Infineon/Sonoma - Weekend Thread

[fieldodreams79]

http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/2008...e1_speeds.html

marcus quickest in 1st practice in the 350 miler in Sonoma

simo, pruett, boris, fellows, mad max along with are "ringing" this weekend and i'll be pulling for all of them.

[VilleneuveTracy]

Ambrose easily makes the show. He is 7th out of the first 42 qualifiers right now. He actually was on pace to take the provisional pole until the final turn. In his interview he said he sacrificed some time to ensure that he made the show since his car is outside the top 35 in points.

[VilleneuveTracy]

Cheap Ganassi Racing can't even get a former CART championship contender and reigning IRL champ into the show at a road course!

[VilleneuveTracy]

NASCAR allows Kyle Busch to run another qualifying lap. WTF? He moved up from 33rd to 29th in his second run.

[VilleneuveTracy]

Terry Labonte has an excellent run, 10th fastest but since he tied Biffle he will start 11th because Biffle has the tiebreaker by virtue of being higher in the points standings.

Qualifying results

1) Kahne
2) Johnson
3) Ku. Busch
4) B. Labonte
5) J. Gordon
6) Sadler
7) Ambrose
8) R. Gordon
9) Newman
10) Biffle

Notables

12) Edwards
14) Said
15) Junior
17) Hornish
20) Burton
21) Montoya
27) Pruett
28) Papis
30) Ky. Busch
32) Harvick
33) Kenseth
39) Stewart
1

[Axeman444]

Well done Marcos, go get 'em. His quali run was better than his "fastest" practice run as well...

[J-C]

Marcos is my 2nd favourite so pleased to see him doing well. Hopefully they can get some good race setup work done tomorrow before he goes to Milwaukee for the Nationwide race. Shame really he got a bit out of shape in the last turn as he looked good for pole up to then. Either way that's got to be the most competitive run the #21 has had for a while? He's got a great chance of a stunning result this weekend.

Amazed at Dario's failure to qualify - as someone with road-racing upbringing and who generally in his CART/IRL days was at his best on road courses - and even took pole on his last visit to Sonoma in IRL - it is a mystery as to how he was so dismally slow. Can't see him staying in NASCAR much longer frankly.

[StuiE]

Great result for Marcos!


As everyone has said, that's pretty sad the Franchitti can't qualify on a road course, did he make a mistake or was he just plain slow?




oh yeh and how cool is Travis Kvapil's car!

pic from Jayski

[gomick]

Great effort from Marcos Ambrose - was fastest in 1st practice too ... Close times - Ambrose & Robby Gordon into the 1st corner shall be interesting....

1. Kasey Kahne 1:17.740
2. Jimmie Johnson 1:17.836
3. Kurt Busch 1:17.865
4. Bobby Labonte 1:17.918
5. Jeff Gordon 1:17.935
6. Elliott Sadler 1:18.003
7. Marcos Ambrose 1:18.023
8. Robby Gordon 1:18.097

DNQ Dario Franchitti 1:19.822

[pbsyn]

Nice work Ambrose!!

http://clubracer.com.au/News/551.aspx

[GTRMagic]

WOW!

It will be interesting to see how the race pace works out, including strategy... the Nationwide program seems to go like stink in qually and drifts back a little in the races

[Hazard]

It's pretty surprising. Ambrose's performance isn't that surprising actually - street racers should blatantly be faster than the oval racers.

Why Carpentier, Pruett & Allmendinger are so far down is very odd - and Montoya even outside of the top 20.

Hornish 17th - well, looks like those few street races have helped him a bit.

[J-C]

I think that's a little unfair Hazard - the top NASCAR drivers are as good on the road courses as anyone. Even someone like Tony Stewart who has had loads of road course wins in NASCAR is starting way back down the field in 39th.

The Ganassi cars were especially poor in qualifying trim - Juan was having to really hustle the car to get the time out of it. But he started 32nd last year and look what happened.... Allmendinger and Carpentier had to qualify on speed so had to temper their speed somewhat to guarantee a start. And all the Penske Dodges were especially fast - the other two are in the top-10 so not surprising Hornish is relatively well up.

Ambrose though was seriously impressive - the #21 although one of NASCARs most storied numbers is not usually a competitive ride. Certainly it's a stunning start to his Cup career and has got everyone talking about him.

[Knowlesy]

These NASCAR guys are really rubbish on road courses, Franchitti should cream them.

Stewart in 39th is most odd, he's one of the road course masters. I had a feeling going into this weekend that Johnson and Gordon would be the ones to beat though and it looks to be true.

Anyhow, bring it on. I enjoy nothing more than a stockcar road race.

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

Anyhow, bring it on. I enjoy nothing more than a stockcar road race.

for some odd reason, i too aboslutely love stockcars on a roadcourse. they aren't as quick as other cars, but are quite entertaining.

[fieldodreams79]

kyle's "extra" run was due to a piece of tape just under the windshield (or windscreen, for you Brits ) that NASCAR officials are supposed to remove after pre-qualifying inspection, which was NOT removed... it prevents air from getting to the engine somehow and starves the engine of horsepower. apparently, this has happened before.

dario's car looked horrendous, and he did well just completing his lap. john paul and robby almost took out the flagman waiving them into the pits; you could see the guy and his flag running for his life as jpm is barrelling down on him; the set up for that needs to be changed...would not have been so funny if he had been hit and several cars locked up trying for the turn into the paddock.

poor pit stops and pit strategies have robbed many ringer's of race wins and great finishes. it's a shame. fellows, marcus, mad max, pruett as well as john paul, patreeck, AJ and Robby should have good finishes barring anything catastrophic. boris's team has performed well, but they are not regulars; simo is in the same position.

marcus was not the surprise to me in qualifying after being fastest in practice, but what i am (pleasently) surprised about, is the labonte brothers' qualifying so well at the same race for the first time in while.

[St00ge]

Originally Posted by J-C

Ambrose though was seriously impressive - the #21 although one of NASCARs most storied numbers is not usually a competitive ride. Certainly it's a stunning start to his Cup career and has got everyone talking about him.

Yup he is punching well above his weight even with the advantage of being a road course "specialist"

Also isn't this the first COT the Wood Bros have built for Marcos and he has only done one testing session with it??

[St00ge]

Originally Posted by St00ge

Yup he is punching well above his weight even with the advantage of being a road course "specialist"

Also isn't this the first COT the Wood Bros have built for Marcos and he has only done one testing session with it??

I meant new instead of first COT, damn editing lockout..

[VilleneuveTracy]

Ah, ok, so that makes sense.

As to Stewart it seems Toyota in general is struggling on road courses. There is no Toyota in the top 10 and only two made the top 25.

[FIRE]

Free online video stream?
http://www.nascar.com/promos/tnt/

[VilleneuveTracy]

Good find (I don't get TNT in my dorm)!

Here are the results for the final practice.

1) Ambrose
2) Fellows
3) Gilliand
4) Hamlin
5) Truex
6) Montoya
7) Vickers
8) Earnhardt Jr.
9) Harvick
10) Stewart

Notables

11) Ky. Busch
15) Carpentier
16) Papis
19) J. Gordon
20) Johnson
23) R. Gordon
24) Edwards
26) Burton
34) Kenseth
40) Hornish
41) Allmendinger
43) Pruett (wtf?)

More important than their fastest lap here are the top drivers based on average speed. This is especially important on a road course because of the difficulty in running consistent laps on road courses.

1) R. Gordon (he only ran 3 laps so his average is obviously going to be good)
2) McDowell (dark horse?)
3) Montoya
4) Ambrose
5) Carpentier

JPM ran a lot of laps (23 compared to 3 for R. Gordon, 7 for Ambrose, and 10 for Carpentier) and still had the third best average. That bodes well for the race.

The slowest car based on average lap speed? Surprisingly Jeff Burton.

[Knowlesy]

Yep, it's good. I'm confident for the race.

[VilleneuveTracy]

Others drivers seem to like, respect Ambrose.

"I've heard of how good of a road racer he is," said five-time Infineon winner Jeff Gordon. "We've seen what he's done. I think that's fantastic to see him running that good, and I hope he keeps it up. It's always exciting to see somebody new into the mix."

Added Kurt Busch, who will start third: "He seems to be doing really well. I'm sure that the Wood Brothers told him that it pays a whole lot better to be 43rd than 44th, so he had to make sure that he put a lap underneath him to go out there and make the race. We'll see how he does on Sunday. We're looking forward to him running well."

"I've not really raced with him much, so it's hard for me to really speak in a way about what I'd expect to see on Sunday," Johnson said. "He's won championships coming into the [Nationwide] Series and was very close to winning his first one in Canada a while back. So I think he'll be there. The Cup race itself is a little different than what he's experienced in the [Nationwide] Series and these cars are much different, so I'm not ruling it out. I think it would be difficult for him, but he's done a great job. He's really put up great laps the whole time we've been here."

http://www.nascar.com/2008/news/head...py.hour/1.html

[J-C]

Reed drove the #41 today as Pruett was at Mid-Ohio for the GrandAm race. I think it was more of a shakedown of the race engine/transmission, hence the slow times, as Pruett did the race setup work yesterday (which makes his qualifying effort pretty respectable).

[Chaos81]

Originally Posted by VilleneuveTracy

The slowest car based on average lap speed? Surprisingly Jeff Burton.

You just had to say that didn't you. He's my pick on another forum.