RACING HIGHLIGHTS
Photo: Rusty Jarrett
CUP - Former Series champion and defending race champion Matt Kenseth scored his second consecutive Bristol night race and swept the weekend. This is Kenseth's fourth win of the season and secured his place in the Chase to the Championship along with points leader Jimmie Johnson.
Unofficial Standings:
BUSCH - Matt Kenseth scores his second consecutive Series win after passing series points leader Kevin Harvick on the outside of the high-banked concrete track with 17 laps remaining. Harvick extended his series point lead over Edwards to 519 points.
NCTS - Mark Martin
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Photo of the Week
Kevin and Delana Harvick, Bristol, Aug. 25, 2006
(Photo: Mark Rebilas)
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PROFILE
This... is Beccy Gordon
Beccy Gordon is a pit-reporter and feature host for the Champ Car World Series,
a VP at family-owned Rob Gordon Feed Co. and an off-road racer. She is
the daughter of off-road champion "Baja Bob" Gordon, sister of NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver and off-road champion Robby Gordon and the girlfriend of racecar driver Ryan Hunter-Reay.
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QUICK PIT
Good luck to Griffin Guess, husband of Marisa Miller, at tomorrow's 58th Primetime Emmy Awards. The newlywed is the colorist for FOX's hit series "House," which is posted at Encore Hollywood and has been nominated for Outstanding Art Direction For A Single-Camera Series.
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Bristol FAQs
Q. Beccy Gordon dating Casey Mears?
A. Um, no. As mentioned above, Beccy is dating Ryan Hunter-Reay and Casey is single. Where do you guys come up with this stuff?
Q. Is Dale Earnhardt Jr. engaged?
A. Doubtful. This latest rumor originates here on the SpeedTV forums.
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REPEAT FAQ
Q. Has TGOM been contacted by any of
Ray Evernham's people and told to stop printing articles about his affair with Erin Crocker?
A. No. This question was previously answered in the Answer this... MIS (June 19) and MIS II (Aug. 22) FAQs. Excerpt: TGOM can advise that while this story is widely known, as is it's origin on Answer this..., she has received no word from any of the aforementioned parties of any falsities since its posting on April 29. Read the MIS FAQs for my complete thoughts on this question.
This question persists but I imagine it will subside now that many NASCAR insiders and members of the media have acknowledged their knowledge of the affair:
"When NASCAR gets ugly"
During the Bank of America Countdown to Green Sunday, TNT announcer Bill Webber delved into the drama surrounding Jeremy Mayfield's release from Evernham Motorsports... When Webber read that statement, I nearly fell out of my chair. Evernham's "close personal relationship" with Crocker? Surely, they didn't mean that kind of relationship, did they?
According to Speed's Dave Despain, that is exactly the kind of relationship everyone is implying. On Sunday's "Wind Tunnel With Dave Despain," Despain said the media has known of the Evernham-Crocker relationship for several months, but no one has talked about it because of a rumor that Evernham would sue anyone who brought up the subject.
Despain's co-host for the evening, open wheel analyst Robin Miller, laughed at the concept of Evernham trying to sue "a bunch of broken-down sports writers" for their old computers and measly salaries. Despain also made light of the situation, joking that Evernham's estranged wife, Mary, has employed the same divorce lawyer as Brooke Gordon.
Evernham all but refused to discuss the rumors at Michigan this weekend. When Webber mentioned Evernham's desire not to discuss his personal life, Evernham replied, "If your personal life has no effect on what you're doing in business, then it's really nothing to be discussed. Right now the issues are performance with our race team and what we’ve done, and, again, my personal life has nothing to do with that." [That's Racing, Aug. 21, 2006]
NASCAR.com: "Court documents tell Mayfield's side of split" - When NASCAR.com initally ran the story on August 19, the headline read "Mayfield: Evernham's lovelife sunk No. 19 Team."
Sports Illustrated: "Close personal relationship"? Let's put it this way: Evernham, who turns 49 later this month, and the 25-year-old Crocker are more than friends. It's not a subject anybody likes to talk or write about -- it's taboo in the Cup garage -- but when it impacts the performance of the car, it becomes a subject in the public arena.
AOL Sports: For most of the season, the relationship between owner Ray Evernham, who has been separated from wife Mary for some time, and Craftsman Truck Series driver Erin Crocker has been widely discussed privately. What made it a public issue was the suggestion by deposed driver Jeremy Mayfield, in court documents, that it had an impact on Evernham's team. Evernham continues to decline comment on the personal matter, but he responded to the charge, in part, by alleging that Mayfield, in effect, was performing badly on purpose. Now it's just an unseemly, public mess, one in which neither extreme has much to do with reality.
More crockpots:
- According to the veteran Craftsman Truck driver Todd Bodine, the relationship between Crocker, 25, and Evernham, who turns 49 on Saturday, was common knowledge.
"They're both good people and they fell in love," Bodine said Wednesday. [NYT, Aug. 26, 2006] - "They're fair game," the driver Sarah Fisher, who was involved in Nascar's diversity effort before returning to the I.R.L. this season, said in a telephone interview Thursday. "You put yourself out there. If you put yourself in that situation, people will talk about it, and you have to handle that."
Fisher said she treated the racing garage as a professional office, preferring to keep her private life separate. But it doesn't always work that way for others. Office romances are hardly unusual, and the Nascar garage can be as much a soap opera as any corporate environment." [NYT, Aug. 26, 2006] - After a news conference at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday to announce that Mayfield would join Bill Davis Racing and return to Nextel Cup competition in 2007, Mayfield denied that he had broken an unwritten rule by referring to the relationship in the lawsuit.
"I didn't cross the line until I was forced into the position I had to cross the line," he said. "I just had to do what I had to do. I wasn't the one that made it public. It wasn't no secret. That's his personal life, his personal problems, not mine."
I expect this to be my last answered FAQ on this subject.
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OVERHEARD
A source tells TGOM that Mary Evernham came over the P.A. at
Evernham Motorsports facilities this week and announced that soon everyone would
be working for her, not Ray.
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SILLY SEASON UPDATES
- Estranged EMS driver Jeremy Mayfield has signed with Bill Davis Racing to drive the #36 360 OTC Toyota beginning in 2007.
Jeremy Mayfield: " This is probably the most excited I've been in pry my Nextel Cup career in a long time and I've been excited throughout the different times but this here is a deal where they made me feel at home. You know, the Davises are great people and now with our great sponsor... I just actually met today... they're great people. So we're real excited about that and knowing that Tommy [Baldwin] is gonna be running the deal up there and like I said Todd Holbert's got a great engineering staff and just a lot of good things going on at Bill Davis Racing and I feel like I got a great opportunity here to do a lot of great things."
Bill Davis: "Real real excited about our future next year. We're gonna do some big things. Jeremy of course is going to be a big part of that. We feel like we just hit the lottery when we were able to sign Jeremy up to drive the cars.
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In case you missed this...
- The MRO kids sang the anthem at this...
- The 2007 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series schedule was announced Friday, a 36-race slate beginning with the 49th annual Daytona 500 on Sunday, Feb. 18 at Daytona International Speedway and finishing on Sunday, Nov. 18 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Key dates- On Sunday, July 1, New Hampshire International Speedway will host the first event in the "Race to the Chase," the 10-race prelude to the "Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup."
- On Sunday, July 29, the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard will be held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
- On the evening of Saturday, Sept. 8, Richmond International Raceway will be the final event in the "Race to the Chase."
- The week after Richmond, on Sunday, Sept. 16, New Hampshire again will have the kick-off event in the Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup, which covers the season’s last 10 races and determines the series champion.
There are no changes from the 2006 schedule, in terms of sites. There are, however, several adjustments to the schedule's order.
- In July, the schedule will go from New Hampshire (July 1), to Daytona (July 7) and then Chicagoland Speedway (July 15). Previously, the order was Daytona-Chicago-New Hampshire.
- Also, Indianapolis' event will close out July (July 29), followed the next week (Aug. 5) by Pocono Raceway. Previously, Pocono preceded Indianapolis. Those two races will follow the season's final open week.
(Photo: Mark Rebilas)
2007 NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES SCHEDULE
Feb 10 Budweiser Shootout at Daytona – Daytona International Speedway
Feb 18 Daytona International Speedway
Feb 25 California Speedway
Mar 11 Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Mar 18 Atlanta Motor Speedway
Mar 25 Bristol Motor Speedway
Apr 1 Martinsville Speedway
Apr 15 Texas Motor Speedway
Apr 21 Phoenix International Raceway
Apr 29 Talladega Superspeedway
May 5 Richmond International Raceway
May 12 Darlington Raceway
May 19 NASCAR NEXTEL All-Star Challenge – Lowe’s Motor Speedway
May 27 Lowe’s Motor Speedway
Jun 3 Dover International Speedway
Jun 10 Pocono Raceway
Jun 17 Michigan International Speedway
Jun 24 Infineon Raceway
Jul 1 New Hampshire International Speedway
Jul 7 Daytona International Speedway
Jul 15 Chicagoland Speedway
Jul 29 Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Aug 5 Pocono Raceway
Aug 12 Watkins Glen International
Aug 19 Michigan International Speedway
Aug 25 Bristol Motor Speedway
Sep 2 California Speedway
Sep 8 Richmond International Raceway
Sep 16 New Hampshire International Speedway
Sep 23 Dover International Speedway
Sep 30 Kansas Speedway
Oct 7 Talladega Superspeedway
Oct 13 Lowe’s Motor Speedway
Oct 21 Martinsville Speedway
Oct 28 Atlanta Motor Speedway
Nov 4 Texas Motor Speedway
Nov 11 Phoenix International Raceway
Nov 18 Homestead-Miami Speedway
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* Please note: Additional photos tagged 'exclusive' are available to Answer this... Flickr friends only.
REMINDERS
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