Birthday boy looking good
By DAVE D’ONOFRIO
Monitor staff
LOUDON – In a history that spans 61 seasons, and 2,236 races, only three times has a NASCAR driver celebrated his birthday with a Sprint Cup Series victory.
Though the fourth could well be coming this afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where the now-34-year-old driver of the No. 42 Chevrolet certainly looks like the Juan to beat.
A day after winning the pole with a track-record qualifying lap, Juan Pablo Montoya showed his Impala is pretty good in race trim, too, posting the fastest lap in each of the morning’s practices and solidifying himself as the favorite for the Sylvania 300.
There wasn’t a speed chart all weekend on which Montoya’s name wasn’t at the top, starting with Friday’s first practice, then continuing through qualifying and carrying into yesterday, when he put to rest any thought his earlier speed might’ve been the product of a car tricked up for time trials.
In the first session yesterday he made it around the 1.058-mile oval in 29.269 seconds – and still he managed to get faster as the day went on, and the track got heated. During happy hour he turned the track in 29.214 ticks, but most impressive about that run was the distance he left between himself and the next quickest car.
Martin Truex Jr. was second fastest, but he was more than half a mile per hour slower than Montoya, who was the only car to crack 130. Additionally, the speed gap between Montoya and Truex was wider than the gap between Truex and Ryan Newman, who was 12th fastest.
Now the task for Montoya is to keep that advantage – and it won’t be easy, given that most of his fellow Chase for the Cup competition was also quick by the end of yesterday’s session. Kurt Busch was third-fastest, Mark Martin was fourth and Jimmie Johnson fifth. Denny Hamlin (seventh), Jeff Gordon (eighth) and Tony Stewart (10th) made it seven Chasers among the top 10, while Newman (12th), Kasey Kahne (14th), Brian Vickers (18th) were solid as well.
Greg Biffle was 20th, while Carl Edwards was 29th, meaning the Roush Fenway Racing teammates will have some work to do throughout the race today. But then again, as Edwards foresaw on Friday, it looks as though all the Chasers have work to do to catch up with Montoya.
“I think,” Edwards said, “Juan Montoya has just as good a chance as Jimmie Johnson with the way he's been running.”
CONCORD CONNECTION
After sealing the deal on Friday night over dinner at The Draft, Concord-based company The Employment Initiative will have a presence in today’s Cup race.
The EmployInIt.com logo will ride on the front nose and rear quarter panel of the No. 71 car driven by former Cup champion Bobby Labonte, who’s racing this week for TRG Motorsports. The decision came after officials from the company watched qualifying on Friday, and saw Labonte land a spot on the fourth row. He’ll take the green flag eighth this afternoon.
BUSCH HITS ANOTHER TRIPLE
Yesterday New Hampshire became the sixth track at which Kyle Busch has won a Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck series race, and to appreciate that accomplishment consider this: Only 20 drivers in history have won even one race in each of NASCAR’s three national series.
And he’s 24 years old.
EDDIE BOBBY
Eddie MacDonald now knows what Ricky Bobby was talking about in Talladega Nights -- because he lived by the “If you ain’t first, you’re last” philosophy this weekend.
MacDonald won Friday night’s Camping World East race, then last night’s American-Canadian Tour event – and in between he wrecked his car four laps into the Whelen Modified contest. That left him 39th in that contest, worst among the cars that came to green.
Still, it was a stellar weekend amid a strong season for MacDonald, who goes to Dover next weekend within 30 points of the East Series lead and also has a win at the Oxford 250 to his credit. That’s a big win in New England racing, as was last night’s win in NHMS’s inaugural ACT event.
“It’s right up there,” MacDonald said when asked to compared the ACT win to his Oxford triumph. “It’s too bad the purse wasn’t the same, but being the first one it’s pretty special.”
MacDonald received $3,500 for his win last night.
GRANITE PRIDE
Center Harbor’s Brad Leighton ranked as the top finisher among the New Hampshire contingent in the ACT race, finishing seventh overall. Hudson’s Joey Polewarczyk placed 10th.
INSIDE THE OVAL
*With a lap of 29.758 seconds, Mike Skinner edged Kyle Busch for the pole in yesterday’s Camping World Truck Series race. Points leader Ron Hornaday started alongside Austin Dillon – Richard Childress’s grandson – on the second row.
*Greg Biffle’s neighbors initially thought it was thunder and lightning, but the loud explosion they heard at his North Carolina home early Friday morning was actually fueled by a gas leak. On the way to a lamp, the gas built up in an exterior column on the front of the house and blew up – but nobody was hurt, and there was apparently minimal damage.
*Cup driver Ryan Newman seized the lead late in yesterday’s Modified race, but after falling from the front couldn’t find a partner who wanted to ride on the inside lane with him, so he finished eighth.
*There was no official word on yesterday’s attendance, though it may have been the best-attended Saturday in Loudon’s recent history. One grandstand was blocked off, but the stands stretching from the exit of turn 4 to the middle of turns 1 and 2 were mostly full, with many of the patrons staying through the end of the ACT action.
*Two of the last three Cup races at New Hampshire have been shortened by rain – though, as of 7:30 last night, weather.com declared a 0 percent chance of precipitation for this afternoon. Green flag is at 2:15.
