These are the numbers prior to the 2008 late summer race at Richmond to give you some insight and interesting info on the upcoming race. Most wins active and all time, fewest starts with a win, most starts with no wins and a lot more interesting statistics. Some you might have guessed and others might surprise you.
Thanks to our friends at Racing-Reference.info for the stats. You can click on their link in our partner site section to the right to check out their site.
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The Cup series has been competing at Richmond since 1953 and Lee Petty won the inaugural event. There has been a total of 104 Cup races held there since.
Active drivers with wins at Richmond:
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. 3
Terry Labonte 3
Tony Stewart 3
Jeff Gordon 2
Jimmie Johnson 2
Joe Nemechek 1
Kevin Harvick 1
Kasey Kahne 1
Matt Kenseth 1
Mark Martin 1
Jeremy Mayfield 1
Kyle Petty 1
Ryan Newman 1
Kurt Busch 1
Jeff Burton 1
Clint Bowyer 1
Bill Elliott 1
Richard Petty has the most wins of all drivers there with 13 as well as the most starts with 63. He has the most top 5’s with 34 which is over 50% of his races.
Active drivers with the most starts at Richmond are [fill-in] Terry Labonte with 54 starts and Kyle Petty with 53.
Active driver with the most polls, Jeff Gordon with 5.
Driver(s) with the most starts at Richmond without a win is tied between Ken Schrader & Sterling Marlin each with 44 starts and no wins.
Active driver with the least amount of starts and a win is Clint Bowyer with 5 starts and 1 win which came earlier this season.
Among all drivers, Tim Flock had only 2 starts at Richmond and won there on his very first attempt in 1955.
The driver who has earned the most money at Richmond is Jeff Gordon with $2,634,029.00.
Of all drivers, Richard Petty led the most laps at Richmond with 5136 led of 21,135 run.
Driver who has led the most laps at Richmond without scoring a victory is Denny Hamlin with 448 laps led in 5 races with no wins. He also has the most laps led overall in the last 5 races at Richmond.
Driver with a win at Richmond who has led the least amount of laps is Clint Bowyer with one victory and only 17 laps led.
Active driver with the most top 5’s is Mark Martin with 14 in 45 races.
Active driver who has competed in the past 5 races at Richmond with the best finishing average is Kevin Harvick with a 5.2 average finish.
Active driver who has competed in the last 5 races at Richmond with the worst finishing average is Joe Nemechek with a 33.0 average finish.
Active driver who has competed in the last 5 races at Richmond who has earned the most prize money there is Jimmie Johnson with $848,730.00
The best finish for a driver who only raced at Richmond once was Fonty Flock driving for Carl Kiekhaefer in the 1955 Richmond 200 where he finished 2nd behind his brother, Tim Flock. For their efforts, Fonty was awarded $650.00 in prize money and Tim earned $1,000.00 for the victory.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Open Wheel ‘Invaders’ Not Given A Fair Chance?
The uproar began when the dominos began to fall after a fairly successful season by Juan Pablo Montoya in 2007 prompted a mass of open wheel drivers to migrate to the ranks of stock car racing. Since then the uproar has turned into to a murmur as one by one the ‘threat’ seems to be succumbing to the difficulties associated with being successful in the upper ranks of the sport.
Without going into all of the details that have been published and broadcasted plenty in regards to the problems that have plagued the transplants, the nuts and the bolts of it is that sponsorship has been hard to come by and expectations of performance were possibly set way too high.
The initial concept seemed brilliant, place a past Indy 500 winner, Formula 1 star or IRL Champ in a stock car and the sponsors would be beating down your door and the team would be running in the top 5 consistently. The problem is it didn’t happen that way, not even close.
It’s no secret that the ‘other’ forms of auto racing in the U.S. have in recent past been taken over by drivers who have names that are hard to pronounce and give their post race interviews with accents so thick that the average stock car fan has a hard time understanding them. There was a certain amount of nervousness that the same fate my occur in the top levels of stock car racing.
Right or wrong it was a concern that was voiced on the call in shows, chat forums and other website message boards in large volumes by the fans. They weren’t happy at all about the changes occurring in the sport.
It seems a little silly that everyone was so upset given the outcome, but maybe the boisterousness of the fans is what initiated the problems for the ‘invaders’. It’s not speculation that sponsorship has been the biggest thorn in the side of the open wheel converts and we’re talking about teams that have not had issues solidifying sponsorship in the past.
Perhaps companies were reluctant to jump on the bandwagon with a well known driver from other racing series in fear of actually doing more harm than good with their affiliation with an ‘outsider’. Keep in mind that the sponsor’s goal is to win over NASCAR fans and convince them to buy their products and if their logos are on the hood of a car driven by the ‘enemy’ how’s that going to work for them?
The other issue that should be glaringly obvious whether you are for or against these guys coming in seems to be the fact that they weren’t given much of a chance before the rug was pulled out from under them. Half a season to prove themselves or in some cases, just a handful of races isn’t a very good representation of their talent. If that was the norm we would have no second season drivers in the series, because if they didn’t go out and win a couple of races as a rookie they would be gone. It doesn’t seem like the open wheel transplants were given the same courtesy as what is normally given to a rookie driver in NASCAR.
If you figure in most cases these guys were given cars that were first season with no owner’s points or out of the top 35 when they took the ride over and had to qualify their way into the races, they had a huge hurdle to clear. Even the series ‘regulars’ who were in the same position had a hard time making races. Names like Joe Nemechek, John Andretti, Johnny Sauter, Ken Schrader, Mike Skinner, Bill Elliott, Jeremy Mayfield and Scott Riggs all missed races this season by not qualifying. With that said, what chance did these guys have with limited experience in a stock car going up against experienced veterans in equal equipment?
This is not intended to be a commentary piece written to make you think about being unfair to ‘outsiders’ or that we should make special consideration for drivers based on their pedigrees in other forms of auto racing, but more just a statement of the facts.
The drivers were not necessarily welcomed by the fans, sponsorship seemed to elude the teams and the timelines given to them to perform were unusually short. If nothing else the message has been sent that if you think that the money looks good over here in NASCAR land and you want to come jump in a car that goes in circles and only turns left, you may want to think twice.
NASCAR is a tight-knit sport and is often referred to as a family of sorts, so it’s no wonder that when unfamiliar names were trying to come in people objected. Given that the list of names shown above who are drivers who have arguably put in their time and paid their dues in the sport and yet are some of the drivers forced out by the open wheel drivers, it’s easy to see why some fans were unhappy.
We NASCAR fans want drivers with names that are easy to spell and pronounce like Gilliland, Kvapil, Earnhardt, Keselowski, Reutimann and Nemechek [sarcasm]. But what we as fans do want is drivers who have paid there dues in the sport, coming up through the ranks and earning their place in a premier stock car ride. Not having one handed to them because they have a recognizable name in another form of auto racing and expect a free pass to the top in NASCAR.
A definite exception to the rule is Scott Speed who was an American seemingly unwelcome in Formula 1 who has come back to the U.S. to give stock car racing a try. He is doing it right running in the ARCA Series where he has attained legitimate success as well as in the Craftsman Truck series with wins in both series.
This season has definitely served notice to the team owners who thought that they could take the express route to hiring a marketable driver and open wheelers hoping to cash in on the NASCAR boon, that you are not guaranteed a spot just because people know your name. You have to pay your dues and the sponsors have to know that the fans are behind you, otherwise it’s all and exercise in futility.
Without going into all of the details that have been published and broadcasted plenty in regards to the problems that have plagued the transplants, the nuts and the bolts of it is that sponsorship has been hard to come by and expectations of performance were possibly set way too high.
The initial concept seemed brilliant, place a past Indy 500 winner, Formula 1 star or IRL Champ in a stock car and the sponsors would be beating down your door and the team would be running in the top 5 consistently. The problem is it didn’t happen that way, not even close.
It’s no secret that the ‘other’ forms of auto racing in the U.S. have in recent past been taken over by drivers who have names that are hard to pronounce and give their post race interviews with accents so thick that the average stock car fan has a hard time understanding them. There was a certain amount of nervousness that the same fate my occur in the top levels of stock car racing.
Right or wrong it was a concern that was voiced on the call in shows, chat forums and other website message boards in large volumes by the fans. They weren’t happy at all about the changes occurring in the sport.
It seems a little silly that everyone was so upset given the outcome, but maybe the boisterousness of the fans is what initiated the problems for the ‘invaders’. It’s not speculation that sponsorship has been the biggest thorn in the side of the open wheel converts and we’re talking about teams that have not had issues solidifying sponsorship in the past.
Perhaps companies were reluctant to jump on the bandwagon with a well known driver from other racing series in fear of actually doing more harm than good with their affiliation with an ‘outsider’. Keep in mind that the sponsor’s goal is to win over NASCAR fans and convince them to buy their products and if their logos are on the hood of a car driven by the ‘enemy’ how’s that going to work for them?
The other issue that should be glaringly obvious whether you are for or against these guys coming in seems to be the fact that they weren’t given much of a chance before the rug was pulled out from under them. Half a season to prove themselves or in some cases, just a handful of races isn’t a very good representation of their talent. If that was the norm we would have no second season drivers in the series, because if they didn’t go out and win a couple of races as a rookie they would be gone. It doesn’t seem like the open wheel transplants were given the same courtesy as what is normally given to a rookie driver in NASCAR.
If you figure in most cases these guys were given cars that were first season with no owner’s points or out of the top 35 when they took the ride over and had to qualify their way into the races, they had a huge hurdle to clear. Even the series ‘regulars’ who were in the same position had a hard time making races. Names like Joe Nemechek, John Andretti, Johnny Sauter, Ken Schrader, Mike Skinner, Bill Elliott, Jeremy Mayfield and Scott Riggs all missed races this season by not qualifying. With that said, what chance did these guys have with limited experience in a stock car going up against experienced veterans in equal equipment?
This is not intended to be a commentary piece written to make you think about being unfair to ‘outsiders’ or that we should make special consideration for drivers based on their pedigrees in other forms of auto racing, but more just a statement of the facts.
The drivers were not necessarily welcomed by the fans, sponsorship seemed to elude the teams and the timelines given to them to perform were unusually short. If nothing else the message has been sent that if you think that the money looks good over here in NASCAR land and you want to come jump in a car that goes in circles and only turns left, you may want to think twice.
NASCAR is a tight-knit sport and is often referred to as a family of sorts, so it’s no wonder that when unfamiliar names were trying to come in people objected. Given that the list of names shown above who are drivers who have arguably put in their time and paid their dues in the sport and yet are some of the drivers forced out by the open wheel drivers, it’s easy to see why some fans were unhappy.
We NASCAR fans want drivers with names that are easy to spell and pronounce like Gilliland, Kvapil, Earnhardt, Keselowski, Reutimann and Nemechek [sarcasm]. But what we as fans do want is drivers who have paid there dues in the sport, coming up through the ranks and earning their place in a premier stock car ride. Not having one handed to them because they have a recognizable name in another form of auto racing and expect a free pass to the top in NASCAR.
A definite exception to the rule is Scott Speed who was an American seemingly unwelcome in Formula 1 who has come back to the U.S. to give stock car racing a try. He is doing it right running in the ARCA Series where he has attained legitimate success as well as in the Craftsman Truck series with wins in both series.
This season has definitely served notice to the team owners who thought that they could take the express route to hiring a marketable driver and open wheelers hoping to cash in on the NASCAR boon, that you are not guaranteed a spot just because people know your name. You have to pay your dues and the sponsors have to know that the fans are behind you, otherwise it’s all and exercise in futility.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Edwards Better Rival To Kyle Busch Than Dale Jr.
On lap 469 at the Bristol night race, Carl Edwards stated that he had to make a decision when he drew up on the rear bumper of the no. 18 car driven by Kyle Busch who was leading the race. He made the decision to get into him and get Kyle loose, performing the textbook ‘bump-and-run’ at a place where we thought it was gone.
Carl took the lead with 30 laps to go and never relinquished the top spot. It is his 2 win in a row and 6th for the season.
It was looking like no one was going to have anything for the no. 18 Toyota fielded by Joe Gibbs racing, but with Edwards winning 3 of the last 4 races, he will have some bullets in his gun when the points reset after Richmond.
After Edwards, there are only two other chase contending drivers who have more than one win. Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne have each managed to earn 2 victories, a handful with just one victory and some surprising names with no wins so far.
It was established early in the season that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had the potential to be rivals with Kyle Busch since in a round about way Junior took Kyle’s ride at Hendrick Motorsports and the Richmond ‘spin-and-lose’ incident solidified the rivalry with the fans. It also made sense to pit the sports’ most popular driver against arguably the least popular.
As the season progressed there were not too many instances of Kyle and Dale battling it out as the two seemed to not be around each other much. When asked whether the rivalry existed or not, Dale Jr. replied that it was sort of assumed that he should be gunning for Kyle, but he wasn’t really subscribing to the whole deal. Busch was winning races, but equally impressive was the methodical way that Earnhardt was clicking off good finishes and hovering in the top spot in the points. He had dismissed the Richmond incident as just being a racing deal and didn’t seem too concerned with any of it.
Earnhardt is dealing with his own set of circumstances and being involved in rivalry doesn’t seem to fit his new demeanor driving for Hendrick.
Staying in the top 5 in points in the Cup Series, wearing the hat of a championship contending Nationwide series team owner and partnering with Rick Hendrick seems to be enough on his plate to be bothered by a rivalry that probably doesn’t amount to be a hill of beans with him.
Then along came Carl Edwards who just signed a new record deal with Roush with a new sponsor, crossing paths with Kyle Busch whom a lot still say that he is motivated to show the world that Hendrick made a mistake letting him go. Carl is motivated to win his first championship and the only thing standing in his was is the no. 18 car.
The feud exploded when Busch rammed the side of Edward’s car twice in the cool down lap after Edwards took the checkers, which in response Edwards returned the favor by dumping Kyle in a round of turn about is fair play.
The rivalry between Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch makes a lot more sense in many ways. First of all, if Earnhardt and Busch tangled many more times, the no. 18 car wouldn’t fit the templates after the team added all of the armor and bullet proof glass. Busch and Edwards can beat each other’s fenders in and the fans will cheer especially if the result is the same as at Bristol. Carl is the type of driver who seems to perform better when something has him fired up. He has already established that the way that he viewed the no. 18 car as simply as an obstacle that was between him and 10 bonus points in the chase and that Busch is going to get driven the way he has driven others.
Another element that makes it more attention-grabbing is how vocal that Carl’s team owner, Jack Roush, has been about the Toyota teams. Jack has been a critic of Toyota on all levels and has pulled no punches when talking about their ethics and procedures in the sport. It makes for not only a driver/team rivalry, but one that also crosses owner and manufacturer lines to really heat things up.
Even team owner Joe Gibbs got involved when he approached Edwards in the garage area after the race and informed him that “you reap what you sow”. Carl responded by saying that he believed in that [unspoken rule] and that’s exactly why things went down the way that they had. The biggest irony was that Gibbs was referring to the manner in which Carl raced Busch who has done his fair share of ruffling feathers this season.
One thing is for certain, it’s probably not the last we have seen of the ‘feather ruffling’ this season as things continue to heat up in the battle for the championship.
Carl took the lead with 30 laps to go and never relinquished the top spot. It is his 2 win in a row and 6th for the season.
It was looking like no one was going to have anything for the no. 18 Toyota fielded by Joe Gibbs racing, but with Edwards winning 3 of the last 4 races, he will have some bullets in his gun when the points reset after Richmond.
After Edwards, there are only two other chase contending drivers who have more than one win. Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne have each managed to earn 2 victories, a handful with just one victory and some surprising names with no wins so far.
It was established early in the season that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had the potential to be rivals with Kyle Busch since in a round about way Junior took Kyle’s ride at Hendrick Motorsports and the Richmond ‘spin-and-lose’ incident solidified the rivalry with the fans. It also made sense to pit the sports’ most popular driver against arguably the least popular.
As the season progressed there were not too many instances of Kyle and Dale battling it out as the two seemed to not be around each other much. When asked whether the rivalry existed or not, Dale Jr. replied that it was sort of assumed that he should be gunning for Kyle, but he wasn’t really subscribing to the whole deal. Busch was winning races, but equally impressive was the methodical way that Earnhardt was clicking off good finishes and hovering in the top spot in the points. He had dismissed the Richmond incident as just being a racing deal and didn’t seem too concerned with any of it.
Earnhardt is dealing with his own set of circumstances and being involved in rivalry doesn’t seem to fit his new demeanor driving for Hendrick.
Staying in the top 5 in points in the Cup Series, wearing the hat of a championship contending Nationwide series team owner and partnering with Rick Hendrick seems to be enough on his plate to be bothered by a rivalry that probably doesn’t amount to be a hill of beans with him.
Then along came Carl Edwards who just signed a new record deal with Roush with a new sponsor, crossing paths with Kyle Busch whom a lot still say that he is motivated to show the world that Hendrick made a mistake letting him go. Carl is motivated to win his first championship and the only thing standing in his was is the no. 18 car.
The feud exploded when Busch rammed the side of Edward’s car twice in the cool down lap after Edwards took the checkers, which in response Edwards returned the favor by dumping Kyle in a round of turn about is fair play.
The rivalry between Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch makes a lot more sense in many ways. First of all, if Earnhardt and Busch tangled many more times, the no. 18 car wouldn’t fit the templates after the team added all of the armor and bullet proof glass. Busch and Edwards can beat each other’s fenders in and the fans will cheer especially if the result is the same as at Bristol. Carl is the type of driver who seems to perform better when something has him fired up. He has already established that the way that he viewed the no. 18 car as simply as an obstacle that was between him and 10 bonus points in the chase and that Busch is going to get driven the way he has driven others.
Another element that makes it more attention-grabbing is how vocal that Carl’s team owner, Jack Roush, has been about the Toyota teams. Jack has been a critic of Toyota on all levels and has pulled no punches when talking about their ethics and procedures in the sport. It makes for not only a driver/team rivalry, but one that also crosses owner and manufacturer lines to really heat things up.
Even team owner Joe Gibbs got involved when he approached Edwards in the garage area after the race and informed him that “you reap what you sow”. Carl responded by saying that he believed in that [unspoken rule] and that’s exactly why things went down the way that they had. The biggest irony was that Gibbs was referring to the manner in which Carl raced Busch who has done his fair share of ruffling feathers this season.
One thing is for certain, it’s probably not the last we have seen of the ‘feather ruffling’ this season as things continue to heat up in the battle for the championship.
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