NASCAR Nextel Cup UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at LVMS - Sunday 3/11/07 - Fox 4:30pm/et

NASCAR.com / Jayski.com | March 6, 2007 | NYTexan

[NYTexan]

FREE REPUBLIC NASCAR THREAD

UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400

Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Welcome all to the the 3rd Nextel Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway!

(Click on the highlighted links for related news & info.)

Smaller Fuel Cells for LVMS on the new 20-degree banking track

Qualifying Info/Practice Dates/Times/TV

Practice: Friday, March 9, 2:30 - 4:00pm/et, TV-SPEED
and Saturday, March 10, 12:00 - 12:50pm/et
Happy Hour Practice: Saturday, March 10, 1:20 - 2:20pm/et
(on TV-SPEED via tape at 5:30pm/et)

Qualifying Draw: Friday, March 9, 9:30am/et
Qualifying: 2 laps for positions 1-43, Friday, March 9 at 6:10pm/et, TV-SPEED

Race: Sunday, March 11, 2007 in Las Vegas, NV
TV: FOX 4:30pm/et
FOX Pre-Race Show: FOX - 4:00pm/et
Speed's NASCAR Raceday Pre-Race Show: 2:00pm/et
Green Flag Scheduled: 4:40pm/et
Race Re-Air: Thursday, March 15 at 3:00pm/et on Speed

Current & Historical Track info

Track Details
Distance: 1.5 miles
Shape: D-shaped oval
Banking: 20° turns, 9° frontstretch, 9° backstretch
Frontstretch: 2,275 feet, Backstretch: 1,572 feet
Seating: 142,000

Thunderbirds open the race
The United States Air Force Thunderbirds fly over the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the start the UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400 Nextel Cup race
(March 13, 2006)

The Thunderbirds are based at Nellis AFB, Nev.
(across the highway from the track)

[steveegg]

No Fries Monday at Arbys.

There's always tomorrow; it's not just the Busch or Arby's cars.

[GRRRRR]

Great job on Kyle...and Jeff...well done!!

[NYTexan]

[NYTexan]

Looked like shrub tried to bump Burton at the end!

[WestCoastGal]

That was really great of Nawthurn Burton to drive over to Shrubbie to see if he was ok.

[WestCoastGal]

Well tomorrow is gonna be difficult for everyone if we consider what all happened today.

[steveegg]

Just got home from an afternoon of playing cribbage over at BB Rubbles (yep, that's Jimmy Fennig's hangout), watching the race and watching the Badgers set up the rubber match for the Big 10 title/#1 overall in The Big Dance. I have but three words -

BRING BACK HOOSIER!!!!

[SouthTexas]

The boy done growed up! ;)

[WestCoastGal]

Yes he did good..........said all the right stuff.

Good job.

[SouthTexas]

Was speaking of Shrub coming back to congratulate Burton.

[SouthTexas]

It's obvious Goodyear brought a harder tar, but I wonder why no one has really mentioned the smaller fuel cell. Less weight, rear end breaks loose, and she'll come around everytime.

[WestCoastGal]

Yes I was talking about him too. :)

[steveegg]

It's obvious Goodyear brought a harder tar, but I wonder why no one has really mentioned the smaller fuel cell. Less weight, rear end breaks loose, and she'll come around everytime.

I don't remember if they measure the weight with a full or empty tank (I should've asked one of the inspectors the last 2 years). If it's a full tank, it's the teams' placement of the additional weights to bring the car up to 3400 pounds (plus the penalty for a light driver) that would make the car break loose. If it's empty, then the cars are about 33 pounds lighter (give or take a pound) over the rear axle.

In any case, there is, if I recall, some on-track adjustability of the weights. I don't know how much time the Busch teams had to adjust before impound though.

One more thing to consider; it's a LOT warmer in Vegas now than either the average or when they tested. That heat makes for a greasy track.

[tubebender]

We have a series cheater in the FF league. I'm not going to say who it is but Team "Truth" got 18 Q points yesterday!!!

[barker]

Was speaking of Shrub coming back to congratulate Burton.

Thought both of them showed a lot of class.

[WestCoastGal]

They definitely did, it was nice to see for a change.

Shrub has matured a lot it seems. Burton on the other hand has always been a classy guy.

[tubebender]

Did you say that DW will be driving Mikey's Toyo next week?

[WestCoastGal]

DEI Engine problems appear to be solved UPDATE: Teammates #8-Dale Earnhardt Jr. and #1-Martin Truex Jr. both suffered blown engines last Sunday at California, and it appears the engine department has solved the problem. Earnhardt Jr. said “The unleaded fuel lubricates the valve train less so we’re going to have to address that by applying more oil in the left front side of the motor in the valve train. The right side of the valve train looked really, really good. Centrifugal force pushed all the oil over so we have to somehow pump more oil over to the left side of the valve train and give that more durability. That’s what our company has done this past week and we should have no problems.”(PRN's Garage Pass Radio Show)(3-9-2007)
UPDATE: However, the issue might have been deeper than just lubrication. A source inside the DEI organization said a broken valve spring and a spun bearing caused the engine to fail. Neither issue was directly related to running unleaded fuels. "We tossed away a bunch of defective valve springs to solve on of the issues," said the source. As for the bearing, the failure was the result of an oiling failure no previously seen by the engine department. We looked at our process of building engines and it wasn't an issue with construction."(Circletrackplus.com)(3-10-2007)

[SouthTexas]

I'm back, had to go get my truck.

I know they SHOULD figure the difference, but did they is the magic question. There's a big difference in set-up between this track and the super speedways, so that data is basically useless.

You're right about the different temps. LVM commented up thread that it was snowing last year. ;)

[SouthTexas]

Yeah, saw that. I only got one, which is a good thing for STR. If I get qualifying points, they all end up crashing.