Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Alonso ordered to appear at Motor Sport Council hearing

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso was summoned to appear before the World Motor Sport Council in Paris today as part of its investigation into allegations of race-fixing at last year’s Grand Prix of Singapore.

Alonso was reportedly "shocked" when he received a letter last Friday ordering him to appear before the council today.

The council is meeting to hear the results of an FIA investigation into allegations leveled by fired Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr. that he was instructed to crash at the Singapore race in order to bring out a safety car and help his teammate, Alonso, win the race.

Last week, team principal Flavio Briatore and chief engineer Pat Symonds resigned (or were asked to resign) and Renault announced it would not offer any excuses at the Paris meeting today - in essence, an admission of guilt.

Alonso has said he knew nothing of the plot.

Racing roundup: Will Montoya become the new ‘intimidator?’

Juan Pablo Montoya might have raised a few eyebrows after yesterday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race in New Hampshire when he said if anybody does that to him again (Mark Martin pinning him down low and then backing off), he’ll hit him (as in, wreck him).

But I think it was calculated. I suggest Montoya – who’s adjusted admirably to stock car racing after spending most of his career in the light and nimble Formula One and Indy cars – was sending a message:

Now that I can drive these cars quickly, I’m going to be as rough and tough as anybody else out there and it will not be a very wise move for you to get in my way.

The incident that sparked this outburst (if you want to call it that – Montoya had calmed down considerably from the mood he’d been in when he’d first climbed out of his car) was during one of the many restarts toward the end of the race.

Montoya was on the inside of the front row and Martin was outside. The green flag fell and Montoya couldn’t build up any momentum because Martin wouldn’t let him up off the bottom. Then Martin got past him and slowed down, which forced Montoya to back off to avoid a collision. When that happened, Denny Hamlin snuck by, leaving Montoya to finish third behind the winner Martin.

"I think that was a pretty dirty trick," Montoya said. "Next time he does that, my brakes might get a little numb or something . . . You'll maybe want to move the guy – to get the bumper in there. I’ll know next time."

We’ll be watching, Juan.

The New Hampshire race, the first in the Chase for the Championship, was an exciting one. Montoya ran surprisingly well – he had the pole and was fastest in practice all weekend. In the end, though, it was the old campaigner, Martin, who walked off with all the marbles.

It was Martin’s fifth victory of the season – the most in Sprint Cup – and so it’s fitting he’s leading the standings after the first of 10 "playoff" races. Jimmie Johnson and Hamlin are tied for second (and they’ve won three races and two, respectively, this season) while Montoya (no wins but he’s getting close) is third.

The Sprint Cup moves to Dover, Del., next weekend.

Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., all but wrapped up the 2009 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series championship at Riverside Speedway near Antigonish, N.S., yesterday when he won the Komatsu 300, delayed from Saturday evening because of inclement weather.

Jeff Lapcevich of Grimsby was second (it was one of his best finishes in years) and Mark Dilley of Barrie was third.

The fourth-place finish by Ron Beauchamp Jr. of Windsor moved him into second-place in the standings ahead of D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas, who lost his transmission after 141 laps and finished 18^th.

Although it won’t officially be over until Ranger fires up his car for next Saturday night’s last race of the season at Kawartha Speedway near Peterborough, the champagne corks will start popping as soon as the green flag waves.

Ranger, the ex-Champ Car and Formula Atlantic driver who’s concentrated on stock cars in recent years, will have won his second title in three years. And he'll have done it this year by winning not only on the road courses (he wracked up three wins at Mosport, Trois-Rivieres and Edmonton) but on the ovals as well: Sun Valley Speedway in B.C., Mosport Speedway and Antigonish.

He's Sprint Cup material. But who's going to give him a shot?

Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto solidified his hold on second place in the European Formula 2 standings at Imola this weekend with a fourth-place finish in Race 1 and a second-place finish in Race 2. He also won the pole for Race 2.

There are two races remaining in the championship, at Barcelona at the end of October. Spain’s Andy Soucek has already wrapped up the championship.

Mark Wilkins of Toronto and American Burt Frisselle brought the AIM Autosport No. 61 Ford Riley Daytona Prototype home in fifth place yesterday in the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Championship race at Tooele, Utah, which was won by Alex Gurney and Jon Fogerty. The Woodbridge team is now in sixth place in the championship and just three points out of fifth.

The last race in the Rolex series will take place on the road course at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida in three weeks.

　

　

And now for something completely different

Tired of all the scandals in Formula One (see two posts below)?

Bored with the ho-hum Indy car oval racing being served up these days (see one post below)?

Then I suggest if you are out and about in your car tomorrow (or today, if you’re reading this on Sunday morning, Sept. 20) that you head north on Highway 10 to Shelburne this afternoon and take in the Ontario Extreme Lawn Tractor Racing that’s going on up there.

Part of the Shelburne Fall Fair (there’s something at that fair for everyone, don’t-cha know . . . ), the provincial east-west shootout between the Western Ontario Outlaws from the Windsor/Sarnia area and the Ontario Extreme Lawn Tractor Association from the Ottawa area promises chills and thrills and all sorts of sheer craziness.

I know they sometimes hold snowmobile drag races on grass in the summertime, and I’ve even heard of one-off lawnmower races, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a touring lawn tractor circuit featuring machines worth between $5,000 and $20,000.

The races will start at 1 p.m. and I betcha they’ll be a gas! (As in gas mower – get it?)

Dixon wins Honda Japan 300 but race was a snore - literally

(If you’re looking for the Formula One blog entries, including the video of Nelson Piquet’s crash, just scroll down. Meantime . . . )

Scott Dixon won a surprisingly dull Indy Racing League 300-lap race at Japan’s Twin Ring Motegi today (last night in our part of the world) and set the stage for a championship showdown in three weeks at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.

Dario Franchitti, who went into the Honda Japan 300 in second place in the standings and finished it in the same position, was second in the race while Graham Rahal was third.

Danica Patrick, who made history a year ago by winning this race and becoming the first woman to win an Indy car race, started sixth and finished sixth.

And that last sentence pretty much wraps up what this race was all about: single-file, follow-the-leader stuff with very little passing. It was almost enough to put a fellow to sleep (which happened from time-to-time - it was, after all, after midnight!)

The IRL did all sorts of things to spice up the oval racing following the disaster that was the Richmond race earlier this year when even the drivers were apologizing afterward for the lack of excitement.

One of the things introduced was the old Champ Car "push-to-pass" system, where the drivers can push a button on their steering wheels that gives them a 12-second boost in horsepower up to 20 times a race.

Well, after the Motegi race, you can rename it the "push-to-prevent-passing" system because most of the drivers used up their supplies by keeping attacking drivers behind them.

Which made for two things: a) dull racing and, b) back-to-the-drawing board for series officials because that sort of stuff just isn’t cutting it.

Ryan Briscoe went into the race leading the standings and was in a position to wrap up the championship when a very strange thing happened. As he peeled out of his pit after taking on tires and fuel, his back wheels (the tires were cold) lost traction, throwing him sideways, and he brushed the inside guardrail at pit exit. Although he kept running, he finished 18^th and dropped to third place in the standings.

So Dixon won his fifth race of the season and leads the standings going into the last race with Franchitti and Briscoe right on his tail. On paper, it looks like it should be a barn-burner of a finish to the season in Miami. In reality, if the race turns out to be like Motegi’s, it will just be a bore.

Postscript 1: During the pre-race show, there was a flashback to an Indy car race in Japan in 1966. Jackie Stewart, who won that race, was shown receiving the trophy. But what caught my eye was a close-up of another driver, a fellow in the cockpit putting on his gloves. It was none other than our own Billy Foster of Victoria, B.C. I was thrilled.

Postscript 2: Vision Racing, owned by Tony George, left three crew members at home but included them by having life-size cardboard cutouts of them "standing" in the paddock area. Cute. The symbolism, however, is that Vision Racing will close its doors at the end of the season – one of who-knows-how-many IRL teams expected to do that.

Nelson Piquet Jr.'s crash video: You decide

There are no secrets anywhere any more.

Want to watch Nelson Piquet Jr.’s famous crash at the Grand Prix of Singapore last year? The one we now know was staged? Here’s the link.

But before you click on it, here are two things to look for:

1. On the formation lap, Piquet spins coming out of a left-hand corner at a fairly slow speed. Was he practising for his crash?

2. When Alonso wins, the camera switches to team principal Flavio Briatore, who is celebrating with the others at Renault command central. One of the people he high-fives is Piquet Jr. (just to his left).

Want to see guilt? It’s right there on Nelson Piquet Jr.’s face.

Will Renault stay to fight, or will it leave Formula One?

The big question following today’s shock announcement that Renault F1 team principal Flavio Briatore and engineer Pat Symonds “have left the team” is whether the French manufacturer will remain in Formula One.

Despite the scandal and embarrassment of this whole mess, Renault had been rumoured to be considering leaving the sport at the end of this year because of the recession. Like Honda and BMW before it, Renault has been feeling the pinch and one way to save $300 million or $400 million a year is to stop spending it.

My guess is that Renault will tough it out, which will be good for F1 which needs all the help it can get at the moment. Renault will go before the World Motorsport Council on Sept. 21 and say:

– we delegated responsibility to the running of the racing team to Briatore. We have relieved Briatore of his responsibility, as we have engineer Symonds, and we have installed new management.

– having said that, we accept full responsibility for what happened. We are sorry.

– we wish to assure the World Motorsport Council that what happened is inexcusable. We remain fully committed to the sport, however, and will fight to restore our good name and credibility.

I hope the council will accept that apology. Of course there will be a hefty fine and condemnation in the form of a written decision, but that should end the matter.

If – and it’s a big if – the council suspends Renault and strips the team and drivers (particularly Fernando Alonso) of all points earned this season, then all bets are off.

It would be much better to ban Briatore and Symonds from the sport for life – and Nelson Piquet Jr., for that matter – than to alienate a manufacturer (and a country, for that matter).

I don’t know about Pat Symonds (although if you want a study in evasiveness, read the transcript of his FIA interview that was posted on this site a few days ago by a reader), but the sport will be much better off without Briatore.

I don’t know of any other industry where someone with the conflicts of interests of Briatore would be allowed to operate. He’s immoral (in one published interview he questioned Piquet Jr.’s sexuality) and he’s a liar. And Renault’s actions today in firing him prove he’s a crook.

Good riddance.

Danica will stay in IRL but start learning to drive stock cars

A year ago April, when Danica Patrick won her first Indy car race in Japan, it wasn’t available on TV in North America and I had to watch it on streaming video on my home computer.

Davey Hamilton, the nine-time Indianapolis 500 starter who came to Toronto to promote this year’s Honda Indy by driving a two-seater Indy car through the streets of the city (I’ll tell you more about that in a second), was doing the Internet broadcast and was quick to note that Patrick’s fuel strategy might have given her an edge.

“Everybody else is either going to have to stop, or slow down to conserve fuel,” he said on the broadcast.

 “Not her. She could win this thing,” he went on to say about 25 laps from the finish.

And that’s exactly what happened. Ed Carpenter (among others) had to slip into the pits for splash-and-go stops while Patrick just kept the hammer down. She caught Helio Castroneves with two laps to go and he was literally crawling at that point because his tank was almost empty. She blew by and the rest, as they say, was history.

Can she repeat? Probably not – but don’t bet a lot of money against it happening.

The good news today is that, if you’re interested, you won’t have to do what I did last year and watch the race on your computer. TSN will have it, live and in colour, Friday night at 10:30, right after their Friday Night Football game.

Now, I expect Patrick to sign for another year or two in Indy car. She could stay with Michael Andretti or she could move to Target Chip Ganassi (although rumours of that scenario have pretty much dried up lately).

The key thing is that as she continues to drive the open-wheel cars, she is going to start preparing for what will be an eventual move to NASCAR. She has visited several times this year with Tony Stewart and whether it’s with his team, or with Ganassi’s, or someone else’s, she’ll likely start to test the waters next year in ARCA, the Camping World Truck Series and then the Nationwide Series when there isn’t a conflict with her Indy car commitments.

She plans to walk before she can run, which is the smart thing to do. If it turns out she can’t drive those cars or trucks, she won’t make the move. She has the option of saying no.

But three years from now (who knows? maybe sooner) I bet she’ll be at Daytona to embark on her new career in the Sprint Cup series.

Now, about Hamilton. The two-seater Indy car he brought to Toronto in June to plug the Honda Indy is street legal in the U.S. but not in Canada – primarily because it doesn’t have fenders.

So he arrives with it at the Star one morning about two weeks before the race and takes one of our multimedia reporters, Scott Simmie, out for a ride. (I wanted them to go through a Tim Hortons drive-through in it, but there’s isn’t one close to the Star.) In any event, just as they got back to the paper after 15 minutes of tooling around downtown T.O., the cops arrived.

“You can’t drive that thing on the streets of Toronto,” says the officer.

“Okay,” says Hamilton, “I won’t. You can be assured, officer, that from now on, I will just take it out of the trailer and let people look at it.”

So then he goes to the Sun and takes one of their guys out in it. They get back to the Sun and another officer arrives and they go through the same routine.

“I promise I will never, ever, do this again,” Hamilton says solemnly.

So then he goes to City TV and he’s driving one of their reporters along Queen St. W. and, in his words as he told me this story at Oswego Speedway last weekend:

“Five of them showed up. They had the sirens on and they surrounded me.”

“I told them I would park it. And I did. I didn’t want to push my luck any further. Toronto’s a nice city but I didn’t want to find out about the jail there.”

F1 back in Montreal in 2010

It appears that the Grand Prix of Canada will soon be officially back on the Formula One schedule for 2010.

In a statement released just after noon today, long-time F1 Montreal promoter Normand Legault announced the settlement of a lawsuit between his company, Grand Prix F1 du Canada, Inc., and the Formula 1 administration that had stood in the way of the race's return.

(Hmmm. Who knew about this? All the stories I'm aware of suggested the reason Canada lost the race was because there wasn't enough money offered to make Bernie Ecclestone happy.)

In any event, with this legal roadblock now gone, you can expect a formal announcement of the race's return at just about any time.

Here is the full statement released today by M. Legault:

Settlement of commercial dispute between Grand Prix F1 du Canada Inc. and Formula One Administration

Grand Prix F1 du Canada Inc. today announced that the commercial dispute between it and Formula One Administration (FOA), which had been ongoing since last fall and led to the cancellation of the 2009 edition of the Canadian Grand Prix, has now been settled.

Normand Legault, president and CEO of Grand Prix F1 du Canada Inc., said:

"I am very happy, and fully satisfied, with this outcome. I have always been confident of being able to resolve the dispute, given the in-depth understanding I have had to develop of the Formula One racing situation in Canada. And I am especially pleased that an announcement is forthcoming to the effect that the Canadian Grand Prix will be back on the FIA calendar as of 2010.

“ I never doubted that the Canadian race would regain its rightful place on the FIA schedule, and my discussions with F1 management led me to believe that the event would return soon. The race is important not only for Formula One, but also for the teams, manufacturers and sponsors.

“I am also happy for the Canadian Grand Prix’s many fans, because they are true F1 enthusiasts who appreciate the real value of the spectacle and the competition."

Public support

"I am very proud of how far the Canadian Grand Prix has come since it was first run on the Île Notre-Dame circuit more than 30 years ago, when I initially became involved in organizing it," Legault added.

"Our efforts in the early 1990s to take the Grand Prix beyond the boundaries of Île Notre-Dame have transformed it from a mere auto race into a mass-appeal event that is an indispensable part of Montreal’s summer festivities, with spinoffs that benefit the entire downtown area and other neighbourhoods, such as Little Italy.

“One need only look at some races held abroad to see that it takes more than an automobile race to create a bona fide event, with an international reputation that can attract tourists from the four corners of the globe. I am especially proud of the fact that, over the past 12 years with Grand Prix F1 du Canada Inc. as race promoter, our team has managed to run the show single-handedly, through thick and thin.

“We owe our success in large part to the sponsors who never stopped believing in us and backing us, to our loyal fans, whom I thank most heartily for their steadfast support, and, lastly, to our many volunteers, who have devoted so much time and effort to organizing the race."

End of Normand Legault’s involvement as local promoter

Legault concluded:

"As to the question of whether I will remain involved as local promoter, I had already announced last fall that I no longer wished to fill that role, in view of the economic model currently prevailing in Formula One, which has now made it impossible to put on an event like this strictly with private investors, and no government assistance.

“I explained last fall that I did not wish to ask the governments for support in order to meet FOA’s financial requirements, and so it became unthinkable for me to continue to act as promoter. I believe, however, that considering its value for our local economy, it is important that the event return, and I wish every success to those who decide to take over the work that I have done over the years."

F1's in a mess because reporter ‘sat’ on race-fix story

Formula 1 continues to be such an insular society that nobody seems to be able to see the forest for the trees.

It became public over the weekend that an F1 journalist learned about last season’s alleged Singapore Grand Prix race fix within an hour or two of its happening.

That’s where Nelson Piquet Jr., allegedly, deliberately crashed his Renault race car so that his teammate, Fernando Alonso, would be in a position to go on and win the Grand Prix – which is apparently what happened.

This didn’t come to public light until a few weeks ago when Piquet and his father told the FIA about the plot. Since then, the FIA has ordered an investigation and a meeting of the World Motorsport Council has been called for Sept. 21.

It could – could – result in sanctions against Renault, which could lead to Renault leaving the sport.

In a weekend interview, Patrick Head of Williams F1 reportedly said he thinks the hearing will be a test of the integrity of the sport. So far, so good. But then he dropped this little bombshell:

"Head . . . said he was told by a journalist that Piquet first revealed the alleged plot privately shortly after the Singapore GP.

" ‘I became aware of a journalist who told me that he was told about it by Nelson Piquet 15 minutes after the race. It’s a difficult one. If a journalist was told that by a driver, he should have said: ‘Look, stop. If you carry on with this, I will. . . ’ "

I fail to see what’s difficult about this. If a driver tells a reporter that a race was rigged, or fixed, the reporter’s duty is to write or broadcast the story.

Or to report the information to the proper authorities and then write the story. Take your pick.

Head seems to think there’s some sort of moral dilemma. There isn’t. A journalist’s duty is to the public, through the newspaper, web site, magazine or broadcasting station that employs him or her.

It’s this sort of waffling that got Ron Dennis into trouble and eventually resulted in him being kicked out of F1, not to mention throwing the sport into disrepute from which it is still recovering.

You recall, I’m sure, the scandal that erupted when it was discovered that McLaren was in possession of about 750 pages of intellectual property belonging to Ferrari.

Dennis found out and prevaricated. He should have called the police.

And that’s what should have happened this time.

Instead, somebody sat on the story. And what might have been scandalous then is now threatening to become a full-blown disaster.

Doesn’t anybody in F1 ever learn?

And where are Woodward and Bernstein when we really need them. . .

ITALIAN GRAND PRIX

With four races remaining, it looks like Jenson Button has pretty much got the 2009 world championship of drivers wrapped up.

Barring some sort of disaster, Button can pretty much cruise through the remainder of the schedule, sticking to the coattails of his teammate, the irrepressible Rubens Barrichello, who’s in second place in the standings.

Barrichello won his third race of the season yesterday at Monza, with Button second and Kimi Raikkonen third.

If Barrichello wins every race and Button finishes second, Button still wins by a comfortable margin. If Barrichello finishes second every race and Button finishes third – well, there you go.

Button won six of the first seven races, through Turkey in early July. Since then he’s been in the Top Ten at every race except for Belgium, where he crashed.

Brawn GP (nee Honda) got the jump on everybody over the winter and it paid off in spades. Those first half-dozen or so races were really just romps. Then Brawn relaxed a bit (it seemed to me) and the traditional heavyweights, McLaren and Ferrari, caught up a bit and the mid-season got interesting.

But then just about everybody started working on their 2010 cars and Brawn picked up their socks and the universe started unfolding as it should again.

Now it seems like Brawn is back in the saddle and, frankly, the championships – driver and manufacturer’s – look to be in the bag.

NOTES

– Adrian Sutil’s Force India engineer started talking in his ear during the formation lap yesterday about how to handle the start (he was starting second), suggesting he stay on the inside heading into Corner One.

Broadcaster Martin Brundle said he found it astonishing that the engineer would be giving the driver advice. I found it astonishing that they were even talking about it then. Hadn’t they discussed it before?

– Barrichello’s exuberance is delightful. I particularly get a kick out of him giving the camera a big smooch.

– In-car cameras early in the race yesterday showed cars in front moving back and forth across the track. Some people call this "defending" a position; I call it blocking and sometimes think a Paul Tracy "chrome horn" might just liven things up a little in F1. Don’t you?

– I sometimes wonder what TV directors are thinking. When Lewis Hamilton lost control and crashed on the last lap yesterday, there was wreckage strewn across the track. Just as Raikkonen and Sutil approached and appeared to be slowing down to pick their through the debris (hey, Sutil might have caught Kimi napping, for all anybody knew) the TV cut to a shot of Hamilton’s father.

Who cares???? I want to see how the other drivers are handling the situation.

– While watching the podium ceremony of the Grand Prix yesterday, I recalled a delightful story I heard last weekend at the Oswego Classic for supermodifieds.

In 1973, Kenny Andrews of Burlington became the first Canadian to win the big race. The Canadian fans were going crazy. They were being, to put it mildly, extremely rambunctious.

To calm them down, speedway announcer Roy Sova put on O Canada. Being good Canadians, they stopped their clowning around, stood at attention, and bellowed out the words.

And thus, a tradition was born.

Since that day, every winner of the International Classic has been serenaded by their national anthem – mostly the Star Spangled Banner. O Canada has only been heard four times.

　

　

It’s on – but NASCAR’s Chase format needs some fine-tuning

There’s something wrong with a playoff picture when the guy in first place – Mark Martin – has four victories and a guy who’s on the outside looking in – Kyle Busch – has four too.

In a sport where winning should be the only thing, it’s a travesty that Busch – who delivers checkered flags with some regularity – can’t now compete for the Sprint Cup.

(I know, I know: NASCAR rewards consistency. How about rewarding what the fans go to see – winning.)

Anyway, NASCAR’s "regular season" ended on Saturday night with the running of the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 and the top 12 drivers in points at the end of that race now move on to the Chase for the Championship.

All the other drivers can still compete in the remaining 10 races but only those 12 are eligible to win the title. It seems foolproof, but . . .

One of these years – and maybe it’ll be this one – somebody not in the Chase is going to go out and so completely dominate those last 10 events that it will make the format look silly.

For instance, Kyle Busch could very easily win any number of the remaining races. If he does, and scores more points than any of the qualified drivers in the process, NASCAR could wind up with egg on its face.

Which means that the Chase needs some fine-tuning.

How about this? From 2010 on, the driver with the most wins of two or more, who does not qualify for the Chase on points, will be added to the field.

If NASCAR doesn’t want more than a dozen drivers in the playoffs, then the "winning driver" would bump the 12^th-place "consistent driver."

If that was the case this year, Kyle Bush would bump Greg Biffle – which I don’t think would be a bad thing: Busch had four race wins and one pole this season; Biffle had zero and zero.

Biffle might be consistent, but he’s sure not settin’ off any fireworks, is he?

In any event, the race on Saturday night to decide the 12 playoff spots was a dilly. There was lots of action from start to finish.

As I predicted (I don’t get these things right very often, so let me enjoy this) Brian Vickers squeezed into the Chase and Matt Kenseth was squeezed out. In fact, Vickers went from 13^th in the standings at the green flag to eighth at the checkers – an improvement of five places.

Kenseth was in the Chase at the start but ended the race in 25^th place. That dropped him two positions and he finished the regular season in 14^th place.

This is the first time since the Chase format was introduced that Kenseth won’t be a part of it. When his long-time sponsor, DeWalt Tools, announced near the end of July that it was withdrawing its support at the end of the season, the wind seemed to go out of his team’s sails and they’ve been sliding backwards ever since.

Although Denny Hamlin won the Rock & Roll 400 (and he’s probably still celebrating) with Kurt Busch second and Jeff Gordon third, the guy who made the biggest move in the standings was Mark Martin, who finished fourth in the race but jumped all the way up to first place – an improvement of nine positions.

(By the way, Martin is exactly where he should be when winning and aggression are rewarded: he won four races, more than any other driver except Kyle B., and he won six poles. Vickers was the only other driver to do that.)

Several guys danced a little too close to the edge of the cliff for my liking, notably Juan Pablo Montoya. He had it on cruise control Saturday night and kept his nose clean but his 19^th-place finish dropped him three places in the standings and he finished 11^th – a little too close for comfort.

But it’s over, and here’s where we stand:

Martin is in first place, with four wins and six poles; Tony Stewart is second (3 wins, 0 poles); Jimmie Johnson is third (3, 1); Denny Hamlin is fourth (2, 0); Kasey Kahne is fifth (2, 0); Jeff Gordon is sixth (1, 0); Kurt Busch is seventh (1, 0); Vickers is eighth (0 wins, 6 poles); and Carl Edwards, Ryan Newman, Montoya and Biffle are ninth through 12^th respectively with 0 wins and 0 poles each.

The first race in the Chase takes place next Sunday afternoon at New Hampshire International Raceway. They will then race every weekend through to the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 22

Every race except one – Charlotte on Oct. 17 – will be on a Sunday afternoon. The Charlotte event will be a Saturday night contest, with the green flag scheduled for 7 p.m.

NOTES

– Tony Stewart and Gene Haas formed Stewart-Haas Racing over the winter of 2008-09. The infrastructure was in place – Haas CNC Racing had been operational since 2002. The new team is frequently called the "Hendrick B-Team" as it gets it engines from Hendrick Motorsports and also receives technical support.

Be that as it may, the fact that Stewart and Stewart-Haas Racing’s other driver, Ryan Newman, are both in the Chase is astounding and good for them.

– Kyle Busch must have finally listened and sought out some media training because he was a changed man in defeat on Saturday night.

He missed the Chase by eight points. Ordinarily – at least, this has been the pattern for much of 2009 – he would ignore the reporters and stomp off and not talk to anybody. On Saturday night, he was eloquent and gracious – the complete opposite of what we’ve come to expect.

He even indicated that perhaps "the good Lord" had put him in that position to see how he’d react.

And he did very nicely, thank you.