Nascar Sprint Cup Toyota/SaveMart 350 @ Infineon - TNT Sunday 06/21/09 430pm ET (Race#16 of 36)

Nascar.com ^ | 6/16/09

[NormsRevenge]

Sonoma. Wine country. 80 degrees.

Race #16 plays out on a road course.

It's anybody's race, come along for the ride but try and stay out of the gravel pits.

Thanks to our Armed Forces members, past and present.

Oh. Did I forget Dad?

HaPPY Father's Day!

[Wneighbor]

Howdy!

Thanks for the ping!

I reckon we’re gonna see which guys can turn right this week.

[NYTexan]

Thanks Norm...

Thread well done!

[tubebender]

I think I got into a fistfight when JJ ran out of gas. I can’t remember.

You did and it's just as well you don't remember...

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

I can’t say that I have; that was long before I started working as a race volunteer. Although I have met Boris Said.

Also, during an ALMS/World Challenge weekend a couple years ago at Laguna, Jeff Altenburg showed up at the workers’ social with his Touring car.

[WestCoastGal]

NASCAR Truck Series driver Johnny Benson released from hospital http://tinyurl.com/mrmrqe

[WestCoastGal]

Looks like {hopefully} we won’t have tire problems at Indy again.

Interview with Jeff Gordon....

JEFF GORDON: I’m very pleased with the results. I was very surprised to see how much rubber was on the track yesterday when I arrived, and just to see how the tires are reacting from a grip level with the car as well as how it’s wearing the tire, heat in the tire. I mean, everything looks great at the Brickyard 400 and go out there and run hard, and tire wear is not even going to be in the back of our minds.

It might be whether or not we can stay out and how far we can push it, if anything. They’ve done an excellent job. I think a lot of obviously credit goes to Goodyear, all the hard work, effort, time, money that’s been spent to make it right, but obviously there’s been a lot of teams, and I have not been one of them so I don’t get the credit, but there’s been a lot of teams that have contributed to put in a lot of laps in here to get it to where it is today.

So thankful for those guys. I got to kind of come in at the end and have the proven great product and just be able to go out there and put laps in, which is what Goodyear asked us to come here to do.

Q. The guys earlier were talking about falloff rates. What did you see, and are you going to be happy with the amount of falloff to make it a racing race?

JEFF GORDON: Yeah, I like to see falloff, and even with as great as this tire is, this track is so abrasive that you’re going to have falloff. I saw falloff, and I like the grip level from the beginning, I liked how it does gradually fall off. It’s not a huge drop. And I felt like it was enough to where it’s going to make the racing really, really good.

I think it’s always important to have a certain amount of falloff so that you can tune on the car, you can change your line as a driver. You still want enough grip to where if you slide off line a little bit, you can recover. All those things I saw while we were here.

The whole thing at the link....

http://www.4wide.com/2009/06/jeff-gordon-talks-about-goodyear-tire.html

[NormsRevenge]

Good news! Thanks!

[Randy Larsen]

I’ll be there!

My fathers day present.

[afnamvet]

Thanks for the ping Norm.

[tubebender]

FYI... Smoke in Trouble? Hey... it's a legit question even if I stretched it a bit!

[tubebender]

They were racing up until last year. Did Lou Bero Jr show up at your social with stories of his Dads 1953 Ferrari MM375

[glock rocks]

Yah. Right. I’m going to throw my Old Spice t-shirt in the fireplace now.

[vox_freedom]

Don't burn it, recycle it. Global warming and all...

[tubebender]

Cheeze... Put the gun down Gork. This will make you feel better... SAM THE BELL HOP

[WestCoastGal]

Video of Johnny B’s arrival home. About a 7 minute conversation with him

http://www.4wide.com/2009/06/johnny-benson-released-from-hospital.html

[glock rocks]

Dang, that makes me feel much better. That driver was well versed in the course, and very smooth. It was amazing to see the skid marks in the corners... I’d hate to be the fool who locked em up on some of those corners.

[vox_freedom]

Thanks for the vid, Benson dodged a life threatening situation and glad to see how well he is!

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

The name sounds familiar, but I don’t recall seeing him. Has that car ever shown up at the Historics?

Will it be there this year? ‘Cause I might bother to work the Historics this year (skipped it last year).

[tubebender]

It was purchased and restored by publisher Bruce McCraw in 1996 and driven by Phil Hill in a vintage race at Monterey and has won several shows since then...

[NormsRevenge]

Power Rankings

http://www.nascar.com/news/features/power_rankings/index.html

Smoke
Flash
Martin
JJ
Flipper