Indy Champ Bobby

This Week in Auto Racing August 5 - 7

Sprint Cup Series</p><p>Good Sam RV Insurance 500 - Pocono Raceway - Pocono, PA</p><p>Lordy, Lordy, "Wonder Boy" is turning 40.</p><p>Jeff Gordon is getting older, but the four-time Sprint Cup Series champion is far from being over the hill in winning races and possibly another title.</p><p>Celebrating his 40th birthday on Thursday, no present would suit Gordon better than a win at Pocono Raceway this weekend.</p><p>Gordon won at Pocono in June, tying Bill Elliott for most victories at this track with five. He also picked up career win No.84, which matched him with Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip for third on the series' all-time race winners list.</p><p>"I'm going to be 40, but I'm not in the rocking chair yet," Gordon jokingly said after his most recent win at Pocono.</p><p>Gordon sat 13th in points when came to this track two months ago, but after finishing 11th or better in six of the last seven races, he's moved up to seventh in the standings. He has two wins so far this season and almost claimed his third last Sunday at Indianapolis.</p><p>"We didn't win Sunday, but that was a complete team effort," said Gordon, who finished second to surprise winner Paul Menard. "We had a fast race car, and we were solid on pit road. [Crew chief] Alan [Gustafson] called a great race. We need to do that every week, especially when the Chase starts. If we compete like that, we can win just about any place we go."</p><p>Gustafson will celebrate his 36th birthday on Friday.</p><p>While Gordon appears to be in good shape for a sixth straight appearance in the Chase, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr., might miss the playoffs for the third consecutive season if things don't turn around for him quickly.</p><p>Earnhardt Jr. has plummeted from third to 10th in points after finishing outside the top-10 in the last six races. He is currently 19 points ahead of 11th-place Denny Hamlin. His last top-10 came at Pocono with a sixth-place run.</p><p>"We'll go to Pocono and try not to let that overwhelm us or consume us," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We had a pretty decent finish there, but we'll try to do better."</p><p>Earnhardt Jr.'s winless streak has now stretched to 113 races.</p><p>With six races to go before the start of the Chase, Hamlin occupies the first wild card spot due to his win in June at Michigan.</p><p>Pocono has been one of Hamlin's best tracks on the circuit. He has won four races here, including two of the last four. Hamlin swept Pocono during his 2006 rookie-of-the-year season.</p><p>"It's one of those racetracks where I have a really good feel for," he said. "There's not too many tracks where you feel like when you pull in you just can't do any wrong. We felt like we should've won twice as many races there, even though we've won a lot.</p><p>"When we go there, we're in position to win the race just about every time. We've had the fastest car there about 80 percent of the time."</p><p>After his win at Indianapolis, Menard moved up to 14th in points and took over the second wild card position. David Ragan, 16th, is now the odd-man out.</p><p>Forty-seven teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Good Sam RV Insurance 500.</p><p>Nationwide Series</p><p>U.S. Cellular 250 - Iowa Speedway - Newton, IA</p><p>While the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series run at Pocono Raceway, the Nationwide Series heads to Iowa Speedway for the second time this season.</p><p>Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will seek redemption this weekend at Iowa after letting a win slip away from him last Saturday at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis. Stenhouse started on the pole and led a total of 189 laps before giving up the top spot to Brad Keselowski after a restart with a handful of laps to go.</p><p>Keselowski went on to claim his second victory of the season. James Buescher nipped Stenhouse at the finish line to take second.</p><p>It wasn't the first time Stenhouse was denied a win this season. In the June race at Michigan, he finished second to Roush Fenway Racing teammate Carl Edwards after Edwards passed him for the lead with nine laps remaining.</p><p>He also finished second to Edwards last month at Nashville.</p><p>"I just want to win these races," Stenhouse said. "I want to win as many as I can, but it's so hard to win them."</p><p>His third-place run in Indy allowed him to grab the points lead. He holds just a three-point advantage over Reed Sorenson, who finished ninth.</p><p>In May, Stenhouse captured his first Nationwide win at Iowa.</p><p>Stenhouse got off to a slow start during his Nationwide rookie season last year and almost lost his ride with Roush Fenway.</p><p>Now he's in the hunt for the title.</p><p>"That's what we've set out to do is win that championship," he said.</p><p>Elliott Sadler held the points lead before Indy but fell 24 points behind Stenhouse after his 16th-place finish there.</p><p>Sadler finished fifth in his first race at Iowa earlier this year.</p><p>"Iowa is a really unique racetrack," he said. "It's similar to Richmond International Raceway, but it has a little longer straightaways which gives the track more of a speedway feel. It's a bumpy racetrack, but we were able to take to it right away in May because of my experience with short tracks. One of the best races that we had this season was at Iowa, so I'm really looking forward to it."</p><p>Iowa will be the second of four "Dash 4 Cash" races in Nationwide this season. A $100,000 bonus will go to highest-finishing eligible driver. Reed Sorenson, Jason Leffler, Justin Allgaier and Iowa-native Michael Annett are the ones who qualify for this race. Sorenson claimed the bonus award from Nationwide Insurance last month at Daytona. He finished third in that race.</p><p>Richmond (September 9) and Charlotte (October 14) are the other two races on the bonus program.</p><p>Forty-three teams are on the preliminary entry list for the U.S. Cellular 250.</p><p>Edwards and Keselowski will attempt the Pocono/Iowa combo.</p><p>Camping World Truck Series</p><p>Good Sam RV Emergency Road Service 125 - Pocono Raceway - Pocono, PA</p><p>The Camping World Truck Series will run at Pocono Raceway for the second time on Saturday. Elliott Sadler won last year's inaugural truck race at Pocono. Sadler is not entered in this race, since he is competing in the Nationwide event at Iowa Speedway this weekend.</p><p>Austin Dillon's ninth-place finish compared to a 23rd-place run for Johnny Sauter in last Friday's race at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis allowed Dillon to trim Sauter's point lead to just four.</p><p>James Buescher continued his march towards the front in the point standings with a second-place finish in Indy. Buescher is now 20 points behind Sauter.</p><p>"We've been working hard on our trucks trying to find that little extra speed, and it has really paid off over the last couple of months," Buescher said. "We have shown the rest of the garage we are contenders each and every week."</p><p>Timothy Peters is not too far behind in the championship battle as well. Peters moved to within 22 points of the lead after his win at LOR.</p><p>Sauter has been atop the point standings for eight of the 13-race weeks.</p><p>Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Mark Martin are those Sprint Cup Series regulars competing in the truck race.</p><p>Busch will be back behind the wheel of his No.18 Toyota after a three-week hiatus, while Harvick will make his first truck start since May at Dover.</p><p>"It will be great to get back into the truck this weekend at Pocono," Harvick said. "I enjoy racing there because it's such a different track. The corners at Pocono are like nothing else you see at any other track we compete at in the Truck Series, and the bumps along the way really add some character."</p><p>Martin will make his first truck appearance since 2007, driving the No.32 Chevrolet for Turner Motorsports.</p><p>Twenty-nine teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Good Sam RV Emergency Road Service 125.</p><p>IZOD INDYCAR SERIES</p><p>Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio - Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course - Lexington, OH</p><p>After running its last two races in Canada, the IZOD IndyCar Series returns to the United States with this weekend's Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Mid-Ohio is the seventh of nine road/street course events on this year's schedule. Sonoma, CA (August 28) and Baltimore (September 4) are the final two.</p><p>Last month's races in Toronto and Edmonton featured a rash of accidents triggered by avoidable contact, and IndyCar officials have since cracked down on the aggressive driving.</p><p>On Tuesday, the sanctioning body announced Mike Conway, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alex Tagliani have each been placed on probation for the remainder of the year for "multiple instances of initiating avoidable contact" in several races this season.</p><p>Conway was penalized for avoidable contact with Ryan Briscoe at Toronto and Oriol Servia at Edmonton. Hunter-Reay was cited for the same violation after his encounter with Briscoe in the April 10 race at Barber Motorsports Park and Takuma Sato at Edmonton. Tagliani was in violation of the rule for his contact with Will Power at Toronto and Graham Rahal at Edmonton.</p><p>"We are disappointed in these actions, which have exhibited a pattern of driving that endangers on-track safety and adversely affects competition," IndyCar president of competition and operations Brian Barnhart said in a statement.</p><p>Per rule 9.3 of the 2011 IndyCar rule book, a competitor must not initiate or attempt to initiate avoidable contact that results in the interruption of another competitor's lap time or track position.</p><p>Now that IndyCar has taken action against aggressive driving, it's likely we'll see a calmer race at Mid-Ohio than what we've witnessed during the last several weeks.</p><p>Most of the 27 teams entered for the Mid-Ohio race tested here on July 28.</p><p>"The competition is so tight, which is one of the reasons we were here for testing," Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon said. "What worked last year may not work this year."</p><p>Dixon won the inaugural race at Mid-Ohio in 2007 and then claimed his second victory here two years later.</p><p>His teammate, Dario Franchitti, is the defending race winner.</p><p>"It's a physical track, a very tough track," Franchitti said. "It's one of the last real traditional road courses we have in the U.S., along with Road America [in Elkhart Lake, WI]. I finally won there last year, and I'm very proud of that."</p><p>Franchitti currently holds a 38-point lead over Will Power.

Donald Davidson Remembers Three-Time Indy 500 Champion Bobby Unser ...

Unser has been no less controversial as a former driver, speaking his mind in private and public conversations.

He made the Indianapolis 500 more interesting when he drove in it, and he makes it more interesting today by expressing his opinions about it.  Some people are blessed with an ability to sugarcoat their feelings, and Bobby Unser isn’t one of them.

Maybe it’s age.  At some point in life, men seem to realize that their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs have an expiration date, and that not being unvarnished dilutes whatever effect they might have.  That might explain it, but I never remember Unser being any different.  He seems to have been born with the gift of transparency.

Love him or think he’s a wingnut, he sure could drive the hell out of a race car.

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