Matt Kenseth Leaving Roush Fenway

Matt Kenseth the driver of the No. 17 Ford car is leaving Roush Fenway Racing at end of this year after being with them for 12 years. 

Nationwide Series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. well be replaced in No. 17 Ford next year You ask me where Matt well be next year, well he believed to head to Joe Gibbs Racing, either in Joey Logano's No. 20 or for unannounced team.

With Matt being at Roush Fenway Racing owner Jack Roush has been finagling every extra dollar he could find to make sure the #17 Ford had enough funding to make it through year. In fact, some say reason Trevor Bayne didn't have full-time ride in Nationwide is due to lack of Funding that Roush siphoning off Kenseth.

"I'd like to thank Matt Kensth for his many years of Loyal servies,"  co-owner Roush said Tuesday. "Matt has been an intergarl part of this organization for well over a decade, and we are extremely appreciative of his accomplishments and contribution to the team, and will always consider him part of the Roush Fenway Family."

Kenseth did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday, but tweeted bout his departure.

"I'm very thankful to Jack Roush for the opportunities he's given me over past 14 years. Together we have enjoyed a lot of success," he posted. "And as a team we can committed as ever to the remainder of the 2012 season and chasing a 3rd sprint cup title for JR and RFR."

Schedule for Kentucky this weekend

Cup:

Practices- 11:30am Friday; 1:30pm Friday

Qualifying- 5:pm Friday

Race- (Kentucky)- 6:30pm Saturday

Nationwide:

Practices- 6:30pm Thursday, 9am Friday

Qualifying- 3:30pm Friday

Race- (Kentucky)- 7pm Friday

Trucks:

Practices- 10:30am Thursday, Noon Thursday

Qualifying- 5pm Thursday

Race- (Kentucky)- 7:30pm Thursday

If I were the guys in the Trucks, I would drink a lot of Monster and Redbull…

Hope you guys enjoy this weekends race! 

Clint get victory at somona holding off Tony

SONOMA, California; 

Clint Bowyer dominated all day long and it paid off with his first victory on a road course. Bowyer held off a charging Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch in a green-white-checkered finish that took the event two laps past it's scheduled distance of 110 laps. 

Clint started 6th and ended up in victory lane at end of the race. There was only 2 cautions in the whole race; a couple of people spun out, but there was no damage to their cars. Kurt Bush was the second fastest to Clint at the end of the race. 

This Victory was Bowyer's first of the year and sixth of his career. Tony Stewart passed Kurt Busch for the second position after the final restart and finished .829 sec. with Brain Vickers and Jimmie Johnson finishing out the top five. 

After a look at Bowyers record at Sonoma, road-course victory seems more less surpring then busch at first blush.  "He's shown consistency, so it was  matter of time before he would get one," said Stewart, who caught a break when the caution flag waved. Stewart's crew hadn't filled the fuel cell in the No. 14 Chevrolet and chance to pit for fuel and tires.

Bowyer did a majestic job of driving in the closing laps to hold off Kurt Busch, who harried him lap after lap until the No. 51 hit the tires on Lap 102.

RACE LINEUP Toyota/Save Mart 350 | Sonoma, CA

1 9 Marcos Ambrose

2 24 Jeff Gordon

3 48 Jimmie Johnson

4 16 Greg Biffle

5 56 Martin Truex Jr.

6 15 Clint Bowyer

7 18 Kyle Busch

8 51 Kurt Busch

9 17 Matt Kenseth

10 39 Ryan Newman

11 99 Carl Edwards

12 42 Juan Montoya

13 2 Brad Keselowski

14 20 Joey Logano

15 5 Kasey Kahne

16 11 Denny Hamlin

17 22 AJ Allmendinger

18 47 Bobby Labonte

19 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr.

20 13 Casey Mears

21 55 Brain Vickers

22 195 Scott Speed

23 27 Paul Menard

24 14 Tony Stewart

25 1 Jamie McMurray

26 29 Kevin Harvick

27 38 David Gilliland

28 32 Boris Said

29 34 David Ragan

30 43 Aric Almirola

31 78 Regan Smith

32 36 Dave Blaney

33 98 David Mayhew

34 7 Robby Gordon

35 31 Jeff Burton

36 87 Joe Nemechek

37 119 Chris Cook

38 249 J.J. Yeley

39 93 Travis Kvapil

40 26 Josh Wise*

41 10 Tomy Drissi+

42 83 Landon Cassill+

43 33 Stephen Leicht*

Did Not Qualify

44 30 Brian Simo

Road America and Sonoma Racing Schedule June 22nd - 24th

As you guys know NASCAR goes to road course for 1st time this season at Sonoma on Sunday. The Sprint Cup Series heads to Sonoma and the Nationwide Series heads to Road America for some left-and-right action.

Sonoma is one of two road course races on the Sprint Cup schedule (the other is Watkins Glen in August). Road America is one of three road course events in the Nationwide Series (the others are Watkins Glen and Montreal in August). 


The Camping World Truck Series is off until Thursday, June 28, at Kentucky.

Friday June 22nd, 2012 

• 1:00 PM EST/ 12:00 PM CT Nationwide Practice (Not televised)
• 
  
• 3:00 PM EST/ 12:00 PM PT Sprint Cup Practice on SPEED
• 
  
• 4:30 PM EST/ 3:30 PM CT Nationwide Practice on SPEED
• 
  
• 6:40 PM EST/ 3:40 PM PT Sprint Cup Qualifying (On SPEED at 11:00 PM EST)

Saturday June 23rd, 2012

• 10:15 AM EST/ 9:15 AM CT Nationwide Qualifying on ESPN2
• 
  
• 12:30 PM EST/ 9:30 AM PT Sprint Cup Practice (Not televised)
• 
  
• 1:45 PM EST/ 10:45 AM PT Sprint Cup Practice (On SPEED at 11:00 PM EST)
• 
  
• 3:00 PM EST/ 2:00 PM CT Nationwide Race on ESPN

Sunday June 24th, 2012 

• 3:00 PM EST/ 12:00 PM PT Sprint Cup Race on TNT

 Who'll take the checkered flags this week? Stay tuned.

Dale Earnhardt Jr, ninenth Sprint Cup Series Win

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. last NASCAR Sprint Cup victory, four years and two days removed from his most recent visit to Victory Lane, he broke the most talked-about, most frustrating streak in motor sports.


Junior Nation may party all week, and maybe even longer, now that Dale Earnhardt Jr. has finally snapped that long, long, long winless streak.


And Junior himself figures he'll be "jumping in the water too," in celebrating Sunday's Michigan 400 victory...a solid butt-kicking victory on a warm sunny afternoon at newly repaved Michigan International Speedway.


Dale Earnhardt Jr. turned in a dominating performance to win his first Sprint Cup Series race in four years! He took the checkered flag in Sunday’s QuickenLoans 400 at Michigan International Speedway. 


Earnhardt immediately spoke to team owner Rick Hendrick on his cellphone after the win, who called to offer his congratulations. 


“He was just upset he couldn’t be here," Earnhardt said. 


As Earnhardt performed a wild celebratory burnout on the frontstretch, fans and crew members crowded around Victory Lane as the crowd in the grandstands stood and cheered.


Earnhardt led 95 laps on his way to crossing the finish line first and thanked his team and crew for their effort. 


"We just had a really good car. It was real fast," Earnhardt said. "This is pretty amazing. Those last 15 laps were the longest laps ever.


NASCAR threw two competition cautions early today to check tire wear and, overall, there were no major concerns or issues with the rubber. 3 or more of tires that where on cars had got blisters. 


Earnhardt’s 19th career Sprint Cup Series win came by 5.393 seconds over Tony Stewart. 


Junior! Put an Earnhardt in a black car and magic happens


The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series now heads to Sonoma next weekend for the Toyota SaveMart 350.

Tony Stewart looks to return to victory lane at fast Michigan track

Tony Stewart is plowing his way through what might be described as a schizophrenic season. 

The 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series campaign has been hot and cold for the defending champion. 

The past six races provide an open-window look into Stewart’s season. From Richmond to Pocono, he has scored a trio of third-place finishes mixed with runs of 24th, 25th and 25th. 

The tour is rolling into the second half of the regular season. Race 15 is scheduled Sunday at Michigan International Speedway.

Stewart rang up two wins early in the season, putting him in somewhat of a comfort zone in the race for the Chase despite the fact he has fallen from a season-high of third in points to eighth entering the Michigan weekend.

Stewart said his team cannot rest on the probability that he’ll be in the Chase regardless.

Stewart hasn’t won a Sprint Cup race at MIS since his lone victory at the track in 2000, but his career record there also shows 10 top-five runs. He’s expected to be in the mix at the front as teams race on the freshly repaved two-mile surface.

Stewart said he isn’t concerned about the high speeds that will be generated this weekend.

“The safety of these cars has come a long way, and race track safety, too, with the soft walls,” he said. “I don’t think you are ever really concerned about it until something bad happens. But I’ve been to race tracks, and I’ve seen crashes at 60 mph that hurt people a lot worse than 160 mph. So I feel pretty confident with the safety package that we have, with both the race track side and with what NASCAR has done with the cars.”

Bump and Run For Win.

LONG POND, Pa. -- In some eyes he will always be that phenom kid racer, the can't-miss prospect out of Connecticut who people were raving about since before he was old enough to legally drive on the street. That part of Joey Logano's past sticks with him, even though he's gotten older, even though he presently occupies the quite veteran position of driving to keep his job. Maybe it's because he's still only 22, maybe it's because of that same cherubic smile he's been showing off since he broke into NASCAR's national divisions only a short four years ago.

Or maybe it's because he hasn't yet accomplished enough to be defined by his present -- something Logano took a large step toward changing during this extended weekend at Pocono Raceway, where he came to a resurfaced triangular track that challenged and befuddled teams for five days, and proceeded to show levels of grit, adaptation and savvy well beyond his years.

In short, he kicked everyone's butt. This time there would be no invisible asterisk of the kind that always accompanies a rain-shortened victory, like Logano's first Sprint Cup triumph at New Hampshire 2009. He was fast in testing on Wednesday and Thursday. He topped the sheet in final practice on Friday. He claimed the pole with a track-record speed on Saturday. And then on Sunday he led a career-high 49 laps, battling past Mark Martin at the end to become the first pole winner to reach Victory Lane in nearly a year.

Welcome to Joey Logano, all grown up. He's not a kid anymore.

"I just kept telling myself, I can do this. I can do this," Logano said. "And I knew I [could]. You've got to have that confidence in there that you can do it. I was focused in and made sure I did all the right things."

Was Sunday an indication of things to come? It was an unpredictable weekend, to be certain, one fraught with unknowns because of a new surface that rendered old notes and strategies almost useless. Ratcliff made an 11th-hour decision in final practice to replace his setup with one being used by Gibbs teammate Kyle Busch, who blew an engine in the race. "It paid off," the crew chief said. In the end there was a new Sprint Cup points leader, with Matt Kenseth usurping Roush teammate Greg Biffle, and two new wild-card leaders in Busch and Ryan Newman. There were pit-road speeding penalties and black flags and motors going bust. After five days of on-track activity, it still all felt like tossing blades of grass into the wind.

2012 POCONO 400 WEEKEND SCHEDULE

Schedule June 8-10, 2012

**Dates and Times are Tentative and Subject to Change
NSCS= NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
ARCA= ARCA Series presented by Menards

Friday, June 8, 2012

• 6:00am Parking Lots Open
• 8:00am Grandstand Admission Gates Open
• 10:00 – 11:50am ARCA Final Practice
• 12:30 – 1:55pm NSCS Practice
• 2:05pm ARCA Qualifying (All Positions) Impound
• 3:30 – 5 p.m. NSCS Final Practice
• 5:10 – 6 p.m. ARCA Final Practice

Saturday, June 9, 2012

• 6:00am Parking Lots Open
• 8:00am Grandstand Admission Gates Open
• 11:10am NSCS Qualifying, order determined by practice speeds
• 1:00pm ARCA Driver Introductions
• 1:30pm Pocono 200 ARCA Racing Series Presented by Menards (80 laps. 200 miles)

Sunday, June 10, 2012

• 5:00am Parking Lots Open
• 8:00am Grandstand Admission Gates Open
• 8:00am Clubs & Suites Open
• 12:00pm Pre-Race Pit Pass Access Ends
• 12:00pm Pre-Race Festivities Begin
• 12:30pm Sprint Cup Series Driver Introductions
• 1:00pm Pocono 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race (160 laps, 400 miles)

Prelude to the Dream 2012

The Feed The Children Prelude to the Dream is a throwback to the humble beginnings of what is now the biggest sport in America: professional stock car racing. The seventh annual event highlights modern-day superstars returning to the roots of car racing by competing on a dirt track in a dirt Late Model stock car. This event allows avid fans to not only see the origins of the sport, but to also experience racing’s biggest names performing beyond their routine element. The drivers do not compete for points and winnings, but for charity, as the 2012 pay-per-view proceeds will benefit Feed The Children. 

An individual champion will also be crowned.


The eighth Annual Prelude to the Dream will once again be televised live on HBO Pay-Per-View from Eldora Speedway on Wednesday, June 6 (8 PM EDT/ 5PM PDT).

Prelude To The Dream – FAST FACTS
WHAT: Eighth Annual Prelude To The Dream
WHERE: Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio (Half-mile dirt oval) WHEN: 8 p.m. EDT (5 p.m. PDT) on Wednesday, June 6, 2012 DISTANCE: Feature consists of 40 laps (preceded by qualifying and heat races) CARS: Dirt Late Model stock cars



Track: Eldora Speedway 


Location: Rossburg, Ohio


Date: Wednesday, June 6th


Television: Live on HBO Pay-Per-View @ 8 PM EDT / 5 PM PDT - followed by an immediate replay





Hot lap session No. 2
Prelude To The Dream driver introductions (victory lane)
Prelude To The Dream driver parade
HBO Pay-Per-View broadcast begins
Invocation and National Anthem
Prelude To The Dream qualifying (2 laps)
Modified feature (15-minute timed event, including cautions)
Prelude To The Dream Heat race No. 1
Prelude To The Dream Heat race No. 2
Prelude To The Dream Heat race No. 3
Prelude To The Dream Heat race No. 4
Stock feature (15-minute timed event, including cautions)
Prelude To The Dream feature (40 laps)
Prelude To The Dream winner’s circle and introduction of Feed The Children representatives

Drivers:

Justin Allgaier
Aric Almirola
Dave Blaney
Clint Bowyer
Kurt Busch
Kyle Busch
Ron Capps
Austin Dillon
Ty Dillon
Bill Elliott
Ray Evernham
David Gilliland
Jimmie Johnson
Kasey Kahne
Tony Kanaan
Steve Kinser
Bobby Labonte
Jason Leffler
Ryan Newman

Pocono 400 Renamed Pocono 400 Presented by #NASCAR

Pocono Raceway (@PoconoRaceway) announced today a relationship with Twitter.  The June 10, Pocono 400 will be renamed the Pocono 400 Presented by #NASCAR. The renaming of the first of two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events annually held at “The Tricky Triangle,” comes two weeks after @NASCAR and @Twitter announced a unique digital partnership with the creation of twitter.com/#NASCAR, launching this week at Pocono Raceway. The twitter.com/#NASCAR event page will feature Tweets that bring fans closer to everything that unfolds during the Pocono 400.


“We are very excited about the opportunity to be associated with the new partnership between NASCAR and Twitter,” said Pocono Raceway President & CEO, Brandon Igdalsky (@bigdalsky). “Once it was announced the platform would launch during our June race weekend, we immediately began planning the name change. We firmly believe the NASCAR and Twitter partnership will take our industry to a whole new level, and our Raceway is thankful to be the first track to showcase the #NASCAR initiative! Twitter lets every fan experience the thrill of being at Pocono Raceway, even if they can’t be here in person.”


Pocono Raceway will launch several Twitter-based initiatives throughout the Pocono 400 Presented by #NASCAR race weekend. One such program will be a “Tweet Your Seat” contest, occurring during pre-race activities on Sunday, June 10, where one randomly-selected fan will become the Honorary Starter and wave the green flag to start the race. Additionally, “The Tricky Triangle” will be hosting a Fan Fair Scavenger Tweet Hunt, with a Tweet Up to follow, on Sunday, June 10, starting at 8:30 a.m. ET. The Tweet Hunt, open to the first 50 teams of two to arrive at the Flag Pole, located outside Fan Fair and behind the Grandstands, will  be solely Twitter-based, meaning all participants must have a mobile device connected to their Twitter accounts. More information will be explained throughout the race weekend via the Raceway’s Twitter handle and website.


“During the Pocono 400, Twitter will give fans an all-access pass to all of the excitement happening at Pocono Raceway. The raceway’s creative Twitter campaign offers fans at the race a new way to connect with each other and get even closer to the action of race day,” said Omid Ashtari (@omid), head of Sports & Entertainment at Twitter.


@NASCAR becomes the first professional sports organization to partner with @Twitter and will give fans a behind-the-scenes look at what takes place, at respective race tracks, during each NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race weekend. The Twitter.com/#NASCAR page will create a platform for millions of fans to view the best-possible content directly from the drivers,television personalities, race teams, media members tracks and race fans in attendance, all utilizing #NASCAR in their tweets. The tweets displayed on the newly-created page will be drawn using several algorithmic and editorial signals, bringing fans closer to everything taking place on a race day.

RACE LINEUP FedEx 400 benefiting Autism Speaks

1 55 Mark Martin
2 48 Jimmie Johnson
3 39 Ryan Newman
4 15 Clint Bowyer
5 17 Matt Kenseth
6 29 Kevin Harvick
7 16 Greg Biffle
8 18 Kyle Busch
9 51 Kurt Busch
10 11 Denny Hamlin
11 20 Joey Logano
12 43 Aric Almirola
13 5 Kasey Kahne
14 24 Jeff Gordon
15 31 Jeff Burton
16 2 Brad Keselowski
17 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
18 56 Martin Truex Jr.
19 99 Carl Edwards
20 27 Paul Menard
21 9 Marcos Ambrose
22 47 Bobby Labonte
23 22 AJ Allmendinger
24 1 Jamie McMurray
25 179 Scott Speed
26 78 Regan Smith
27 83 Landon Cassill
28 34 David Ragan
29 14 Tony Stewart
30 38 David Gilliland
31 42 Juan Montoya
32 30 David Stremme
33 98 Michael McDowell
34 249 J.J. Yeley
35 87 Joe Nemechek
36 119 Mike Bliss
38 32 Reed Sorenson Ford
39 10 David Reutimann
40 13 Casey Mears+
41 36 Dave Blaney+
42 93 Travis Kvapil+
43 23 Scott Riggs

Did Not Qualify

44 26 Josh Wise*
45 74 Cole Whitt