hey everyone,


as exciting as talladega was, it'll be nice for fans and drivers alike to get back to some 'normal' racing. richmond is a 3/4 mile D-shaped, semi-flat oval that most drivers love. there are 2 distinct grooves that make for some great side-by-side racing, and speeds are fast here for a short track.

Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Newman and David Reutimann were fastest in first practice. Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Brian Vickers were fastest in 2nd practice.

Qualifying has just finished and the starting order is as follows:

1. Brian Vickers
2. Jeff Gordon
3. Denny Hamlin
4. Martin Truex Jr.
5. Jeff Burton
6. Mike Bliss
7. Mark Martin
8. Scott Speed
9. David Reutimann
10. Ryan Newman

Official Starting Lineup here

Todd Bodine and Trevor Boys failed to qualify.

this is an "impound race", meaning they practiced and qualified today and are not allowed to make any changes to their cars before the race starts tomorrow night. they also do not have another practice session.

3 drivers each have 3 wins here - Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart. they'll all be trying for their 4th win here tomorrow.

The official name of the race is "(Crown Royal Presents) The Russ Friedman 400", after a nascar fan who wrote a short essay and submitted it to Crown Royal for the contest to determine naming rights for the race. Russ Friedman is a member of the US armed forces (marines), and wanted to give our troops a boost by showing his support. i heard him on nascar radio on XM this morning, and he said he originally wanted them to call the race "The Armed Forces 400". after discussions with Crown Royal they decided on his name, but he said he wanted the military to understand that he was doing it for them, not for himself. They have provided military personnel around the country with tickets to races, selected soldiers to serve as honorary pit crew members and made available giant "Thank you" cards for fans to sign and show their support for members of the military. Friedman is the recipient of 2 purple hearts.
read Russ's story

who are your picks?

my picks (again - big surprise):
1. tony stewart
2. denny hamlin
3. jimmie johnson

the Nationwide series race at Richmond is tonight. coverage on ESPN2 starts at 7 p.m. Matt Kenseth starts the race on the pole.

Last night at SouthSide Speedway in Midlothian, VA (right next to Richmond), Denny Hamlin hosted a charity event. Over $100,000 was raised for the Denny Hamlin Foundation, with 100% of ticket sales going to the foundation. 2 divisions, Late Models and Grand Stocks, competed. Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Joey Logano all ran late models. Busch won the 175-lap late model feature with Hamlin 2nd. Joey Logano finished 6th. Stewart blew a right rear tire on lap 95 and finished 13th. Full story here

(my nascar post can't nearly do space's justice, sorry! )

 

this post is is sweet, thanks, i can't get enough of this forum! i hope i don't have any major issues with my monte but this will be the first place i look, thanks again, richmond under the lights is great! thanks for everything, see ya


chris #3 forever

 

any race under the lights is great by me! reminds me of all the saturday nights i spent at the local track growing up.

kyle busch wins the nationwide race tonight!! a nice early birthday present for him. his birthday is tomorrow and he will be chomping at the bit to sweep the weekend and get himself an even better birthday trophy in the cup race.

 

 

 

Jamie, i hope you have plenty of Windex at home. I'm pretty sure you probably was licking your TV while they were interviewing Tony after the race.

 

 

HAHAHAHA well, i missed the post race interviews (i know...SHOCK HORROR!). we ended up watching it at my bf's house and had some people over for a little cookout and a bonfire. as soon as the race got over we put on a movie. i did watch both the post race interview and press conference with tony this morning on my computer. i enjoyed both tremendously. i didn't get to my race update because he doesn't have a computer (he can barely text on his cell phone and doesn't even have cable - just one of those converter boxes he just got. technologically inadvanced. oh well.) so i am just now getting around to checking in here.

i knew wiz kidd would be super excited about last night's win!! i was really happy for kyle too. i was of course pulling for my man tony but kyle ran away with it. he made his charge to the front early and often and once he got there you could pretty much tell he wasn't giving it up once he got it. what a kickass birthday weekend for him huh? 3 wins in 3 races! doesn't get much better than that!! i really would love to see denny hamlin win one at richmond one of these times, he was so close early yesterday and ran so well and ended up having trouble in the pits, and didn't end up pitting and taking tires when a bunch of the leaders did with around 50 to go . it just goes to show how incredibly valuable these guys' pit crews are. it was a great race though and i was glad to see both jeff burton and jamie mcmurray finish in the top 10 after both having incidents earlier on in the race. what the heck happened to dale jr. by the way?! he was running up front, then had a slow pit stop and restarted 11th at one point, then next thing we know (he's my bf's favorite) he was like 29th?! i don't know if that was from when he got into a little dust up with burton or what? i missed something somewhere there lol.

aaaanyway congrats and happy birthday again to rowdy busch, a well fought and well deserved win. that kid is unstoppable.

space i'm so sorry to hear that you didn't get to watch or see the race, that really stinks!! how come you weren't able to check it out?

if your dial-up will let you, you (or anyone else that missed it) can watch the "race rewind" on nascar.com here: Race Rewind it's a condensed version of the race and all the good stuff. it's about 25 minutes or so. that's what i watch when i have to miss the race because of work. if you have speed channel, they also replay the whole race Wednesday at noon.

Darlington next weekend, and the ever-famous Southern 500. i don't remember when they stopped calling it that, but that's the race i remember from when i was a kid. already excited to see who gets the first "Darlington stripe"!

 

 

well...i guess sleep/tiredness is an ok reason to have missed the race, then, so you're excused space sorry my report wasn't more in depth, the adult beverages were flowing hardily last night so i think i forgot some stuff