Denny Hamlin hopes he’s finally put his frustration behind him, not only at Martinsville Speedway, but throughout the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
Hamlin had twice finished in the top three on the smallest, tightest track in the series, and said he felt like bad luck had let several other wins slip away, too.
At Atlanta three weeks ago, he had just moved into second place when his power steering failed. Then in the last race at Bristol, a fuel pickup problem on the restart of a two-lap sprint to the finish cost him a chance to win, and he finished sixth.
For 389 laps, the race looked like it would be another victory for Hendrick Motorsports at the track it has dominated by winning eight of the last 10 races.
Hendrick drivers led 371 of those laps, but Hamlin and fellow Virginia native Burton made decisions under the next-to-last caution that allowed them to move up front.
Hamlin then ruined Burton’s decision to stay out while the rest of the leaders pitted, passing him on the 427th lap and holding on for his fourth career victory.
Spain’s Dani Pedrosa grabbed the world championship lead with a dominant display in Sunday’s Spanish MotoGP. The Repsol Honda rider set a cracking pace after starting from second on the grid, serving notice of his intentions by setting a new lap record on the second lap. He quickly left his rivals in his wake, leading all the way to notch up his 28th career win and fifth in MotoGP. Italian Valentino Rossi finished second at 2.883sec with Pedrosa’s Spanish teammate Jorge Lorenzo third at 4.339.
Per Dani Pedrosa è la quinta vittoria in MotoGP in carriera. Ed ha un sapore speciale, perché conquistata davanti ai suoi 130mila tifosi e con un margine ampio su tutti gli altri (2″883 su Rossi, 4″339 su Lorenzo). Per Valentino, al podio numero 100 in carriera (il primo con gomme Bridgestone) il secondo posto è un buon segnale sulla strada verso il Mondiale, mentre il vecchio re, Casey Stoner, mastica amaro.
A Target Chip Ganassi Racing entry, this one driven by former series champion Scott Dixon, won the season-opener for the third straight year. He took the lead late in the 200-lap race when Tony Kanaan, another former champion, ran out of luck.
And, while none of the newcomers making the transition from the Champ Car World Series to the newly unified IndyCar series were able to compete with the leaders, forecasts of disaster proved wrong and the newcomers generally stayed out of the way of the faster cars and out of trouble.
Dixon, the New Zealand driver who lost the IRL IndyCar Series championship to Dario Franchitti when he ran out of fuel on the last lap of the 2007 season, got off to a great start with the victory in the Gainsco Auto Insurance Indy 300.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen won the Malaysian Grand Prix from Robert Kubica’s BMW and Heikki Kovalainen’s McLaren as Felipe Massa spun out from second position and Lewis Hamilton suffered a pit-stop problem that limited him to fifth.
Arriva in Malesia, seconda gara della stagione, il primo acuto 2008 della Ferrari. Vince Kimi Raikkonen, davanti a Robert Kubica e ad Heikki Kovalainen. Ottimo 4° Trulli. Se il GP d’Australia era stato la sagra degli errori, di tutti meno che della McLaren, in Malesia trionfa la costanza e l’affidabilità della rossa. Non di Felipe Massa: il testa coda del brasiliano a 26 giri dal termine - quando si trovava in 2ª posizione - costringe a fare i conti con una doppietta mancata e due “0″ in due settimane nella classifica costruttori. Non sta meglio la McLaren: l’errore al primo pit stop che ha messo fuori gioco Hamilton.
Jeff Burton wins the 2008 Food City 500 at Bristol. He became visibly upset in August when it was suggested that the newly resurfaced Bristol Motor Speedway had gone from one of NASCAR’s most exciting tracks to one of the most boring.
It didn’t seem so ridiculous with three laps left in Sunday’s scheduled 500-lap race at what is advertised as the “world’s fastest half-mile.” Other than a few spinouts and minor incidents, the world’s best stock car drivers might as well have been at California Speedway, there was so little drama.
Kevin Harvick got into the side of Tony Stewart’s car trying to pass inside for second place. That sent Stewart first into a spin, then into a verbal tirade.
On the ensuing green-white-checkered finish, Burton flew past Stewart’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Denny Hamlin, for the lead and pulled away for his first Bristol victory.
Harvick finished second and Clint Bowyer third to give Richard Childress Racing a podium sweep on a day that belonged to JGR — Stewart, Hamlin and Kyle Busch led 372 of what turned into 506 laps with six laps of overtime.
Then the real Bristol fireworks began, and not the ones flaring over the track as Burton did his burnout.
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton avoided the mayhem around him to open the Formula One season with a pole-to-flag victory in a crash-strewn Australian Grand Prix. The 23-year-old Briton, last year’s rookie sensation, finished 5.4 seconds ahead of Germany’s Nick Heidfeld in a BMW Sauber. Germany’s Nico Rosberg celebrated the first podium of his Formula One career with third place for Williams in a sweltering race that saw only seven of the 22 starters still running at the finish and neither Ferrari reach the chequered flag.
GP d’Australia pieno di errori: il pilota McLaren non sbaglia e vince davanti a Heidfeld (BMW) e Rosberg (Williams). Due rosse ferme per guasto tecnico nella stessa gara dopo 11 anni, ma Raikkonen è classificato 8° grazie alla squalifica di Barrichello. Alonso 4°.
Toyota general manager Lee White stood just inside the iron fence that surrounds Victory Lane at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday and watched Kyle Busch celebrate the first Sprint Cup win for the foreign manufacturer.
Somewhat overshadowing Busch’s first win with Joe Gibbs Racing were the overwhelming complaints about the hard tires Goodyear brought to the new car’s first trip to the 1.54-mile speedway.
Second-place Tony Stewart, Busch’s teammate, went so far as to say Goodyear should pull out of the sport and let Hoosier or Firestone build tires if Goodyear can’t do better.
Third-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. was so frustrated he was thinking of attending a Goodyear tire test on Monday at Darlington, even though he’s not one of the drivers scheduled to attend.
The opening round of the 2008 MotoGP season, and first ever grand prix to be held at night, has been won by reigning world champion Casey Stoner after the Ducati star fought his way past some determined rivals to repeat his Qatar victory of one year ago. Despite qualifying fourth on the grid, behind three Michelin-shod Yamahas, Stoner was a firm pre-race favourite - but the young Australian had to work hard before he finally hit the front, on lap 8 of 22. Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa got a lightening start from eighth on the grid to lead the 18-rider field into the first turn of the 2008 season, with rookie James Toseland and Tech 3 Yamaha team-mate Colin Edwards second and third, just ahead of rookie pole sitter Jorge Lorenzo of the factory team. Valentino Rossi began his first grand prix with Bridgestone tyres by gaining two positions through the opening turns, placing the seven-times world champion between new team-mate Lorenzo and sixth-placed Stoner.
Tutti dietro a Casey Stoner. E’ davvero notte fonda per tutti gli avversari del piccolo grande australiano della Ducati, autore di una super prestazione nella prima gara del Mondiale disputata tra i riflettori del Qatar.
Nella prima corsa in notturna della storia della MotoGP, il campione del mondo ha imposto la sua legge dominando con il numero uno sul capolino, qualcosa che dà più gusto dopo che qualcuno aveva cercato di sminuire il valore della sua vittoria 2007. Oggi Casey è stato doppiamente bravo: malgrado una partenza non perfetta è rimasto calmo. Ha lasciato che Pedrosa, Rossi e soprattutto Lorenzo si scatenassero, poi all’ottavo giro è passato al comando e ha acceso il turbo della sua Ducati, ancora una volta superlativa.
Australian riders took the honours in the second round of the HANNspree Superbike World Championship at Phillip Island in front of a 65,400 crowd.
Troy Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) dominated both Superbike races, while Andrew Pitt clinched the Supersport win. Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italia) and Michel Fabrizio (Ducati Xerox) took the other two podium positions in the first Superbike encounter, while Spaniards Carlos Checa (HANNspree Ten Kate Honda) and Fonsi Nieto (Alstare Suzuki) were second and third in race 2.
It was a disastrous weekend for Max Biaggi (Sterilgarda Ducati), who started from 16th on the grid and then had two crashes in two races, the second of which left him nursing a broken wrist.
Una doppia caduta vanifica le strepitose rimonte di Max Biaggi nella Superbike in Australia. Nel secondo incidente il pilota romano si è fratturato il radio del braccio sinistro. Il trionfo dello scatenato Troy Bayliss lancia la Ducati in fuga nel Mondiale mentre Biaggi scivola in settima posizione a -52 punti dalla vetta dopo appena due GP dei quindici previsti. “A rovinare tutto è stata la posizione di partenza in quarta fila, quando parti così dietro non sai mai quello che può succedere” ha spiegato un Biaggi affranto nel dopo corsa. Race 1:
Making his second visit in six days to Victory Lane, Carl Edwards triumphantly raised the glittering gold belt he earned at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
In a town known for title fights, Edwards emerged as a heavyweight contender Sunday. Just three races into this new season, it’s far too early to call Edwards the favorite to win the Sprint Cup title.
And this win may not be controversy free: NASCAR discovered the lid was off of his oil tank box during postrace inspection and is taking the parts back to North Carolina for further inspection.
