Welcome to “Fuel It Up”! The racing world is chock full of intriguing stories, but sifting through them to get a good general sense of the landscape can be challenging. In Fuel It Up, I take the biggest, more interesting storylines and present them to you in a quick, compact 300-words-or-less format.
The winner of this week’s paint scheme award goes to the #2 Redd’s Apple Ale Ford driven by Brad Keselowski…………… Denny Hamlin, injured at the Auto Club Speedway in California, will NOT race Saturday night in Richmond after failing to receive clearance from his medical team. Hamlin is recovering from a broken vertebra suffered at the race on March 24th. …………… NASCAR has found violations in the engine of last week’s Kansas winner, Matt Kenseth. NASCAR said that the issue was with a connecting rod which failed to meet the minimum weight. NASCAR has penalized Kenseth 50 Sprint Cup Points and fined the team $200,000. In addition, Crew Chief, Jason Ratcliff was suspended for six races. The team, owned by Joe Gibbs Racing, is appealing…………… NASCAR Truck Series driver Johnny Sauter was penalized 25 points for having a truck with an illegal fuel cell……………. And while we’re talking about penalties, the Penske Racing Team’s appeal of the penalties given to the #2 team of Brad Keselowski and the #22 team of Joey Logano will be heard on May 1st…………… Brian Vickers holds the track record at Richmond International Raceway with a speed of 129.983 set in 2004. Look for the Generation 6 car to break that speed this week…………… Tempers flared in Kansas and we’ll see more of that at Richmond. Danica Patrick was livid with David Gilliland and at one time threatened to wreck him. Gilliland responded to Patrick, “Shut up and race.”…………… Kevin Harvick was upset with his team at Kansas. After a particularly bad pit stop he complained that he’s passed the (expletive) same cars three different times during the race…………… NASCAR announced that for the Sonoma and Watkins Glen Road races, qualifying will be done by groups. Each group, typically 5 or 6 cars will be given a certain amount of time on the track, usually about three laps. The cars will be staggered to allow room between the cars…………… Through the eight races thus far, NASCAR TV ratings are up 11% over last season……………. Kyle Busch won the spring race last season in Richmond…………… Outside of Daytona (132 races) and Martinsville (129 races), Richmond has held the most number of Sprint Car races, holding 113 races…………… The Grand Marshall for the Toyota Owners 400 is a Toyota owner, Carlton Walker. The National Anthem will be performed by the United States Marine Corps Drum Corps…………… The weather forecast for Saturday night in Richmond calls for partly cloudy skies with temperatures around 50 degrees.
Feel free to give me a follow on Twitter – @JimLaPlante, as well as the site – @LastWordOnSport.
Interested in writing for LastWordOnSports? Find more info at our “Join Our Team” page.
