A rare mistake by NASCAR’s most talented driver led to a Tony Stewart victory in Sunday’s FedEx 400 Benefiting Autism Speaks Race at the Monster Mile in Dover, Delaware. With 20 laps remaining and Juan Pablo Montoya leading the field to the restart, Jimmie Johnson jumped the restart. He was penalized thus giving the lead back to Montoya, who with three laps remaining would surrender the lead to Stewart who hung on for the victory. Jeff Gordon finished third followed by Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski. Johnson, who led 143 laps, wound up finishing 17th.
NASCAR does not make their rule book available to the public. In an interview with the Associated Press NASCAR Vice President of Competition, Robin Pemberton, said Johnson’s violation was “Cut and dry.” In this instance the race leader Montoya is responsible to lead field to the restart. In addition, the race leader must be in front at the start finish line. Johnson got off to a huge lead and led Montoya by a couple of car lengths as the field crossed the start finish line.
Johnson had an opportunity to surrender the lead back to Montoya but that did not happen. Johnson pleaded his case on the radio by saying, “Please look. I checked up to give him the lead back.”
NASCAR wasn’t buying it, and neither was Montoya. Montoya said after the race, “When we got to the line, I think he wanted to time it and he timed it too well, and he just wanted to get the jump on me and he just jumped it too much”
After the race Johnson said it was a judgment call and he still felt he slowed up enough to allow Montoya to reclaim the lead. “I ran half throttle for the first half a lap waiting for him, then at some point you have to go and you have to race,” Johnson explained.
For Tony Stewart it was a badly needed victory in what had been a disappointing season. In his worst start in his 15 years of racing Stewart victory jumped him into contention for the Sprint Cup Championship. With his victory Stewart sits in a top 12 spot thanks to NASCAR’s wild card system.
Another former champion seemed to find trouble with NASCAR. After the race Brad Keslowski’s No. 2 Miller Lite Ford failed post-race inspection. According to NASCAR, Keslowski’s car was too low in the front. This is the second time Keslowski’s team has run in trouble from the NASCAR officials.
Penalties will surely be coming to the Roger Penske Racing Team. Crew Chief Paul Wolfe, along with other crew members, had just returned from a suspension for a previous violation. Wolfe is still on probation for that incident.
Earlier this season Martin Truex Jr. was docked 6 points, and his Crew Chief fined $25,000 when his car was found to be too low in the front at the April 13th race at Texas Motor Speedway. Since this is the No. 2 team’s second violation we may see stiffer point penalties, fines and/or suspensions.
Keslowski, who is extremely social media friendly, responded to a fan who asked if he can’t catch a break. Keslowski tweeted, “Negative ghost rider. The pattern is full.”
Team owner Roger Penske said the failure was due to a broken part that allowed a front spring to fall. NASCAR normally announces penalties on Tuesday’s.
Other Notes from Sunday: It was a day of apologies. First Fox Sports issued an apology to the drivers at the pre-race drivers meeting for the cable breaking during the Coca Cola 600 the previous week.
The other apology came from Dover Speedway Officials. There were tremendous lines for fans to enter the grandstand. Many fans missed the beginning of the race trying to enter the Grandstand due to those lines. Here are the contents of the tracks letter to fans.
To all our fans:
We appreciate your patience at the gates today for the FedEx 400 benefiting Autism Speaks.
Due to increased inspection of bags, the lines to enter the facility were longer than normal today.
We pride ourselves on creating a welcoming fan experience, and a key component to that is the policy we have that allows fans to bring in bags and coolers with their own food and drink. As a result, we must thoroughly examine the content of bags, and unfortunately that took longer than anticipated.
There is no sport that is more American than NASCAR, and we have measures in place to ensure that our fans are able to enjoy the events in the safest manner possible.
As always, we encourage fans attending our future events to make plans to arrive early to the gates.
Please accept our apologies, again, for the inconvenience you may have experienced today.
Sincerely,
Michael Tatoian
Exec. Vice President & COO
Dover Motorsports, Inc.
Just another NASCAR race weekend. My picks for next week’s race at Pocono are:
- Denny Hamlin
- Juan Pablo Montoya
- Jeff Gordon
Feel free to give me a follow on Twitter – @JimLaPlante, as well as the site – @LastWordOnSport.
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Photo Credit: www.galesburg.com , CC
