Nascar Rules

[the H team]

Lap 368 -- CHECKERED FL&G: No. 48 is the winner. Hendrick Motors Sports gets their 200th win!

[the H team]

Hendrick gets 200 Jimmie Johnson holds off Tony Stewart on the restart and cruises to victory at Darlington, giving car owner Rick Hendrick the milestone win.

[the H team]

the top 10

Jimmie Johnson
Denny Hamlin
Tony Stewart
Kyle Busch
Martin Truex Jr
Matt Kenseth
Carl Edwards
Kasey Kahne
Marcus Ambrose
Joey Logano

[the H team]

[the H team]

Sprint Cup NEXT RACE: All-Star Race-9 p.m. ET Saturday from Charolette Motor Speedway.

[rockit]

Friday, May 18, 2012

10:30am-12:00pm (L) Camping World Truck Series Final Practice Charlotte SPEED

12:00pm-1:30pm (L) NASCAR Sprint Cup Final Showdown Practice Charlotte SPEED

1:30pm-3:00pm (L) NASCAR Sprint Cup Final All-Star Practice Charlotte SPEED

4:00pm-5:00pm (L) Camping World Truck Series Qualifying Charlotte SPEED

5:00pm-6:00pm (L) NASCAR Sprint Cup Showdown Qualifying Charlotte SPEED

6:00pm-7:30pm (L) NASCAR Sprint Cup All-Star Qualifying Charlotte SPEED

7:30pm-8:00pm (L) -Pre-Race Camping World Truck Charlotte SPEED

8:00pm-10:30pm (L) -Race Camping World Truck Charlotte SPEED

Saturday, May 19, 2012

7:00pm-7:30pm (L) -Pre-Race NASCAR Sprint Cup (Also on TSN)

7:30pm-9:00pm (L) -Showdown NASCAR Sprint Cup (Also on TSN)

9:00pm-11:00pm (L) -All-Star Race NASCAR Sprint Cup (Also on TSN)

Sunday, May 20, 2012

1:30pm-2:00pm (L) -Pre-Race Nationwide Series Iowa ESPN

2:00pm-5:00pm (L) -Race Nationwide Series Iowa ESPN

[rockit]

Saturday, May 19, 2012

11:00am-2:30pm (L)IndyCar Pole Day Indianapolis NBCSN (Also on TSN2)

4:30pm-6:30pm (L) IndyCar Pole Day Indianapolis NBCSN (Also on TSN2)

Sunday, May 20, 2012

12:00pm-6:30pm (L) IndyCar Bump Day Indianapolis NBCSN (May be tape delayed on TSN2 @ 5:00pm)

[rockit]

Have a great long weekend racefans!!!

[the H team]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The No. 48 team of Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson saved the best for last Thursday night.
Posting its fastest time in the final round of the Sprint Pit Crew Challenge, the No. 48 team dethroned the two-time defending champion No. 11 crew of Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin.

All-Star fever

Getting ramped up for the 2012 Sprint All-Star Race? Make sure you check in on the race site for both the Sprint Fan Vote and all the information on the eligible drivers.
Sprint All-Star Race site
In a competition that includes simultaneously changing front and rear tires, fueling and jacking four different common cars and then pushing a team car across the finish line, Johnson's crew accomplished the task in 22.239 seconds to edge Hamlin's over-the-wall gang (22.533 seconds) in the finals.
Gas man Brandon Harder, front tire changer Dave Collins, front tire carrier RJ Barnette, rear tire changer Calvin Teague, rear tire carrier Matt Tyrell, and jack man TJ Ford were the winning team for the 48, which finished second last year.
"In this discipline, the athleticism and training really pays off," Johnson said after the event. "We made a big effort to get full-fledged athletes who did nothing but work on their pit stops and disciplines. And then they focused on this -- the distance to run, the car push and all that -- and I think it just shows how strong they are, how physically able they are to get the job done."
The victory was the first for the No. 48 team in the eight-year history of the event held at Time Warner Cable Arena. The team won $80,675, a $10,000 increase over last year's prize money. In addition, the Jimmie Johnson foundation received a donation of $9,169 from the NASCAR Foundation.
The team also won the right to select pit stall No. 1 for Saturday night's Sprint All-Star Race, which pays $1 million to win.
"I think it's going to be a big advantage, especially if you can get out there and win one of those first couple of segments," said crew chief Chad Knaus, who sprayed his team with champagne after the victory.
The winners of the first four 20-lap segments of the All-Star Race enter pit road 1-2-3-4 for a mandatory stop before the final 10-lap dash to the finish.
Conserving their strength for the finals, the No. 48 crewmen employed a strategy of stopping the push and letting the car roll to the finish whenever they had an insurmountable margin. That approach worked impeccably en route to the finals, setting up the confrontation with the champions of the previous two years.
With a clean run in 22.453 seconds, the No. 48 team cruised into the finals by winning a head-to-head matchup against Matt Kenseth's No. 17 crew (23.228 seconds). The No. 11 team earned its spot in the title match with a semifinal run in 22.869 seconds, beating the No. 88 crew of Dale Earnhardt Jr. (23.567 seconds).
Whenever the 48 team had a clear win, Teague would signal his mates to stop pushing.
"I saw that, too," Johnson said. "I wasn't involved in the training that went into it, but I think they were trying to conserve energy, and once they felt like they had a heat won, they just kind of backed off."
The event also crowned individual winners in each of the skill categories. Jeff Kerr of Kasey Kahne's No. 5 team won the jack man competition for the third time. Tom Lampe of Kyle Busch's No. 18 crew won the individual competition for gas men with an event-record time of 8.610 seconds.
Kerr said the secret to winning the competition was "to learn to deal with pressure without making a mistake. It's the same thing when you go across pit road. The pit stop when you're running first and the pit stop when you're running 43rd are two totally different pit stops.
"The people that can do it under pressure are the people who can do it when it counts, and those are the people you want on your team."
Representing Jeff Burton's No. 31 team, the front tire changer/tire carrier combination of Tim Sheets and JD Holcomb were fastest in their category with a record time of 13.615 seconds. Changer Jake Seminara and carrier Kenny Barber of Busch's crew took home individual honors on the rear tires in a record 13.073 seconds.
Each individual winner received $10,000 for his efforts.
This year more than ever, the Pit Crew Challenge was a perfect lead-in to All-Star weekend, given the emphasis on pit crew performance both in Friday's unique Cup qualifying session and Saturday's Sprint All-Star Race.
A pit stop is an integral part of time trials, and the mandatory pit stop precedes the final 10-lap segment of the All-Star dash for $1 million.
"We love that," Seminara said. "I think it was two years ago we came in the pits fifth on the last pit stop and came out second, I believe, and put him in position to win the race [though a late crash cost Busch a chance for the victory.]
"We relish it," added Barber. "We wish we could do it every week."

[the H team]

the starting grid for tonights race.

1	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	M&M's	136.006	119.112	Leader
2	39	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	Tornados	135.202	119.821	-0.709
3	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	FedEx Office	134.811	120.168	-1.056
4	16	Greg Biffle	Ford	3M / American Red Cross	134.529	120.420	-1.308
5	29	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet	Budweiser / Rheem	134.304	120.622	-1.510
6	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	Lowe's Patriotic	133.800	121.076	-1.964
7	27	Paul Menard	Chevrolet	Menards / CertainTeed	133.722	121.147	-2.035
8	24	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet	DuPont	133.556	121.297	-2.185
9	14	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet	Bass Pro Shops	133.353	121.482	-2.370
10	78	Regan Smith	Chevrolet	Furniture Row Racing	133.091	121.721	-2.609
11	21	Trevor Bayne	Ford	Good Sam Club / Camping World	132.938	121.861	-2.749
12	15	Clint Bowyer	Toyota	5-hour Energy	132.470	122.292	-3.180
13	99	Carl Edwards	Ford	Fastenal	132.331	122.420	-3.308
14	34	David Ragan	Ford	US Shredder	130.453	124.183	-5.071
15	17	Matt Kenseth	Ford	Fifth Third Bank	134.606	125.351	-6.239
16	55	Mark Martin	Toyota	Aaron's Dream Machine	133.197	126.624	-7.512
17	51	Kurt Busch	Chevrolet	Monster Energy	131.628	128.074	-8.962
18	9	Marcos Ambrose	Ford	DEWALT	130.873	128.784	-9.672
19	2	Brad Keselowski	Dodge	Miller Lite	134.511	130.436	-11.324
20	5	Kasey Kahne	Chevrolet	Farmers Insurance

[the H team]

Lap 10 -- Don't want to jinx anything here, but it looks like Dale Earnhardt Jr. might not need the help of a fan vote to make it into the Sprint All-Star Race!
Lap 8 -- Jeff Burton is in third place, 2.8 seconds behind leader Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Lap 7 -- Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s lead over Martin Truex Jr. is about 8/10ths of a second and growing. He says the car is a little bit free in the turns.
Lap 5 -- Joey Logano and Jamie McMurray bang doors between Turns 1 and 2, and Logano slides precariously close to the outside retaining wall.
Lap 2 -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. wiggles big time coming off Turn 4, but he's able to collect the back end and keep going.
Lap 1 -- GREEN FL&G: The race gets under way at 7:41 p.m. ET. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr. battle it out for the lead, with Junior coming out on top coming off Turn 4.
7:40 p.m. ET -- Yep, he sure did. The left-front tire on AJ Allmendinger's car is flat. He hits pit road just as the green fl&g comes out.
7:39 p.m. ET -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. just reported that someone has a flat right-front tire. Did he say AJ Allmendinger?!?

[the H team]

Lap 15 -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. is now about 1.5 seconds ahead of Martin Truex Jr.
Lap 12 -- It's not Richard Petty behind the wheel, but there's a 43 car on the leader board. Aric Almirola is in fifth place!

[the H team]

Lap 17 -- Race director David Hoots announces that pit road is closed ... pit road is closed ... pit road is closed. Three laps to the segment end.

[the H team]

Lap 20 -- Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s lead over Martin Truex Jr. has stabilized at about 1.5 seconds.

[the H team]

Lap 21 -- YELLOW FL&G NO. 1: The first segment has ended.