TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Garage Pass: Winning With A Butter Knife

ADVERTISEMENT

By TONY FABRIZIO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 11, 2008

So, among Formula One, the Indy Racing League and NASCAR, which has the most powerful cars? Anyone who doesn't follow racing closely might be surprised to learn that it's NASCAR's Sprint Cup cars.

The open-wheel cars of F1 and the IRL are much faster because they are lighter and have greater downforce, but according to John Darby, NASCAR's old-fashioned carbureted engines are cranking out the most power.

"We have more horsepower than any form of motor sports other than drag racing," Darby said during a conversation in which he was defending NASCAR's new car against criticism from drivers.

Sprint Cup engines, except for the restricted ones run at Daytona and Talladega, are producing about 825 horsepower. F1 engines, downsized in 2006, are at about 750 horsepower, and IRL engines are at 650 horsepower.

Anyone wanting to establish how good Kasey Kahne and crew chief Kenny Francis are surely would point to the fact they are winning with a make of car that hardly anyone is having success with.

Kahne and Francis have produced eight of Dodge's 13 victories, including two of the three this year, since the start of the 2006 season.

Here's a look at drivers who have won Sprint Cup races in a Dodge over the past three seasons:

Driver

Victories

Kasey Kahne - 8

Kurt Busch - 3

Juan Montoya - 1

Ryan Newman - 1

Kahne is the only Dodge driver ranked in the top 12 (he is ninth), and he is ranked 19 spots ahead of teammate Elliott Sadler.

CLASH OF TITANS AT LE MANS

Audi has won seven of the past eight 24 Hours of Le Mans races, but the winning car at this year's Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg could be hard pressed to hold off the faster, closed-cockpit Peugeots in the 76th running of the classic this weekend.

The high-tech Audi R10 TDI defeated Peugeot's newer 908 HDi last year at Le Mans and in March at Sebring (a Porsche Spyder from the LMP2 class won at Sebring), but the Peugeot has improved its durability and should be at its best this weekend.

Both the Audi and the Peugeot are powered by turbo-charged, diesel-burning power plants.

"It will probably be the toughest Le Mans race in which we have competed up to now," said Wolfgang Ulrich, head of Audi Motorsport. "However the bigger the challenge, the greater the motivation."

RESPECTING HIS ELDERS - OR NOT

If 18-year-old prodigy Joey Logano doesn't start choosing his words more carefully than he did after Saturday night's Nationwide Series race at Nashville, he's going to get on the wrong side of some veterans and other up-and-comers.

Making his second start in NASCAR's No. 2 division, Logano started from the pole and led 64 laps. A four-tire pit stop left him in traffic, and he crashed while racing in a tight group.

Frustrated after finishing 31st, Logano complained that the pit stop "put us back there in the trash," ostensibly meaning cars and drivers that weren't at his level. He also said he didn't learn much from driving a damaged car most of the rest of the race.

"You get out of everybody's way," he said. "You don't want to get in the mess, because you have nothing to gain. You don't feel like riding in the back with all the junk."

HE SAID IT

"Maybe if the right opportunity came about. But I believe the Nationwide Series is for developing crew members or drivers, and it's not necessarily where he Cup guys should race full-time." - Kurt Busch, on whether he would like to run full-time in Sprint Cup and the Nationwide Series like his brother, Kyle.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT