Racin' With Russ
By Russell Schmidt

Hamlin Hammers Home First Cup Win of '07
Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Denny Hamlin’s Gibbs Racing Team gambled on a late race two-tire stop and came away with his first win of the season, this one in New Hampshire.

The young Virginia driver had all he could do hold off a hard-charging Jeff Gordon over the closing laps. Had it not taken so long for Gordon to displace Martin Truex Jr for second, the four-time champ might have had a better shot at closing the deal out front.

None the less, Gordon still sits atop the points, now 136 over Hamlin and even further ahead of Matt Kenseth by 365 markers.

The race in New Hampshire saw many leaders and probably not the fastest car winning. That would have probably gone to Carl Edwards who had a very strong horse all day.

Had it not been for a terribly long pit stop involving the car falling off the jack and going a lap down, the fit Roush Fenway driver would have surely finished better than 13th on the day.

Some notes worth mentioning in this one include Dave Blaney nailing down Toyota’s first pole, yet fell by the wayside for most of the race, earning a 29th place finish.

The DEI boys, those being Dale Earnhardt Jr and Martin Truex Jr were among the leaders, in fact Dale Jr led the most laps and both were among the top five most of the day. They finished third and fourth at the end and continue to hold fast onto a spot in the Chase.

The overall race was OK, and the general consensus among drivers were it is hard to pass with the COT’s and they’re still figuring out how to dial these things in.

The boys get to stretch their legs this weekend with the famed Pepsi 400 at Daytona on Saturday night. We’ll have a bunch to talk about next week.

The Busch contingent ran their show on Saturday with Kevin Harvick narrowly holding off Carl Edwards at the stripe. The rest of the top five finishers included Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin.

Edwards runner-up finish now extends his lead over David Reutimann by a monstrous 809 points! I’d say the engraver has finished the word Carl on this year’s big cup.

Over on the truck side, Travis Kvapil picked up his second win on the year after tapping aside rookie Brad Keselowski with nine laps remaining. The young man had taken the pole and led a slew of laps, filling in for the suspended Ted Musgrave. Kvapil went on to beat Jack Sprague, Ron Hornaday, Mike Skinner and Aaron Fike.

Keselowski did such a fine job at filling in, I’d say it’s a sure thing we’ll see more of him down the road.

Skinner still tops the charts, now 103 over Hornaday.

Open Wheel News - The Indy Racing League ran at Richmond where Dario Franchitti ran away with his third win of the season. Ganassi boys Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon capped the podium. I still saw a lot of empty seats.

Up in Mont-Tremblant, the Champ Car series competed with Robert Doornbos took the win over crybaby Sebastien Bourdais and Will Power.

Across the pond in France, Kimi Raikkonen beat Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa and points leading rookie superstar Lewis Hamilton in a lackluster event. The rookie still leads the points.

From Rumorville - During post-race inspections after the Cup race, the cars of Kyle Busch and Johnny Sauter were deemed too low. NASCAR impounded the cars and will announce possible penalties by the time you read this.

Don’t look now, but IRL superstar Dan Wheldon is starting to hint around about switching to NASCAR racing in the future. Me? I like the open wheel drivers to stick with the open wheel stuff, then once out of the ‘bigs’, head over to sports car stuff like LeMans. I’m still getting over watching Juan Pablo Montoya throwing the taxicabs around.

On the local level, the UARA Late Models ran at Ace Speedway over the weekend with Alex Yontz taking the win. Capping off the top five included Mark Setzer, B.J. Mackey, Lee Tissot and Ross Furr.

Other winners on the night at the Altamahaw track included Keith Brame Jr winning the X-treme Car event and Johnny Gregory won the Flathead Ford race.

Did you know? Who holds the record for the most career poles in Cup competition? If you guessed Richard Petty, you’d be right. The ‘King” of stocks earned a whopping 126 along his illustrious career with David Pearson not far behind with 111. Modern day drivers such as Jeff Gordon and Bill Elliott have amassed 61 and 55 respectively.

Next week’s RWR will review the Busch and Cup action from Daytona, some local notes and more racing news from around the globe.

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