Articles by Heather, Nationwide Series, Sprint Cup

Looking in the Rear View Mirror: April Fool’s Edition

Monday, April 2, 2012 157 reads
Heather Meyer

The tricks started before April Fool’s in Martinsville.

It rained Friday night and early Saturday morning delaying things some on Saturday. At one point truck qualifying was canceled then during driver’s meeting they decided to have it. So Piquet Jr went from being on the Pole to Harvick being on the pole.

This 250 lapper was a total domination by the RCR tucks. Harvick lead 248 of the laps with teammate Dillon leading the other 2.

This wasn’t a boring race by any means, we had great short track racing behind the leader. You had to take care of your tires or else you’d be in the wall.

Hornaday got black flagged on lap 234 because he pitted twice and then tried to get back to lead lap cars on lining up for restart.

Harvick’s 248 laps led were most laps led in truck history.

Top 5 finishers: Harvick, Dillon, Buescher, Lofton and Peters.

Points:

#7-John King, 82
2) #17-Timothy Peters, 81 -1
3) #6-Justin Lofton, 81 -1
4) #3-Ty Dillon, 78 -4
5) #23-Jason White, 74 -8
6) #31-James Buescher, 69 -13
7) #29-Parker Kligerman, 66 -16
8) #30-Nelson Piquet Jr., 61 -21
9) #9-Ron Hornaday Jr., 58 -24
10)#11-Todd Bodine, 57 -25

Jeb Burton finished 13th in National series debut.

Interesting tidbit a Chevy was on the pole in Cup, truck, Grand-Am and Indy this weekend.

K&N East race finish was Wallace, LaJoie, Gdovic, Moffitt, MacDonald, Elliott, Laconelli and Kwasniewski at Greenville.

Kahne got his second pole of the season, but that seems to be the only thing going his way this season.

Harvick took the lead on the start, was this going to be a repeat of the truck race?

Gordon took the lead on lap 22, cruising around the track lapping cars, Looked like he would win number 200 for Hendrick Motorsports.

We still had some issues with melted beads on tires causing cars to go into the wall or just lose laps having to pit for the issue.

Cars got speeding penalties again this week: Newman, Johnson, Keselowski and Menard got nailed this week.

We had a lot of great racing all through the field but few cautions to help cars get back on lead lap.

Lap 229 Earnhardt Jr takes the lead, Could Jr finally win?

Kahne is out of race at the half way point with an engine problem, but hangs at the track knowing HMS will get their 200 win.

Hamlin takes the lead after a caution on lap 361; will he spoil the HMS party?

Lap 380 there is a great 3 way battle for the lead with Johnson ending up in the lead.

With just 6 laps to go Johnson and Gordon are battling for the lead, but with 4 to go we have a caution as Ruetimann has stopped on the track

Many drivers are upset with this as he had been struggling for many laps and was just trying to finish race and stay in the top 35 in points.

This was the third time Martinsville would end with a green white checkered.

Gordon and Johnson stay out with Bowyer lining up 3rd.

On the start Bowyer makes it 3 wide and Gordon and Johnson spin.

Newman squeezes through for the lead with Allmendinger second. Gordon runs out of gas during the caution and Johnson pitted too.

On the next restart Jr passes Truex Jr for 3rd.

Newman the winner.

7 Cautions were the fewest at Martinsville since Sept. 22, 1996.

This was Newman’s 16th Sprint Cup win, his first of the season and at Martinsville and 3rd since joining SHR in 2009.

Biffle still leads the points.

Off weekend for Easter next weekend then it’s racing at Texas Motor Speedway.