Scientology enters the ranks of NASCAR sponsors

Scientology enters the ranks of NASCAR sponsors
It's a concept that has endless potential for comic relief, if the recent antics of Tom Cruise and the media scrutiny thereof is any indication. Scientology is presumably making an effort to broaden its appeal by getting involved in NASCAR and sponsoring the Ignite Your Potential racing team. The team's Ford Taurus, driven by Kenton Gray, indicates that the late L. Ron Hubbard himself is the inspiration behind this effort -- the Dianetics logo and replica of the book's cover will adorn the vehicle.

What's next? A team based out of Salt Lake City that encourages multiple drivers for its car? Or maybe a station wagon with a little ichthus on the back... the possibilities are endless.

Burton charges from 36th to win at Dover

Burton charges from 36th to win at Dover
Jeff Burton had the biggest come-from-behind win ever in a Busch Series race at Dover International Speedway, overcoming a 36th-place starting position for his second victory of the season Saturday.
Burton, eighth in the Nextel Cup standings, grabbed the lead for good with 18 laps left and pulled away to win the caution-marred race. He has 22 career Busch victories.
"We were really good, but on long runs we were unbelievably good," Burton said. "The car was fast all day. The race at the end was a lot of fun. It doesn't get much better than that."

Carl Edwards, who led most of the early laps, finished second for his sixth top-five finish of the season. Kurt Busch was third as the Cup regulars again dominated the series.

Burton's win made Nextel Cup regulars a perfect 14-for-14 in Busch races this season. He also won in Atlanta.

The race was slowed by eight cautions for 34 laps, which knocked several drivers out of the race. There were 11 lead changes among eight drivers.

Rain wiped out qualifying, putting series points leader Kevin Harvick on the pole. Harvick finished 13th and increased his lead on Edwards to 297 points.

"That was probably racing at its finest," Busch said. "That turned into a great race to watch."

Burton, making only his seventh Busch start of the season, said there was less pressure on his team starting from the back because they weren't really racing for series points.

"I told them before it started raining it would be cool if it rained," Burton said. "The opportunity to start in the back, I didn't look it as a detriment, I looked at it as something that could be fun and unique."

Clint Bowyer led 62 laps and finished fourth. Ron Hornaday Jr. and Kyle Busch rounded out the top six. Hornaday's finish was his highest since 2004.

Edwards led as late as the 149th lap, but he couldn't regain the lead after he decided to pit for new tires under caution with 49 laps remaining. Burton was one of only five drivers on the lead lap who stayed out, and that was enough to finally surge past Kurt Busch on No. 182.

"I got up to second and I couldn't catch him," Edwards said. "I think we did everything we could, but he had a faster car or he did a better job driving, one of the two."

Edwards was second for the second day in a row after losing to Mark Martin on Friday night in the Craftsman Truck Series race. He'll start the Cup race Sunday in 25th and hopes for a better result in the tripleheader.

"I'd really like to win one of these things this weekend," Edwards said. "That would be a pretty good one to win."

Scott Wimmer held the Dover record for largest comeback, charging from 26th place to win in 2002.

Driver injuries managed closely in new NASCAR

Driver injuries managed closely in new NASCAR
The first person Tony Stewart met with after driving a handful of practice laps around Dover International Speedway on Saturday was crew chief Greg Zipadelli.
Al Shuford was the second.
Certified athletic trainers typically don't hang out in the Nextel Cup garage. According to Shuford, there are only two -- Phil Horton of Chip Ganassi Racing and Lance Munksgard of MB2 Motorsports -- besides him in the series.

But as the sport continues to grow so does the importance of keeping the marquee players healthy. That was driven home again when Stewart broke his right shoulder blade a week ago at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"What we've done is taken the old-fashioned concept of what we do as certified athletic trainers in other sports and taken it to a different venue,'' said Shuford, a former trainer for the NFL's Carolina Panthers.

Washington Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs, the owner of Joe Gibbs Racing, introduced Shuford to NASCAR in 1999 when Bobby Labonte suffered an injury similar to the one that will keep Stewart from going past the first couple of cautions in Sunday's 400-mile race.

He hired Shuford full time in 2000 and set up a complete rehabilitation center that has continued to expand.

Shuford has done everything from rehabilitate the torn ligaments of pit crew members to nursing the hand of driver Denny Hamlin, who recently needed 19 stitches from an injury suffered while frolicking around the hauler.

"When the boss comes and thanks me for taking care of Denny, it means something,'' Shuford said. "He's got experience in this with the [NFL]. He understands and appreciates a lot more than most everything it takes to keep everything going.''

Shuford has spent the past week making sure Stewart is comfortable enough to start the race and collect all the points necessary to remain in contention for a second consecutive title. He's fitted him with a new state-of-the-art brace and put him through hourly treatments.

He also has worked with helping Stewart exit the car most effectively and comfortably after the first caution or two so that relief driver Ricky Rudd can finish.

Stewart doesn't downplay Shuford's importance.

"I couldn't do this by myself,'' he said as he watched a fishing show in the back of his hauler.

Years ago, drivers did this by themselves. Many hid the fact that they were injured in order to compete.

In 1984, Rudd taped his eyes open with duct tape so he could run the Daytona 500 with a concussion.

"I didn't know there was but one way at the time,'' the 49-year-old Rudd said. "I just had a golden opportunity in front of me to drive for Bud Moore in a legendary operation. And here I was hurt.

"I guess I was too stubborn to turn that steering wheel to somebody else.''

Shuford said drivers with Stewart's injury used to tape themselves to the seat to cut back on movement and subsequent pain.

Stewart wasn't given the luxury of deciding what to do this weekend. The decision was made by a committee that consisted of JGR president J.D. Gibbs, vice president Jimmy Makar, Zipadelli and Shuford in consultation with other medical staff.

The decision was made to speed up the healing process enough that Stewart will be ready to run next week at Pocono without much discomfort.

"Deciding what's going to be best for him long term, what's going to be best for our group long term?'' Shuford said. "And taking the sport out of it, what's going to be best for Tony the next 50 years of his life? That's how we make our decisions, not on the short term and now.''

Shuford fitted Stewart with a brace made by AlignMed. The device was brought to his attention by a member of the company who saw Stewart's crash on television.

Shuford said the brace is more advanced than the one he used on Labonte in 1999 in that it optimizes scapular motion, increases rotator cuff strength and equally distributes the forces that go through the spine during normal driving.

"He likes it,'' Shuford said of Stewart, still wearing the brace that isn't visible underneath the driver's suit. "It took the pressure off significantly. And I added a little something extra under it to add a little more feeling of comfort and security to it.''

Shuford said the brace and initial adrenalin rush could make Stewart feel so comfortable he might want to stay in the car longer than planned.

"We are leaving it up to him based on his comfort and his [pain] level,'' he said.

But the plan remains for Stewart to exit early. If recent history holds true, the first caution will come out between Laps 3 and 15.

"Jimmy Makar and I were laughing about this last night,'' Shuford said. "When Bobby did his and the first caution came out [on Lap 10] he kept driving. We had this agreement, 'Dude, when the first caution comes out, get out of the car and Matt Kenseth is going to drive.'

"So when the first caution came out he said on the radio, 'This feels pretty good. I think I'm going to drive some more.' I remember looking at Jimmy like, 'What's up?' ''

Zipadelli said taking such decisions out of the driver's hand is smart business, particularly with the new Chase format that doesn't allow for as many slipups with the season divided into segments of 26 and 10 races.

"You could basically throw out a couple of races when it was just a 36-race schedule,'' he said. "Before, you could just work on consistency. Now you've got to be ready every week.

"The more and more competitive it gets, the closer they make cars, you've got to do everything you can to get an advantage.''

Getting Stewart ready has kept Shuford hopping. He's spent the weekend giving Stewart ice treatments, electrical muscle and bone stimulation, and limited exercise that simulates turning a steering wheel.

"Basically, we started the process of getting him comfortable and getting more functional outside the car at first,'' he said. "And then everything will transfer inside the car.''

Shuford expects the driver transfer to run smoothly. He's worked on getting Stewart to rotate his body and use his left arm for leverage as he positions for a crew member to pull him out.

"He can use his right arm,'' said Shuford, who is constantly telling Stewart not to hold his right arm across his chest like Napoleon Bonaparte. "He's able to resist and protect himself. He's just a little apprehensive using it getting in and out.''

Shuford's goal is to have Stewart, fourth in the points, running at full strength in four to five weeks so he'll be ready for the final 10 races.

His goal is to have the entire organization at full strength for the Chase.

"I told them y'all might as well get your injuries in now,'' Shuford said with a laugh. "When it gets toward the Chase I'm going to be out of the body part business.''

Sponsor's concerns limit Junior's non-Cup racing

Sponsor's concerns limit Junior's non-Cup racing
DOVER, DEL. -- There's a reason Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn't run more races outside the Nextel Cup Series.
His primary sponsor won't let him.
Discussing the injury risk when drivers take their Cup careers outside the series -- as reigning champion Tony Stewart did in the Busch Series last week at Lowe's Motor Speedway -- Earnhardt said Budweiser has the first say.
"I got a deal where I can only run X amount [outside Cup] a month,'' Earnhardt said as he prepared for Sunday's Cup race at Dover International Speedway. "They want the consistency for the fans seeing me in a red car.
"They really don't want to see me in a Taco Bell or KFC car. Bud would rather have me in a red Bud Car. That's why I don't really get the opportunity to run more than I want.''

Earnhardt said the clause was in his contract before he suffered severe burns in 2004 while driving a Corvette in a road race at Sonoma, Calif.

"That's the Bud side of it, which is understandable,'' said Earnhardt, whose performance suffered for several races while the burns healed. "I'd like to drive my own Busch cars, but I don't know if that's possible through your commitments to DEI. You get yourself in a couple of spider webs and it's hard to get out of 'em.''

Earnhardt doesn't like the limitations. He doesn't think any driver, including Stewart, should be told what to do with free time.

"We do have a responsibility to show up and drive Cup cars every week,'' he said. "As a businessman, you've got a responsibility to show up and make sure you're on time for your job.
"At the same time, who is anybody to tell Tony Stewart what to do with his time? If he wants to race, he should race. If he wants to fly a kite, he can fly a kite. I mean, whatever he wants to do, he ought to be able to make that choice himself.''

Points leader Jimmie Johnson agreed. At the same time, Johnson needs written permission from Hendrick Motorsports and Lowe's before driving outside of Cup.

"The thing that makes us drivers who we are and perfect our skills is the fact that we're in cars,'' Johnson said. "Then on top of that, in different cars. Everything that I've done in race cars has taught me a lot.
"It's that whole balance of what the car owner and sponsor are willing to risk, if they're willing to allow you to go out and risk injury, if they're willing to let you be yourself and do your thing. Drivers, we just want to drive anything that has wheels on it.''

But injuries such as the one that will force Stewart to turn his car over to relief driver Ricky Rudd early in Sunday's race makes some think twice about racing outside of Cup.

"You just have to think about it,'' Kasey Kahne said. "You don't want to put yourself in a bad position. Obviously, as a driver you're always trying to win, so sometimes it's hard not to put yourself in a bad position.''

Kahne said he plans to race Sprint cars later this season and reminded he raced at the Chili Bowl earlier this year when Stewart suffered a rib injury after flipping his midget car.

"Things happen,'' Kahne said. "You hate it happens, but things do happen. Hopefully, Tony is done getting hurt."

Mayfield hopes front-row start turns 'terrible' year

Mayfield hopes front-row start turns 'terrible' year
DOVER, Del. -- If Evernham Motorsports' Jeremy Mayfield and his No. 19 Dodge Charger team are simply racing for pride the rest of this season, the direction they've hit in recent weeks is definitely promising.

Mayfield, the only Evernham driver to make the first two editions of the Chase for the Nextel Cup, qualified on the front row Friday for the Neighborhood Excellence 400 presented by Bank of America at Dover International Speedway.

It's the second week in a row that Mayfield's qualified second, but when he and Ryan Newman lead the 43-car field to the green Sunday, the irony will hang over them heavier than the steamy humidity plaguing the Delaware coast.

Both men are two-time Chase competitors and both are mired deep in the standings this season. Mayfield, in particular, has been plagued by abysmal luck and is 35th in the owner standings.

The one thing that's been a constant for him and his crew, led by team director Chris Andrews, is high spirits that were much in evidence at Dover.

"We are good enough to run in the top 15 every week," Andrews said. "We have run in the top 15 a lot, we just haven't finished there.

"We plan to win the race every week and we bring cars that are capable of winning races. Obviously Kasey [Kahne, teammate] has won three races and Scott Riggs has run well at a lot of racetracks.

"We've run well at a lot of racetracks and just not been able to finish. We hope to run better every week and to work on finishing where we deserve. I don't expect we'll make the Chase from where we are in the points right now, but we can certainly win some races."

Mayfield is taking the same tack.

"I'm not frustrated about the points anymore -- I'm over that," Mayfield said. "I've crossed the hump on being frustrated. It's been a weird year for me. It's been terrible."

According to Andrews, Mayfield's been involved in five accidents this season. If that weren't bad enough, the team had another engine failure.

It leaves them far from the top 10 and battling to remain in the locked-into-the-starting-field top 35.

"We keep hammering and you get tough," Mayfield said. "It's like, 'bring it on. Is that all you've got?' That's our attitude right now.

"We had trouble in the all-star race and came back with a good car last week [in the Coca-Cola 600] and had some trouble there."

The "trouble" at Lowe's Motor Speedway was a collapsed spring that left the car too low in a random post-race inspection after finishing 15th. The car was 1/16th of an inch under the quarter-inch tolerance NASCAR gives teams.

The penalties included 25-point deductions for Mayfield and owner Ray Evernham. Although Andrews said the infraction was "inadvertent," it left Mayfield 56 points behind 34th-place Dave Blaney and 114 points ahead of 36th-place Scott Wimmer in the owner standings.

"They give us rules and we were outside those tolerances, so the penalty was fair," Andrews said. "When other people have had similar situations, everyone speculates about what they were doing or how they were cheating.

"This was nothing like that, it was just slightly outside the tolerances. But there are things in 16th-inch and 8th-inch increments that will make these cars go faster and slower every week -- and everyone knows what they are.

"We push everything as hard as we can, we came up random for inspection and we were a 16th low. Some of the adjustments we made during the race might have contributed to that, but when you make the adjustments during the race you have to think about that."

Mayfield said the current set-up practices leave the cars with very little front suspension travel at speed.

"I felt something going in the [Coca-Cola 600]," Mayfield said. "I thought a spring had collapsed on us, and that's what happened. That's what you've got [because] the springs we run these days can't physically hold the car up."

At Dover on Friday, Mayfield overcame a loose car that he said cost him his first Bud Pole since September 2004, also at Dover.
"We got real loose coming to the green, and I thought for sure we were going to wreck," Mayfield said. "I gathered my thoughts and got in a good second lap.

"I know if I had got my first lap we would have beat [Newman]. This is my racetrack [so] it'll probably be a good race for us Sunday."

Given the point situation -- 439 out of 10th with 14 races remaining until the cutoff to the Chase -- Mayfield isn't waiting until mid-summer to declare the point of no return.

"We have to get better," Mayfield said. "We've got to step it up -- we don't have a choice."

Mayfield said sending engineer Josh Browne to the racetrack to work with him is paying off.

"He's been with us the past three or four weeks, and he's helped bridge that communication gap," Mayfield said of Browne. "I really feel confident with what he's done and what he's done with me in the past.

"We're all working together well. It hasn't shown yet. Last week we were better than where we finished, it cost us some points, but I'm not worried about points now.

"We've just got to worry about making races now and getting high enough in the points not to miss them. I'm proud of these guys."

"We don't really feel like we're a 35th place team -- but a lot of people have suggested we're really struggling," Andrews said. "We have struggled at a few races this year, but I think everybody in the garage has struggled at a few races.

"But we're finally getting to qualify better and we're racing better -- and hopefully we'll start finishing some races better here, real soon."
Source: Nascar

Kyle Busch gets fined by NASCAR & sent to his room without dinner

Kyle Busch gets fined by NASCAR & sent to his room without dinner
Kyle Busch, apparently gunning for the Ron Artest Sportsman Award and determined to displace Robby Gordon as one of America's favorite "love to hate" stars in stock-car racing, had his wallet dinged to the tune of $50,000 for throwing a safety device onto the racetrack during Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 event at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The intended victim of the lob was Casey Mears, in what appears to be a continuation of the lovefest between the two drivers (earlier in the season, Busch tapped Mears during a red flag).

In addition to the financial penalty - tied for the second-largest ever levied by NASCAR - Mears was hit with a 25-point penalty and put on "probation" for the rest of the season. Car owner Rick Hendrix was also docked 25 points.