Racin' With Russ
By Russell Schmidt

Stewart Doubles Up Brick Collection
Monday, July 29, 2007

Tony Stewart was the strongest car of the day, leading the most laps en route to his second Brickyard 400 trophy, the last coming just a few years ago.

The Indiana native made it interesting over the final 20 laps, battling with his buddy (maybe not) Kevin Harvick, trading paint more than once with Stewart coming out ahead.

Harvick would later express his displeasure with a heavy side swipe of the orange car on the cool down lap. Also later saying if he had known Tony would run him like that, he would have slammed him on the back stretch.

Harvick slipped back to finish seventh by the end of a long day. There were many others that had even longer days with much worse results in what can be considered to be the most wreck- filled Brickyard race to date.

Take for example the cars of Jeff Green and Jimmie Johnson. Both cars were badly damaged and done for the day early.

Then, there were several multi-car wrecks, namely Ryan Newman, Tony Raines, Casey Mears, Johnny Sauter, Jamie McMurray among others. Of the dozen cars not to finish, most failed because of accident damage, and then there were those with mechanical failures such as Dale Earnhardt Jr whose engine let go with less than 25 laps remaining, this after leading the race and running well.

Conversely, those with good runs on the day included Juan Montoya with an amazing second, Jeff Gordon seemed to cruise to third with Kyle Busch fourth and pole sitter Reed Sorensen fifth.

With Tony winning, Gordon still running among the top five, Denny Hamlin having a dismal day (22nd), the four-time champ has extended his lead to 371 over Hamlin in second place.

Some final words on this race have to include kudos to Mark Martin for running sixth and Kurt Busch earning an 11th, now just a few points behind Dale Jr in entering Chase status.

Stewart comes away with nearly a half-million dollars in prize money along with another spot higher in the points standings to fifth, yet 452 behind Gordon.

Did I mention last place Jeff Green earned over $140,000? Nice paydays, eh?

The weekend started with the Craftsman truck race at ORP. Ron Hornaday bumped and banged his way to a 32nd career victory and even close to points leader Mike Skinner who could only manage a 22nd place run.

Others in the top five included Johnny Benson, Travis Kvapil, Rick Crawford and Kenny Schrader.

The Busch race on Saturday night turned out to be an entertaining slugfest with Jason Leffler coming out on top with a first Busch win for Toyota. Some feathers were ruffled on the way to the front, but nothing more than good hard short track racing.

Greg Biffle led a lot of laps, using the high groove around the small track, but with four fresher tires Leffler had the field covered. Biffle, David Reutimann, Carl Edwards and Ron Hornaday wrapped up the top five. Edwards has a monster lead (even with a dislocated right thumb, the result of a dirt track accident last Sunday) with 852 points over Reutimann in the big picture.

From Rumorville - It appears more and more that Kyle Busch will wind up in a third or fourth car with Gibbs Racing. Part of the situation there is whether or not they will keep J.J. Yeley. Seems like ‘Pinball’ Busch has not felt a warm and fuzzy feeling from the Childress or DEI camps. I’m still thinking about how well he’ll be received with Stewart as a teammate…or most anyone else for that matter.

Still no word as to where recently fired drivers Joe Nemechek and Sterling Marlin will wind up. For Marlin, there may be a space for him in a second car with Kenny Wallace and Nemechek is said to be on the verge of re-opening his Busch operation.

Did you know? What manufacturer has the most Cup wins in NASCAR? If you guessed Chevrolet, you’d be right. As of Sunday the Bowtie brigade brand has amassed 612 checkered flags. Next in line is Ford with 579 and Dodge with 195. Toyota? 0, yet they notched their first win in the Busch ranks over the weekend. How long before a win in Cup? Not this year, but it could happen next year.

That’s it for this week. Next week’s RWR will discuss the results from this weekend’s big bad Pocono Speedway Cup results, the Busch cars competing on a road course in Canada and more racing news from around the globe.