5th and would transfer to the main event on the fans vote.

Pole-sitter Kyle Busch went right to work into destroying the field in the first segment, winning it and banking an easy $75,000. It seemed Busch would give an encore in segment two, but a dropped cylinder canceled those plans and Busch would have to retire after segement two, handing the segment victory to Carl Edwards. Edwards and his Office Depot team figured that car didn't need any adjustments and would be good enough to hold off the field in the final two segments, they were wrong. Segment three went Edward's teammate Greg Biffle with Dale Earnhardt, Jr in second. At the end of segment three came the mandatory pitstops in which Kahne, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin chose to take no tires on their stop while Greg Biffle took two and Earnhardt, Jr took four.

The start of the final segment was frantic with Johnson and Hamlin battling hot and heavy for the lead and Kahne and Biffle were not to far behind. Hamlin finally got the lead and looked to be heading off to victory, but like his teammate Kyle Busch, Hamlin also expericend engine troubles and handed the lead and the victory to Kahne. Greg Biffle, who finished second, was left scratching his head after the race. "I can't believe I got beat by no tires", Biffle said. Kahne who hasn't been in victory lane after a Sprint Cup race since October 2006 was thankful for having loyal fans. �I love it,� Kahne answered when asked what he thought about the Sprint Fan Vote. �This weekend is all about the fans. Everything that Sprint and Lowe�s Motor Speedway do over the two weeks we race here in Charlotte is all about the fans. This is so awesome to get our first victory with Budweiser and to win this race. I want to thank all the fans for voting for this Budweiser Team. I owe this victory to them.� And as a fan of his I'm pretty thankful too.

The Sprint Cup series remains in Charlotte as they will run the traditional Memorial Day classic, the Coca-Cola 600.

All-Star fans pick a winner (Thatsracin.com)

Fan Vote Turns Victorious For Kahne and Budweiser Team at All-Star Race (KaseyKahne.com)

The first one is always the hardest

Last night Matt Crafton after 176 starts and 8 years of frustration finally got a win in last night's Craftsman Truck Series race at Lowe's Motor Speedway holding of up and coming driver Chad McCumbee in overtime for the win. Crafton's win also broke a 10 year winless drought for the ThorSport racing team who last saw victory lane with Terry Cook behind the wheel at Flemington, NJ in 1998.

"It's awesome," said Crafton. "Perseverance pays off and we never gave up. I've got a really good group of guys behind me and have great owners, Duke and Ronda Thorson. The crew chief is awesome and they all believe in me and I believe in them and that's what it's all about in this deal. Never give up and just put yourself in the right position each and every week and you're going to get wins."

The race ended up being a real wreck-em rodeo featuring 7 cautions for 33 laps. Kyle Busch dominated early but found himself in the wall with a crippled truck after Ron Hornaday's truck got loose on lap 105. Erik Darnell took over the lead and victory seemed to be in his hands until he spun his tires on a restart handing the lead to Johnny Benson. NASCAR offcials misjudged the restart and deemed that Johnny Benson had jumped the restart and blackflaged him. The battle for the lead was now between Hornaday, Crafton and Todd Bodine until Bodine punted Hornaday on the frontstretch on lap 131. The race then went into a green-white-checkred sitaution with Crafton holding off McCumbee for the win.

The Craftsman Truck Series heads off to Mansfield, Ohio for a race next Saturday.

Matt Crafton wins his first truck race in dramatic fashion (Truckseries.com)

Happy NASCAR Day!

Hey it may not be a real holiday to most people, but damn it its a holiday to me and it all goes to a good cause. Anyway, Brian Vickers and his 83 Red Bull Toyota took an upset victory in the Sprint Pit Crew Challenge held at the Time Warner Arena in downtown Charlotte last night. The team, led by crew chief Kevin Hamlin, defeated the pit crew of Denny Hamlin #11 Fedex Toyota and took home $70,000. A good job by the team.

More on the victory at Thatsracin.com.