The Hot Pass

Stoked! Got it!

2011-07-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

The official photo!

Meet the Shell-Raisers!

2011-07-01T23:20:00.000-07:00

We've had a few changes to "my" crew and I thought it about time to update who is on the team and get some new pictures in their new sponsor colors! I had a ton of fun with them answering the car part question...and learned some very interesting things about them. Truth be told, our crew is still one of the tightest in the garage and the fact they still tolerate me bugging them all the time is truly appreciated! Thanks guys!

1000 is on it!

Jeffrey Thousand – Car Chief

31 (!) years at Penske

Hometown: St. Louis, MO

Nickname: “1000”

First job: Fabricator

Favorite Track: Bristol

Memorable Racing Experience: Winning the All Star Race and 600 at Charlotte.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? The engine - because he is always running!

Kristen’s Tidbit: Jeffrey has seen and done everything there is to do at Penske. He was one of Rusty’s favorites and has bucket loads of information and experience at his finger tips. One of the most respected guys in the sport who plays it straight but every now and again will surprise you by doing something completely wacky.

Ray and those long arms!

Ray Gallahan – Jackman

6 years at Penske

Hometown: Lake Helen, FL

Nickname: “Gorilla” (because his arm span is huge!)

First job: Ray worked at Auto Bell Car Wash during high school and the first year of college. “I was like their MVP guy in that I knew how to do anything there. Inside cleanup and vacuuming were my specialties.”

Favorite Track: Daytona

Memorable Racing Experience: 2007 sneaking into the Chase at Richmond and hearing over the radio “we are locked in.”

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Drive Shaft – because it’s not very complex!

Kristen’s Tidbit: I used to think of Ray as the “quiet intellectual” because he would always go on top the hauler and read. Ray found this pretty amusing given his choice of car part…

Jay enjoying the spoils of Victory!

Jay Hackney - Front Tire Changer

9 years at Penske

Hometown: St. Louis, MO

Nickname: “Hack”

First job: Jay worked with his father as a contractor but his dad fired him because he was being “lazy” and made him work in a saw mill. “My dad knew how hard the work was and he wanted me to get off on the right foot while I was getting out of school and having to do things on my own. I did everything from cutting and hauling the dropped trees to all the work at the mill. Dad was right, that was the hardest work I can imagine doing…” and once he learned his lesson his dad hired him back.

Favorite Track: Bristol

Memorable Racing Experience: 1^st Bristol win with Kurt

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Jay couldn’t think of a part he was comfortable with but on crew consensus they suggested he be the Splitter – because he is always at the front of the car and always digging!

Kristen’s Tidbit: Jay is the most humble guy on the crew and is never comfortable with all the accolades he often gets and very much deserves.

JB didn't have to change sponsors!

Jonathan Billy - Rear Tire Changer

8 months at Penske

Hometown: Detroit, MI

Nickname: “JB”

First job: Professional hockey player

Favorite Track: Bristol

Memorable Racing Experience: Sweeping the super speedway races with Harvick

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Chassis – because he is strong and solid.

Kristen’s Tidbit: JB is new to the #22 team and Penske Racing coming from the #29 team late last year.

"Ta Ta" the veteran...

Dave Littau - Front Tire Carrier

11 years at Penske

Hometown: El Paso, TX

Nickname: “TaTa” (started by Roy McCauley)

First job: Worked on Kenny Brightbill’s racing team.

Favorite Track: Rockingham or Texas

Memorable Racing Experience: Rusty’s last win at Martinsville

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Frame rails – because they last a loooong time and are an integral part of the car.

Kristen’s Tidbit: Dave is the “senior” member on the #2/22 having worked the longest on the same pit crew. Losing the Miller Lite sponsorship was particularly tough on Dave since he wore the familiar blue and gold for 10 years.

Larry always a goofball!

Larry Robinett - Rear Tire Carrier

12 years at Penske

Hometown: Garland, TX

Nickname: “Larrhole” (thanks to Fatback McSwain for this one)

First job: Cleaning in a corvette body shop.

Favorite Track: Bristol at night

Memorable Racing Experience: Winning Texas

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Air box – because he is full of the most hot air!

Kristen’s Tidbit: Larry’s laugh is infectious and he is one of the most gregarious guys on the crew. He’ll be the one posing for pictures with fans and ribbing his competitors. He also “yelled” at me the first time I was doing the behind-the-scenes videos in the pit because I said the adhesive they used on the tires was “glue.” Our friendship started right then!

Chris and his flowing locks...

Chris Williams – Gasman

6.5 years at Penske

Hometown: Lebanon, OH

Nickname: “C-Dub”

First job: Chris worked at a putt putt golf and arcade.

Favorite Track: Rockingham

Memorable Racing Experience: The first time he went to the track as a fan in 1994 to watch the first NASCAR Brickyard practice at Indy.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Motor Oil – because he keeps everyone “loose!.”

Kristen’s Tidbit: Chris is the son of Stevo, the rear end mechanic, and one of the few, if only, father/son combination who used to pit the car together when Stevo used to be our catch can man. Chris is also incredibly limber and strong to be able to hold the full fuel cans and get the wrench in the car for adjustments. I asked if he did yoga…nope!

Its SHOWTIME baby!

Josh Pech – 2^nd Fuel Can

3 years at Penske

Hometown: Mooresville, NC

Nickname: “Showtime” (for the record he tried to get out of telling me this but Larry called his bluff…)

First job: Construction

Favorite Track: Bristol

Memorable Racing Experience: Winning the Bud Shootout and the first Gatorade Duel this year at Daytona.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Naca duct (the ducts attached to the rear windows) – because he is a “breath of fresh air!”

Kristen’s Tidbit: Josh was to be the gas man for the #77 team before it folded. His sense of humor and work ethic has allowed him to quickly gel with the crew (being the breath of fresh air that he is…!)

Crazy...indeed

Chris Osborne – Spotter

3.5 years at Penske

Hometown: High Point, NC

Nickname: “Crazy”

First job: Collecting golf balls at age 8 at the local golf course/range (for FREE he adds...)

Favorite Track: Bristol for the night race

Memorable Racing Experience: His first Cup win in Phoenix working on Bobby Hamilton’s crew.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Throttle – because he likes to back the corner’s up and ease it into the corners…

Kristen’s Tidbit: Chris is our smooth-talking “Voice of Victory” that fans associate most with because we listen to him every week guiding Kurt through traffic. He is super laid-back, loved by all, and *always* sunburnt!

Fear the Beard!

Steve Reis – Race Engineer

3 years at Penske

Hometown: Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Nickname: “STEVEN” (in a voice like your mom would use)

First job: At the Green Giant factory sanitizing machinery after hours.

Favorite Track: Darlington for the Southern 500

Memorable Racing Experience: Winning the Bud Shootout and the Gatorade Duel with Kurt this year.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? The tires – because he is complicated and hard to understand!

Kristen’s Tidbit: Sonoma was the first time I had the pleasure of meeting Steve. Like all race engineers he was easy to spot because he is always carrying a clipboard and records everything…or it could have been the beard.

Spring-y like Tigger?

Jonathan Hassler – Race Engineer

4 years at Penske

Hometown: Greencastle, IN

Nickname: “Go Back On That”

First job: Go-Kart racer!

Favorite Track: Darlington

Memorable Racing Experience: Winning at Bristol with “Lil Gator” in the Nationwide Series.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? A spring – because “I love springs!”

Kristen’s Tidbit: Sonoma was also the first time I also met Jonathan, who graduated from Purdue University with an automotive engineering degree. Proving there’s a lot of brain power behind that pretty baby-face!

Darin looking for the canooter valve

Darin Russell – Engine Tuner

5.5 years at Penske

Hometown: Sunderland, MA

Nickname: “Meteor” or “D-Money”

First job: Picking cucumbers…(not sure if I buy this…)

Favorite Track: Texas for the “view”

Memorable Racing Experience: Being in Victory Lane with his parents at New Hampshire.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? The Canooter Valve – the “g-spot” of the engine (*cough cough*)!

Kristen’s Tidbit: Darin is tough to read sometimes, one minute he is deadly serious the next he is vogue-ing by the car! He definitely likes to mess with you (can you tell by his answers?) and has friends on nearly every team in the garage. You’ll never catch him without his old school converse and his puka shell necklace.

The infamous "Canooter Valve"...


Claims never been spit on by a llama...

Dave Nichols – Tire Specialist

4 years at Penske

Hometown: Macedon, NY

Nickname: “Mule”

First job: A farm hand at a llama ranch(!)

Favorite Track: Richmond for the racing

Memorable Racing Experience: His 1^st win in Pepsi 400 working for Roush #16 team.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Track bar – because he likes to move around…

Kristen’s Tidbit: Mule is easy going and gets along with everyone in the garage and always has tons of personal jokes going with the crew and does some pretty darn funny impressions.

Come on Dave, what car part would you be?!

Dave Hansen – Shock Specialist

2 years at Penske

Hometown: York, ME

Nickname: “Hansen”

First job: Mechanic

Favorite Track: New Hampshire

Memorable Racing Experience: Winning Indy with JGR

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Alas, Dave needs more time on this one – TBD!

Kristen’s Tidbit: Dave is the shy one on the team and is like a rare bird that you hardly ever spot until race day. You can always find him working in the hauler by the shock dyno machine or where ever there is shrimp being served.

Stevo waiting on more abuse...

Steve Williams - Underneath Mechanic

7 years at Penske

Hometown: Lebanon, OH

Nickname: “Stevo”

First job: Machinist

Favorite Track: Eldora

Memorable Racing Experience: When he was employed by PPI racing on Ricky Craven’s team and they beat Kurt by a fraction of a second at Darlington

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Brake pads – because he gets the most abuse!

Kristen’s Tidbit: Stevo always takes the time to answer my questions and explain what they are doing to the car for which I am eternally grateful! He is the one who got me hooked on the crew’s favorite Sweet and Sweaty Chicken wings and has a wood shop in his house that he wishes he could use more often.

Stretch modeling his new Tag Heuer glasses...

Eric Bailey – Front End Suspension Mechanic/Windshield Tear Off

6 years at Penske

Hometown: Olathe, KS

Nickname: “Stretch”

First job: Life Guard

Favorite Track: Kansas because its home

Memorable Racing Experience: Back to back Charlotte wins with Kurt

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Muffler bearing – because only the coolest cars have them. (Anyone else call BS on this?!)

Kristen’s Tidbit: Stretch is also one of my go-to guys for information on what the heck is going on. He likes to pick on me and be disagreeable with a smile and he tolerates a fair amount of ribbing right back. Don’t call him Eric because no one on the team would know who you were talking about…oh and apparently someone online thinks he loves cucumbers.

Wild Bill being "cool"...

Bill Spencer – Interior Mechanic & Fuel Support

5 years at Penske

Hometown: Brenham, TX

Nickname: “Wild Bill”

First job: Maintenance at a greenhouse.

Favorite Track: Indy

Memorable Racing Experience: Working as the car chief for AJ Foyt and winning the Indy 500 in 1999.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Air Conditioner – because he is so cool…!

Kristen’s Tidbit: Billy indulges me and makes me feel somewhat useful and very much part of the team by letting me do his “job” of pulling the tool bag around as the car goes through inspection. He is also excellent at cleaning windows and de-stinking helmets (and has a great sense of humor!)

Race cars don't have headlights George!

George Larrabee – Transport Driver

4 years at Penske

Hometown: South Portland, ME

Nickname: “Hero”

First job: Landscaper

Favorite Track: New Hampshire because first track he went to as a fan

Memorable Racing Experience: He couldn’t pick just one – first when he was congratulated personally by Dale Earnhardt Sr. for winning a Nationwide race at Loudon. Then winning the Daytona 500 with Newman and finally, winning the Nationwide Championship last year with Brad Keslowski.

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Headlights – because he is so bright!

Kristen’s Tidbit: George came to the #22 crew from the #12 this year to take over after Cindy and Stump left for MWR. For those of you who enjoyed the “hot lap” video with me around Sonoma, you can thank George for giving me his ticket to ride…and he always makes sure I have something to eat!

Gassy Greg! =)

Greg Sorber – Transport Driver

4 years at Penske

Hometown: Shickshinny, PA

Nickname: “Roadblock”

First job: Cleaning cars in his family’s business.

Favorite Track: Bristol

Memorable Racing Experience: Getting a “real” job at Penske Racing

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Carburetor – because he is full of gas!

Kristen’s Tidbit: Greg came to the #22 crew after starting on the #77 and is teamed up with George to haul the cars all over the country. Greg seems to be always doing something and rarely is standing still. He and George make a great comedy team as well…

Celebrating the radio's working at Sonoma!

David Perry – Trackside IT support

7 months at Penske

Hometown: Charlotte, NC

Nickname: “Brinks” (because he leaves a lot of cash at the casinos)

First job: Dishwasher

Favorite Track: Bristol

Memorable Racing Experience: This years race at Vegas where he royally screwed up the radios and they didn’t work…and the fact he is still employed and look how far he’s come!

If You Were a Car Part, What Would You Be? Antennae – because he is always searching for a signal!

Kristen’s Tidbit: With the technology involved in racing today and the complicated communication set ups on the new pit box, David’s skills are sorely needed…course his crew-mates would rip on him questioning what those skills actually are…but thankfully, we have another new teammate with a wicked sense of humor who fits right in.

(For the record, when asked what car part Steve Addington would be, the crew suggested the tailpipe – because he is always smokin’!)

Sonoma Race Report - VICTORY!

2011-06-29T18:27:00.000-07:00

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH! I just spent 2 hours writing this blog and when I went to post stupid Blogger said there was a conflict and when I hit the back button it was gone. CRAP!

Ok guess we will try again...here we go...and this time I will copy it before I try to post! Dang IT!


Hey Tez! I think you have some of this confetti!

It will be impossible for me to even articulate the absolute amazing experience it was to win at my home track in such dominant fashion. So I wont even try (again!) but do want to thank Kurt and the entire #22 crew for sharing a crazy fun race weekend with me!

Sunday started with me and Tez hitting up Starbucks yet again and getting to the track when the garage opened. Tez hung about while I got the schedule for the day and we met up a short while later at Jeff Gluck's tweet up. Word on the street was "Maaaacus" was going to make an appearance so I texted Tez the super secret squirrel password (Sonoma) to get past security and met him in Victory Circle.

Gotta say Gluck was a bit of a disappointment - the subject of Kurt's girlfriend came up in the tweet up and he asked how he could possibly ask about her in Kurt's media time. I said that probably wasn't the appropriate venue to ask in and he agreed. Well, not sure how many of you saw his article yesterday about Kurt's girlfriend - so he wrote about it by pretending to be high and might and not write about it. LAME! Anyway, we did meet some fellow tweeters and Tez got more quality time with Maaaacus (see his blog for pics!) and when Gluck asked everyone for their picks for the winner this week for the record I TOTALLY called it! =)

After the tweet up I headed back to the garage to try to finish up my interviews with the pit crew. They were coming up with some really funny stuff for what car part they would be...I hope to have the updated crew blog done by the end of the week!

The pits were open to the fans and RA6AN, Tez and CR were busy writing good luck messages on their favorite drivers pit walls. I found two of my favorite people wandering on pit lane...Rex and Brandon who are like family to me and who I lived with for nearly 10 years before getting married. It was their first race ever so I gave them the tour of our super swank pit box and managed to get them out on pit road by the cars as well, thanks to Tony, on of my buddies who is an official.

We Tony the Troublemaker wanted to make sure they were getting the full experience so he grabbed some poor girl out of the crowd and asked her to take a picture with a somewhat shocked Brandon...apparently this is what you do at a NASCAR race?

Tony also grabbed a girl for CR and Tez but I'll leave it up to them to post that since I don't want anyone getting in trouble...LOL

I had to get back in the garages to follow the car through inspection and do my informal job as the cutest tool bag girl on the circuit! This time we made it through inspection without problem. Thanks to Tez and CR who stuck around to get some pictures of me following the guys pushing the car out on to pit lane.

I had a bit of downtime once the car was ready to go so I grabbed some food and hung out with our guests at the hauler. We had quite a few visitors this weekend - several winemakers, a bigwig from Shell who came out from Houston along with the two women who star in the commercial with Kurt (the ones who wear the lab coat), also guys from Lennox and a family from Magellan. While we were chatting I couldn't help but snap a picture of Kurt's "beer cozy"...

If you read my previous posts you'll recall a public service announcement about sensible shoes. Well Kurt wasn't going to be in 6 inch platforms today but I am sure with all the shifting, braking and gassing he appreciated his extra padding.


The #6 crew Man Cave - but they said girls are allowed so you are all set Melissa!

I headed out to pit road for the pre-race festivities and got a good spot in the corner of the pit box to watch the action. Not much to see except turn 11 but with Kurt leading the whole race it didn't make too much difference! With Addington's aggressive call for the race there wasn't that many opportunities to catch our crew in action.

But the Red Bull team sure was busy...

And shortly there after the other teams around us were dealing with problems as well...

Sigh. He just hates Sonoma...

And so Junyer had to pack up and leave early knowing he couldn't compete for my attentions with Kurt dominating the way he was...bubye.

Junyer's empty pit stall was the perfect spot to watch the safety workers try to extract Smoke from the tires...

While our crew had stellar stops all day, by far the fastest stop was when Dave H had to do a quick tire refill on the tire cart when Stevo had a flat...those air hoses attached to the box are quite handy!

The laps were winding down and we were getting cautiously excited. The guys were so amazingly calm and reminded me there was plenty that could go wrong yet. They were monitoring several other team radios and watching for any trickery with tires but the cautions didn't come and we were sitting pretty! Here is Kurt coming around on our final restart...

This is about when I started bouncing up and down while I was standing on a tire trying to burn off some of my adrenaline...the white flag flew and the guys were up and ready to party!

And the celebration begins...

I had really hoped Kurt would try the backwards Victory Lap but it would have taken forever!

The beer begins to fly!

And the celebratin' begins! Here is my "Where's Waldo" picture...see if you can spot me!


On left in front row in between fire fighters in the white helmets

And then it was time to get soaked in Champagne!

And finally time for the hat dance...

While I was not on stage for the hat dance I did manage to snag one of the Sprint caps they are wearing in this picture and have Addington and Kurt sign it as well as a very cool black Infineon winners circle hat! woot! Kurt then went off and did his Winner's media time and the post race show so I decided to follow the guys and the car going back through inspection.

It was really quite special to see how many crew guys from the other teams congratulated our guys for the dominating win - NASCAR really is a big family. We even got a special congrats from this guy in the red shirt...

My astute readers will definitely recognize those *cough* sexy legs...

We finished up inspection and the guys started tearing down the car so they could load it up in the NASCAR hauler for them to take back to the tech center to do the full winner's tear down. Kurt was still not back yet from Victory Lane so I headed back over to find him still doing the hat dance for all the sponsors. TR guessed he probably had about 40 hats and photos to take. I was feeling particularly ballsy with all the excitement so I asked TR if he thought Kurt would take a picture with me in Victory Lane and he said he thought he would...and wha'la! How cool is that!?!!

I am waiting on the "official" photographers shot of this but gotta thank TR for not only getting me up there but also for snapping this!

I am sure you all caught the fancy hand blown glass chalice that Kurt was drinking from in Victory Lane with the Reserve Estate Zinfandel in it. Well after he got zipped in a golf cart to yet more interviews he dropped it off with the crew and they were kind enough to share the spoils of victory with me! (Probably cuz I made them beef jerky...)

I am now two for two getting in to the winners circle at the races I have gone to...so I guess that means Kurt wins Phoenix in Nov??!!

Thanks for reading!

Infineon Raceway Hot Lap!

2011-06-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

Join me on a hot lap racing my fellow fans around Infineon Raceway!

George, one of our very capable transport drivers on the #22 team was sweet enough to give me and some of the other guests of the crew passes for a hot lap around the racetrack given to them by the track in their "gift basket" for hauling those race cars across the country.

We lined up after the Legends race and the subsequent track grass fire was finally put out and saw four Toyota Camry's out on the track. I figured "phfff!" this isn't going to be worth missing the NW race for! Then they brought out the helmets...

I was in the 3rd group to go around the track so had the pleasure of watching the first few go - I have a new respect for Camry's! These professional drivers were on it - pedal to the metal, squealing tires, smoking them around the turns and catching air over the rumble strips all while racing side-by-side.

I apologize to the two older gentlemen stuck with me in the car whose videos I ruined with my giggling and back seat racing...

Tighten those belts one last time....

<p>&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; &amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; and a special thanks to Jeremy for not killing us!&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; &amp;lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YSJjwAD77eY/TgpkB-PvoYI/AAAAAAAABNk/j5PjQQvKmVw/s1600/Sonoma%2BSat%2B2011%2B039.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YSJjwAD77eY/TgpkB-PvoYI/AAAAAAAABNk/j5PjQQvKmVw/s320/Sonoma%2BSat%2B2011%2B039.JPG" /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/div&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; </p>

Sonoma Race Report 2011 - Saturday

2011-06-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY

Today was a somewhat “lazy” day in the garages with only the two Cup practices in the morning made all the more serene by walking to the track through a field of grazing sheep…only in San Francisco!

I beat most of the drivers to the garage and got a kick out of JJ being told by the officials he couldn’t park where he wanted to…not sure why but it was funny.

I nosed in on pit stall selections for a bit and then went to check out the car. We were pretty much good to go and put up some fast laps in the first practice. After the initial practice, Kurt and Brad had a team powwow in the #22 hauler.

Clearly whatever Kurt told Brad worked as Bad Brad came away with the trophy – literally! Apparently Sonoma is awarding prizes for being fastest in practice to up the competition. Not only did he get some hardware, he also got a lovely case of wine specially made for Infineon by Shelby...

To understand the odd the phenomenon…(BK beating out KB in practice) we called in the expert Mythbuster!

Yet another job for the Mythbuster…hmmmm…cigarette butt on a tire, who could it be. ADDINGTON!!

After practice the plan was to head out and watch the NW race with my blogger buddies but George, our hauler driver, managed to get me a pass for a hot lap around the track. I figured, meh, a hot lap with a "professional" driver in a Toyota Camry how good could this be? Then they brought out the helmets...Well I was glad I stayed! There were four cars on the track RACING AND PASSING around the track, what a hoot! I was giggling and freaking out about not being on the preferred line going into the turns. The poor older guys stuck in the car with me were probably displeased I ruined their videos. Here's our fearless "professional" driver...who by the way brought us home 4th out of four but we were grinning like banshees!

(The video of the entire lap is too big to upload to YouTube on the hotel internet but I will post as soon as I can...)

Okay! Off to bed for an early start tomorrow. I plan on being in the garages when they open at 7a to finish off the questions with the pit crew and soak it all up!

Sonoma Race Report 2011 - Friday

2011-06-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY

Cheers from wine country! Another weekend of perfect weather and good times with my fellow bloggers – Tez, RA6AN and CR Racing. Here’s the scoop from Friday and Saturday at the track…

The best part of my race weekend is coming into the garages for the first time and getting big hugs and hellos from my crew and my friends in the garage. Unfortunately, the 22 crew went through some changes in the last month and one of my fav’s “The Dream Maker” Dave Winston is no longer the race engineer. He is apparently still employed by Penske for the moment but replacing Dave at the track are Steve Reis and Jonathan Hassler. I am working on an updated crew blog for the #22 so look for more on them coming soon.

Speaking of the engineering department, I also learned that Dave Demvicki (sp!?!) a long time Penske engineer has assumed the “got to guy” role replacing the new student Tom German with Travis Geisler and Mike Nelson in management roles under him. The two race engineers report into Mike and Travis. This weekend Travis is covering the NASCAR race while Mike is covering IRL.

After getting the scoop on our crew changes I tagged along to Kurt’s media time.

As usual, Kurt was the utmost professional answering the same questions over and over about road course racing. Speaking of questions…KBNation tweeted asking me to ask Kurt how many times he shifts during a lap at Infineon. He went through every gear shift in every turn as we mentally went through the course and we came up with 13 – but he quickly said that was a bad number so we landed on 12! 12”ish” shifts per lap, 110 laps = repetitive stress injury.

While Kurt is definitely a driver to watch at the road courses, no trip to the garage at Infineon would be complete without a Boris Said spotting…

Friday was indeed a marathon day in the garages…we started with qualifying practice. The drivers lined up early and then most of them got out of the cars. Here is Kurt climbing back in.

While Kurt was busy building up to nailing the fastest lap in practice in the last two min of practice I found my friend and official “NASCAR Citizen Blogger” Valli getting ready for Smoke’s media time. If you don’t follow her already you should! Find her fantastic blog at www.thefastandthefabulous.com

I also found “Punchy” and tried my best to get a shot of the infamous watch he took off but alas, all I could zoom in on was his big ring.

I also headed over to our Penske teammate’s garage stall to check out Miller Lite’s latest witty slogan on the back of Brad’s car. They have a new one every week so look for it!

Of course, I had to tag along through inspection and used the time to interview the crew for my blog and get to know the new guys. Billy even let me pull that tool box around and feel special again…along the way Jeffrey, our car chief, couldn’t help but pose for this photo op…with cardboard girls…since his run-in with the drunk pit lizard last year he’s taking the safe route this year.

Now for a little “I Spy”…cue ZZ Top please...

And those *cough* sexy legs belong to…(of course this is way too easy for Speedbeagle!)

Pretty sure I got stink eye again from him for taking this picture but he has to know there is just no where to hide from the pumpkin-headed blogger with weird hair.

Speaking of...my fellow bloggers managed to catch me (thanks!!) doing my informal job as the tool bag girl as we headed through inspection.

So all was fine and dandy through inspection since we were going out last we let lots of other teams skip ahead of us in line until the very last inspection station where the officials deemed the Pennzoil Dodge a fraction of an inch too long on the left side. So the guys had to pull over and fix it…and then go back through the height sticks and weight inspection stations again as well as the last one.

Kurt headed out to the car to qualify with his new girlfriend, Patricia, who is the President of the Armed Forces Foundation and has a particular interest in vets with Traumatic Brain Injury. She and I talked “shop” briefly and look forward to being resources to each other in caring for our troops.

Our fearless leader was a solitary figure as he took in the lap times of our biggest competition near the end of pit road…

While TR and I took a break on the pit wall…

And last but not least on this long race day – a public service announcement to all the girls out there who continue to insist on wearing fashionable as opposed to sensible shoes! Victim #1 - meet Amanda girlfriend of Darin our engine guy…

Well Amanda decided to walk to turn 7 and back…(not a terribly good idea)…but she is pretty dang resourceful! After desperately looking for flip flops to buy with no luck Ms. McGuyver bought a beer cozy and cut it in half and wah’la now she is gel’in.

Trust me ladies – its much easier to just wear the sensible shoes…

I met up with RA6AN and Tez behind the Trackside stage where they were patiently waiting for Marcos Ambrose to finish his interview…he did and went right up to Tez (who smartly hung his Aussie flag on the fence) and had a proper chat with his fellow countryman. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Tom German Announces Penske Departure

2011-05-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

Many asked after the very public smack down delivered by Kurt Busch about Penske's head of engineering Tom German if Kurt was trying to get himself fired...apparently not. Word came out today from Penske that Tom German would be leaving to attend MIT's Sloan School of (anger)Management.

I would assume you cannot just decide to attend MIT, so I would think if it is true, then German was planning his exit from Penske well before Busch gave him the tongue lashing(s). This would be the best of all circumstances -- if Penske knew German was possibly leaving then we can only hope they have some sort of competent replacement ready to go.

If this is a cover story, then god help us because there is no one to my knowledge currently at Penske who can just step in (PLEASE NOT Roy McCauley!!) and maintain let alone improve things.

Best case scenario is that Penske goes cherry-picking and grabs some talent from any of the big teams. He throws enough cash around in IRL - time to make NASCAR an equal in importance not the red-headed step child (see I had to get a Dale Jr reference in here somehow! LOL)

Sunday Garage Report - Daytona 500!

2011-02-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

Woot! Sunday, SUNDAY, Sunday…Race day and everyone was ready to see the best drivers in the world strut their stuff but first the North Turn Crew had some NASCAR 101 classes with me in the Fanzone.

We headed in to Daytona’s infield and their spiffy area for fans to see in the garages through windows in each garage stall and from on top the garages for a birds eye view of the drivers, crews and the rest of the motley fools wandering around in the Cup garage.

The NTC started out at Kurt’s window – mostly because it was close and open! – and got a long lecture introducing them to the crew guys and their jobs, the car and what they were doing to prep the car for inspection and the race. By the time I turned around and finished talking the 7 of us had turned into about 30 people! I really have to try to get paid for this someday…LOL

We then headed up top of the garages hoping to catch some drivers but we were on the wrong side for the drivers meeting. We still spotted a few as well as some owners and learned all about the inspection stations. We did manage to spot our ole buddy Luke, who is now the shock specialist on the #56 team. As is custom for women on the garage roof I just had to yell out to him that I wanted to have his baby – I cannot tell you how many times I heard women yelling this to drivers over the week, that and “you suck XXX” – Luke laughed and I am pretty sure gestured for me to kiss his arse…!

After getting the NTC some free water from the hauler (Ellie saved her bottle even – now that is a rabid fan!) we hoped to get a tour of the brand spanking new, million dollar #22 pit box. Problem was the Fanzone pass didn’t allow you on pit road. To continue the magic of the weekend for the NTC, Kurt’s pit just happened to be the one right next to the cut through the fans took to get to the infield grass and the concerts. So I told them to follow me like they belonged there and I’d get them in and sure enough we did it!

Our new pit box is pretty swank including stadium seating for all the guests of the race team and even nicer flat screen TV’s and computers along with satellite dish and high end electronics. The guys used to have the old pit box up in about a half an hour and this one took about 3 hours the first couple times to put it up and they had to help the #2 crew with theirs! NASCAR is getting pretty high tech…

After the tour of the pit box the NTC headed out to the infield where we came upon Cupcake’s winning car from last year. Gotta love year old champagne and confetti!

We headed over to the track itself and signed the start finish line – I am surprised the white checks could even be seen with all the sharpie signatures all over it. Afterward we headed over to where I assumed the drivers would be coming out – the stage – to wait for driver intros as we jammed to Brad Paisley. Of course, the drivers did NOT come across the stage which I thought was ridiculous! Why even have it up then? We could barely see them through the throng on the grass as they walked down the walkway to the cars. The only major disappointment we encountered. My NTC headed up to our grandstand seats and I decided (with their insistence) that I just couldn’t pass up watching the race from the pits, especially given how well Kurt had been running. Could you imagine me stuck in the stands watching that finish? I would have died if he had won…

The green flag dropped, Kurt grabbed the lead and kept it until the famed silent #3 lap. Here is a shot from my view, none of the crews participated that I could see but it was an impressive sight to look up at the grandstands to see the salute.

Our first stop for tires was a hot mess but not for the reasons we were prepared for – Kurt came in too hot to the pit and slid through the pit box. In the picture below you might be able to make out the pit road sign being broken off and flying through the air and the guys trying to save the air gun hose. Because Kurt stalled the car while backing it up, some fuel ended up in the tailpipes and when Kurt restarted the car it produced a giant blow torch and was right when our new rear tire changer was just getting to work. Luckily he and Larry, our rear tire carrier, managed to avoid being toasted and were both fine. Thankfully the stop was under yellow and we had our dancing partner with us on pit road anyway (the #78).

Speaking of the pit stops – the Double Deuce ran into trouble later in the race with a hole in the grill that needed patching. We started with some sticky tape (the first piece they pulled off got stuck to the lamppost in our pit stall and is probably still there) to cover it and that is all we would usually use but because of the new drafting style Kurt was yelling on the radio about how we were going to get stuck to the #78 and needed something slicker on there.

So the guys pop riveted a piece of aluminum on there so Kurt could continue to slide the bumper. He noted later in the race that his bumper was really chewing up who ever he was drafting with as a result but that was about all the guys had to work with.

We had one more problem later in the race when we cut a tire – luckily Addington and Kurt were all over coming right into the pit and getting it changed so it didn’t cause any damage to the body. Our pit crew was one of the only ones to fix things and keep their driver in the running…yet I noticed today they aren’t even an option for the best pit crew voting on FOX. Boo!

In keeping with tradition on this blog I had to get a picture of lunch in the pits. Since we lost Travis who usually posed for me I had to sneak a shot of Jeffrey, our car chief, snacking on some grapes while he sat on the pit wall. The rest of the menu included beef jerky and Pringles. I cannot believe these guys can perform they way they do fueled by junk food!

Our pit was really a good spot this weekend for men in uniform. We had the true young gun pilots of the Thunderbirds hanging out most of the race. They were so impressed with the racing, I kinda found that funny given they fly just as close together as the drivers race and go about 10x faster! They were certainly fun to look at though!

While Dave, our front tire carrier, tried cozying up to the officials, Kurt and our spotter Chris, aka “The Voice of Victory” were trying to find a dancing partner in the final laps.

Everyone Kurt had worked with had wrecked by the final laps of the race and Chris was searching for a partner when over the radio came a familiar voice…Kyle said, “hey bro I heard you need a drafting partner…I’ll push you.” There was a pause and the crew waited for Kurt’s reply which was “I guess we still share the same mother…if you get me to the checkers I’ll buy you an ice cream” Crack up! They then strategized and Kurt asked Kyle, “not getting ahead of ourselves but what are you going to do in turn 4?” Kyle replied something along the lines of “we’ll deal with it when it happens…” aka I’ll pass ya or wreck ya! Roger then got on the radio and said, “if you boys behave I’ll take you both to ice cream!” We never found out because Kyle cut a tire in the first GWC and we got stuck in the final round with “he is Juan!” When Kurt found out who Chris had hooked him up with his first response was “where is the #1?” Not thrilled to say the least.

At this point I was nearly peeing my pants because everyone in our pit knew if Kurt had a pusher stay on his bumper we were going 3 for 3. Juan Pablo either couldn’t keep up with the Penske powerhouse or got sucked off the car by the others passing or just isn’t as talented as people think…whatever, our chances for the win faded when Juan fell back just a few feet. Kurt was VERY hard on himself for not jumping in front of Edwards but God knows with the #99 record at restrictor plate wrecking (oops I mean racing) I wouldn’t have done it either. Kurt did go to Victory Lane to congratulate Trevor Bayne with the sting of knowing another 500 was within his grasp. He’ll get it and I hope to be there!

Congrats to the rookie!

Saturday Garage Report - Daytona

2011-02-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

Saturday was the first day I had my North Turn Crew (NTC) in force. We got to the track and the rookies were starting to “amp up!” We secured scanners and headed into the merchandise/sponsor circus. On the way we passed the often shown statue of Dale Earnhardt Sr and paused to remember #3.

One of the first sponsor attractions we came upon was the Chevy display and managed to time it just right to find Jimmie Johnson on stage to the delight of our new Jimmie fans. While they watched Superman (in his Ed Hardy shoe-stringless hipster tennis shoes) Bob suggested we scope out where to get them some autographs…good thing he was thinking! I plopped DJ and Tim in what I thought was a good spot and a few minutes later they both had secured the autograph of the 5x Champ. (Notice DJ’s jaw dropping look of astonishment! LOL)

Big Daddy Gordon was next up on stage so while they were chasing down JJ I staked out a better spot so the two Jeffy G fans could possibly go 2 fer 2. Tim had to lay out to get it but he managed to secure another impossible to get autograph in less than 20 minutes! Tim immediately informed me he had “the fever”…

We then went to all the merchandise haulers and got everyone their driver swag for the race and collected our freebee’s along the way…cereal, tums, shampoo, tornado’s samples, stickers & tattoos. Of course Bob & I couldn't pass up the opportunity to pose with our favorite rodent...NOT!

We shopped til we dropped and missed most of the action early in Happy Hour but managed to catch the last 30 min of practice in seats right along the fence line in turn four. The look on their faces when the first twosome flew by and rattled the stands was priceless. At track level the cars really do go so fast you cannot turn your head in time to follow them – they didn’t believe me.

Before the Natiowide race I popped into the garage to see if the guys were happy with our practice and the car – we were switching out brakes but otherwise we were good to go on Sunday. I headed back out to our grandstand seats once the race started – how cool it was to have the cars roaring over my head as I crossed under the track through the tunnel.

It was a bit shocking to me to see the fans go nuts when Danica rocketed up to the front of the pack. It was clear she was fairly comfortable being pushed but Jr worked with her quite a bit mid-race on the racing line but only had her on his bumper for ¾ of a lap before she couldn’t keep up. Not a good day for the Penske – related drivers - Bad Brad returned to his wrecking ways, Sliding Sam (ah dreamboat!) picked up where he left off and poor Lil Gator had several hard wrecks in his new ride. I thought for sure JuuuuunnnnnnYER would pull off the win for me but the (supposedly 15# lighter) fat man still managed to block the best of the rest.

The only Smoke pic I got all week! He really is skinnier...

We trudged down the stands with great anticipation of the racing action we would see tomorrow. The NTC loved the scanners and were getting a feel for the personalities and talent out on the track. We ended the day with another dinner, this time Mexican, with our favorite official and got more great stories from him and some of the history of NASCAR's best "innovators."

We all hit the pillow early with SUNDAY, Sunday, SUNDAY looming in just a few hours...

Friday Garage Report - Daytona

2011-02-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

Friday brought another day of me alone in the garages while my NTC relaxed before the big weekend at the pool, hot tub, and beach and waited on Bob to arrive. While Friday was a little slow out on the track with most teams (including ours) choosing to skip one or both practices, it was not a slow day for Kurt. He was in uniform and doing appearances from 8:45 am until the minute before the garaged closed at 4 pm – while most of the other drivers were well out of there by 2 pm.

One of the coolest appearances was when several of the HOF nominees showed up at the hauler for a photo opportunity with Kurt. Can you name them? (Mostly I am asking you this b/c I an only name 3 of the 4! Ooh bad fan!!)

It was interesting to listen in on them asking Kurt to describe the “new” way of drafting on the track and how Kurt described the track as “almost boring” because the surface is so smooth so you no longer have to “wheel it” as much or worry about getting out of shape and instead focus so much more on partnering up. I dunno about you guys but it seems far from boring out there to me.

Kurt also was visited by one the rep of his new sponsor TAG Heuer.. You may have seen Kurt’s new line of sunglasses – well TAG Heuer brought a pair for every single one of the guys on the crew. They were pretty stoked! They also got super swank TAG Heuer watches from Kurt for Christmas this past year. Here is Stretch modeling for me!

For some of you super astute Kurt fans – you may have noticed in Victory Lane on Thursday Kurt was not wearing his new shades. That’s because he “lost” them…he apparently left them in his rental car unknowingly and a couple of the guys took his car out Wed night and when they got back the gate to the drivers lot was locked so they parked the rental right outside. Well of course the car got towed! Craig,the coach driver, found the rental and unbelievably Kurt’s red sunglasses were still in there.

The two new Ms. Sprint Cup ladies were also hanging about and asked me if I could take a picture of them with the “newest driver on twitter” (Be sure to follow @KurtBusch22 and @22carPR). Of course I was happy to do it and get a picture with them myself in return.

Man I wish I had those sunglasses I lost running to Victory Lane! The squinting and the sun burn starts here!

Kurt was also did appearances for the Paralyzed Veterans of America and has taken this charity on as one of his focuses again this year as well as multiple TV, radio and print media interviews. A few of you caught me in the background when Kurt was being interviewed by Dick Bergeren on SPEED.

I did pass along the message that Kurt Busch Nation would *really* like to get their hands on the NHRA Pro Stock die cast and Kurt said he would be making that happen. I also hear that Kurt Busch.com would be updated this week – apparently both Kurt and Penske’s website had some problems getting updated from the company hosting them and now should be done.

The crew was endlessly working on the car and towards the end of the day there were only a few loyal fans left in the Fanzone area looking in through the windows. To prove we have the coolest crew in the sport – Dave Winston, our head engineer, spotted two little girls and their dad watching and he went out of the garage around to the window and got them and brought them into the garage to take pictures by the car. They were so over the moon and are now three more #22 team fans for life. Dave will henceforth be known as the “Dream Maker”…LOL Since the entire crew doesn’t have a nickname anymore (Oilslicks? Shellraisers?) I am making it my mission to come up with individual names for each!

L to R - Steve-O (rear end mechanic) Chris (Steve-O's son & our gas man), Addington and the Dream Maker!

Kurt and TR came running back to the garage with seconds to spare before it closed at 4pm and I hooked up with TR to finally pay him back with dinner for all the love he gives me. He took me on a tour of Daytona Beach showing me all the highlights and where history was made. I saw where Rusty & Dale Sr. kept their yachts and where Mr. Penske parked his when he was in town. He showed me many of the driver condo’s and the France family compound as well as many of their offices. TR then took me by the bar where the points system was first hammered out on a napkin and then the hotel where they finalized it. I saw the airplane hanger where FOXsports did all the photo shoots for the season and the hospital were Dale Sr. was taken. History and stories too much to recount.

Another funny story – we had to head back to TR’s hotel because just like the crew his official Penske/Pennzoil/Shell shirts were not all in yet and he was expecting a box of them that day. TR was out of shirts and asked if I would be willing to iron a few of them for him! I was cracking up and happy to do it since I need to pay TR back anyway I can but I am not much of a domestic girl it took me almost 30 min to do two shirts! LOL I told TR to tweet about it but he said his wife would kill him for asking me to do this! I think he looked pretty wrinkle free on Saturday and Sunday. Sadly I have no pictures of this....

TR and I headed out for dinner and beers and got caught up on all kinds of good stuff. There were plenty of racing personalities at the restaurant including Hollywood Hammond who stopped by to say hello. We headed back to the hotel bar to finish watching the truck race with some of the #22 crew who were hanging out there and rooted on Parker Klingerman. Another late but fun night for me – thank goodness I run on adrenaline at the races!

Thursday Garage Report – Daytona

2011-02-23T07:34:00.000-08:00

Let me begin by saying sorry for slacking on getting the blogs up so late. Once you read the non stop fun to be had you’ll understand why…

First, let me give you a little background info…my amazing trip to Speedweeks was born out of a conversation about bucket lists between my Uncle and his friends who happen to have a condo in Ponce Inlet, just south of Daytona Beach. None of them had ever attended a NASCAR event and going to the 500 came up. My Uncle said if they wanted to get a real NASCAR experience they should include me and told them of my exploits. The invitation shortly followed (Thank You Uncle Frank, Terry and Ellie!!) and we eventually became the “North Turn Crew” named after the restaurant just up the road on the beach where NASCAR used to race. I was dubbed the “crew chief” and my crew consisted of my Uncle Frank (rookie rooting for #39), Terry & Ellie (rookies rooting for #48), Tim (rookie rooting for #24), DJ (young gun rooting for #24) & Bob (who we all know as Dwindy1 rooting for #18 of course!).

Here we have L to R DJ, Tim, Terry, Ellie Frank and Bob!

For more exploits of the North Turn Crew (NTC) at Daytona see Dwindy1’s blog here: http://dwindy1-walkingeagle.blogspot.com/2011/02/daytona-500-experience.html

On Thursday, most of the NTC were still traveling in for the race so I spent the day at the track in the garages. After picking up my credentials I headed to the infield of the famed raceway. I was shocked to find the race track sitting on the main drag with shopping and restaurants right across the street. Every other track I’ve been too it’s a good long ride out of town to get there. Not the World Center of Racing – it is the town.

After hoofing it to the garage area, I was welcomed by our favorite crew all decked out in their new colors and sponsor. It sure was odd to see them in yellow and red but worse was seeing the Miller Lite guys walking around and waving at them and them looking back at me like I was crazy (I only know a few of those guys)! I had to get new pictures of everything and found out our mechanics don’t even have their official uniforms yet. I wore my Penske Racing t-shirt and was about to head out to the merchandise hauler to gear up but before I could TR (Kurt’s fabulous PR guy) dropped some sa-weet swag in my lap so I was good to go in our new colors.

After winning the Bud Shootout, Kurt was probably the most popular interview in the garage and he had more appearances than any other driver through the weekend. I couldn’t keep up so instead spent time asking about the changes to the car and meeting the new guys on our crew. Sadly, we lost hauler drivers, Cindy and Stump, to our old buddies Pat Tryson and Luke Cunnington over on #56 team. They are very happy in their new racing family and we now have George and Greg, who drove the #77 hauler teaming up to get the Pennzoil Dodges to the track. They told me the #22 hauler is really the #2 from last year and the #2 hauler is the #77 from last year because the #12 hauler was the oldest. Lots of repainting going on in the off-season at Penske.

We retained our entire crew of mechanics but added another team engineer. He was not at the track by the time I arrived and had already been sent home to work on the cars for the next 5 races as Dave Winston had the engineering at the track well in hand. Kurt also has a new coach driver, Craig who has been around the sport for many years. We did have a few changes on the pit crew – we lost Travis as the rear tire changer and now have Jonathan Billy coming from the #29 team. We also have Paul who was in training to be a gas man for the #77 who moved over to work behind the wall passing and catching the new larger gas cans during pit stops.

Speaking of the gas cans…did you know they weigh 90#? Yikes! No wonder our guys dealing with them are huge. Chris, our gas man, said Penske is working hard on improving the flow out of the cans and doing a ton of research on them to get them as efficient as possible. I am not so sure about the gas being environmentally friendly though – gas seemed to be spouting out of the gas cap area on every car in the garage and most of the garage stalls had puddles of gas behind them.

I decided to watch the duels from on top the hauler for a better view of the racing action which I must say was super. Just as Duel 1 started up the ladder comes a Miller Lite pit crew member. I freaked out asking “why the heck aren’t you pitting the car?” and he had to remind me that we were no longer Miller Lite (again!). Duh!

As you know, Kurt was driving the wheels off the Pennzoil Dodge and came sweeping off turn 4 with me screaming like a banshee jumping up and down with Terry LaBonte on the hauler next to us laughing at me. I have never EVER gotten off the top of the hauler faster (those steps down are really steep!) and ran up pit road to Victory Lane. I was going so fast my sunglasses flew off and I made it just in time to follow a familiar fire suit in … and for once I didn’t confuse Brad with Kurt! (Only because I knew Kurt was in the car! LOL)

I was SO excited to be there finally and was kinda happy not to get my new shirt drenched in Gatorade (since it was our 500 car we didn’t want it to get all sticky) but Kurt was not so lucky…

I was such a dork I had Billy (our interiors mechanic) take my picture while up on stage and then had Ms. Spring Cup take this one…

I sent these pictures to my parents and later they asked why I sent them…(HUH?) well didn’t recognize ME in red and yellow and in a hat (my patented visor is not available until Vegas!) In fact, it took a few days for some of the officials who I know to recognize me since my “inverted bob” hairdo was hidden by my Pennzoil hat.

I got to participate in the hat dance and now have an awesome new hat collection. My favorite is the black Gatorade Victory Lane hat that Kurt was kind enough to autograph for me later…sa-weet! I watched Kurt on SPEED being interviewed after the race and had to chuckle that they were sponsored by Sunoco.

Time out for a funny story…because Sunoco is the official fuel of NASCAR, Pennzoil/Shell has to focus on marketing the oil part of their business and minimize the gas part. You all are familiar with the giant “Pennzoil” on the hood of the car and may have noticed the seashell –otherwise known as a Pecten– is considerably smaller. Well, apparently, Kurt’s uniform has also been redesigned several times to make Sunoco “happy” and Kurt noted the other day “Hey my pecten is so small!” and Addington told him “that sounds like a personal problem to me.” Now that is funny. Pecten is also the name of the chassis that won the Budweiser Shootout.

Kurt was kind enough to pose with me by the hauler after his Duels win while the crew got to work changing engines.

There were several Penske powerhouses to choose from and the crew put me to work. They asked me to block the engines from view and stop folks in the garage from taking pictures while they made the swap…like I am wide enough to block an engine but I did my best…and I got this “Digger” shot of Stretch.

Soon after Mr. Penske himself came down to congratulate the entire team. He and the rest of the Penske brass were super happy to start the season off “2 fer 2.” Mr. Penske was (rightfully) very proud of our spotter – Chris Osborne – who proved to be one of if not the best out there this weekend. I have now dubbed him “The Voice of Victory” – feel free to use it! =)

Thursday ended with me and our favorite official who works the shocks inspection station meeting up with the NTC for dinner. We ate at Caribbean Jacks which happens to be on property owned by the France family and right next door to Brian France’s private yacht club. Wow. Spoiled Rotten. The NTC were stoked to pick his brain and learn about the sport from a “professional.”

All in all an unforgettable first day at Daytona I must say…

One last picture - here is one of the official photo's from Victory Lane...see if you can find me! LOL

New Tire for Daytona

2010-06-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

Jayski broke this story yesterday so I will assume it is okay for me to finally discuss it and post pics.

Goodyear is rolling out a new tire for Daytona in all NASCAR series- no it is not a new compound or size - it is just made with a lot of pride and heart. As you can see, they are "Supporting Our Troops" and will be rolling out all kinds of cool promotions along with the tire - including tires signed by drivers that you can bid on and proceeds will go to the troops and their families as well as ways to interact with the troops overseas NASCAR style. Go to http://www.racegoodyear.com/ starting July 2nd for more details.

Also look for your favorite Penske and RCR drivers promoting the cause during the Daytona races this weekend. They did a great job nailing their lines while filming the commercials at Sonoma although none of them seemed to keen on the make up!

Sonoma Race Day

2010-06-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY! Race day at Infineon Raceway brought an early and busy start to the day with the race starting a good two hours earlier than before. I asked the Brew Crew if the earlier start time affected their schedule and they said no, not really, that if they had the extra two hours they would have just wasted it! =)

The over the wall guys had the pit box set up bright and early and I found these two bloggers ready to switch over to root for Kurt rather than Harvick and Ambrose today...(ha!)

I had a good long chat with the pit crew while they were prepping the five sets of tires we had this weekend and unfortunately found them more than a little somber about losing the Miller Lite sponsorship and changing over to Penzoil. Some of our over the wall guys have been with the Miller Lite car since Rusty's early days and have worked their entire career on the Miller Lite Dodge. Despite being pretty bummed about the change they all quickly added they would rather lose the sponsor than their driver and reassured me they will still be the elite team at Penske. My "Brew Crew" will need a new catchy name next year...suggestions welcome!

After hanging out with the pit crew I headed back to the garage to see if the guys were ready to push the car through inspection. They were pretty late leaving and still had to "run the car" one more time because of something to do with a possible leak in the oil transfer case? Here is a great example of "don't try this at home" - our rear end mechanic, Steve, is under the car with a flashlight while Darin, our engine guy, is "driving" it with the rear end held up by three jacks. The rear wheels are spinning God knows how fast right above Steve's head. These crews do not get enough credit for how hard they work and how dangerous it really is.

We headed out through inspection shortly after and I actually had to help push the car around - which is comical since I can barely move the thing - while the guys switched out to grab some food.   Valli, the NASCAR citizen blogger of http://www.thefastandthefabulous.com/ hung out with us in the inspection line and had a good laugh as the crew was attacked by a (possibly drunk?) Cougar.

We were so late starting inspection and then unfortunately had problems again at the last station so we wer one of the last cars out.   It was good for me though....Billy, our interior mechanic had to get suited up and go get the gas so he left me in charge of the tool cart again.   By the time we made it through the final inspection spot there were only four guys and me left pushing the car all they way out to our third starting spot on the grid.   And do any of my fellow bloggers there get a picture of this!? No...they were all too busy watching driver intros!

By the time I got to the pits, the National Anthem was just about to be played. Gave the guys high fives all around and hunkered down for the race.    I won't bother recapping the action since you all know what happened. Addington had Kurt on the perfect pit strategy right there with Ambrose and JJ and we were looking to get at least a top 5 finish. We had great pit stops all day...here is a shot of the crew in action.

And for you Smoke fans...

And for you Yeley fans...

But seriously, kudos to Yeley and his team - they pitted that car with three over the wall guys - the gas/catch can man, a tire carrier and tire changer. Took them a LONG time to pit the car each stop but they finished the race. It was a little painful to watch - I almost wanted to go help them!

Of course this race day blog would not be complete without a picture of Travis eating something! Nutter Butters is his snack of choice today...

Mid-race things were humming along for our team and Larry, our rear tire carrier was chillin' before things got crazy...

And crazy they did just a few minutes later....it was just about now that the big wreck that red flagged the race occurred and Hamlin peeled into the garage smoking his tire so much that he actually set off the sprinklers in the media center! Our pit was right in front of the media center and the alarms were going off and water was leaking out of the sprinkler pipes on to our extra equipment. Never a dull moment!

I headed into the garage to see the carnage first hand. The #56 was destroyed as was the team. Mikey was there lamenting the wreck as it pulled into the garage on the back of the truck.

Not to be outdone - Poor Sam wrecked his back-up car in this mess and the #77 crew was back to work fixing the primary car that now didn't look so bad to get Sam back out on the track. Sam must be hating road courses by now after this wreck and the huge hit he took at Watkins Glen a few races back. Ouch.

We all know how this one ends - Ambrose got some very bad advice from his crew chief and Big Daddy pretty much took out everyone in his path including Kurt with only two to go. Kurt had some choice words for Gordon over the radio especially since we are now two for two with HMS taking us out at Somoma. With Ambrose out of the picture - JJ pretty much cruised to a win. As annoying as it is, have to give him props for stepping up his game on the road course.

I didn't bother to watch the Victory Lane celebration instead hoofed it out to our hauler and said my goodbyes to the guys. Kurt was understandably still quite pissed and left fast - so fast that there was not security ready at the gates where the drivers catch golf cart rides to the helipad. One truly obnoxious fan got in Kurt's face yelling at him about how much he sucked and Kurt nearly (and probably should have) clocked him.

So a request to my fellow fans - no matter how much you dislike a driver please respect them because that was truly an ugly display of unsporting conduct by that fan. Boo the drivers from the stands all you want but when you have contact with a driver the best rule is if you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything at all. Encounters like that make the drivers a lot less inclined to visit with fans and to sign autographs.

Thanks for a great weekend Tez, RA6AN, and Jon464! We all know who the real race winner was...Aussie Aussie Aussie...oi! oi! doh!!

Sonoma Qual & Practice Garage Report

2010-06-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

[Ok, this blog might not be as brilliant "as usual" since I have three famous bloggers watching me write this over my shoulder...talk about pressure! TEZ says maybe this blog will more brilliant than before and is wrapped up in his boxing Kangaroo flag...JON464 thought he found gas mileage notes on the table next to us at dinner and is polishing his Harvick Crocs and RA6AN is too busy drooling over an old ESPN magazine cover to pay any attention to us....]

Ah, Sonoma, "I feel the need, the need for speed"..."Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus"...whoops too many movie quotes but seriously pop quiz...what is wrong with this picture?

Notice anything missing?? Like a big blue hauler in between the #11 and #17 haulers? Unfortunately, the race weekend got off to a rough start for the Blue Deuce. Our hauler apparently broke the "turbo bearing" in the engine in the Nevada desert and had to be towed (can you imagine the size of the tow truck!?!?) to Vegas. For a short time there was a real scare that the #2 car(s) would not make it to the track. Luckily Stump and Cindy are crack mechanics and fixed it up but the delay put them pulling into the garage at 2 AM Friday. Of course, all the other haulers were already lined up so we got to pull in at the very, VERY end of the line-past all the start and parkers and right next to JJ Yeley.

The worst part of it all is that they had to unload the hauler at 2 AM pretty much by themselves so when the crew got to the garage at 7AM the car was actually in the garage ready to start the inspection process. Oh and a thing about the garage...NASCAR didn't change our garage stall so our car and all of our equipment are in garage stall 5, and to repeat, hauler spot 43. Not only has the Brew Crew lost significant weight running back and forth already this weekend but Kurt fans are getting unprecedented access to autographs from him as he makes the long, long trek.

I was privy to a rare sight in the garage...it is not often you see drivers getting make up! What a cool job eh?

I cannot say quite yet what exactly this Goodyear commercial featuring Sam, Kurt, as well as Harvick, Bowyer and Burton is about but it sure was fun watching them play TV star for a little bit. They both did a great job with their lines but had to do them over and over for the perfect cut and splice.

The "product" will be announced by Goodyear at the Daytona race in July but you can say you heard a rumor about a new product here first...and once it is announced I'll post the rest of the pictures I do have. I will say it is a very cool idea. While we will have to wait a bit longer - one thing that all of the drivers could not wait to do was to get rid of that makeup!

Right after filming the commercial Kurt was back in front of the camera (maybe he should have left his make up on?) for Speed Vision. They were filming messages from the drivers to their fathers and/or all the fathers to be played on the JumboTron on Sunday.

Keeping up with the theme of rare garage experiences - not often you get to see a Swede...

Nor is it very common to have your sponsor incorporate their logo into your name...now that is brand loyalty!

Notice the belt...Ummmm, I'm lovin' it!

Fun moment on pit road right before Kurt went out to qualify - some good ole fashioned trash-talking between old teammates...

Kurt laid down a lightening fast lap in qualifying picking up nearly a second over practice and kept himself in front of the media. Here he is being interviewed by Dodge PR and in the background you can see Kurt's PR guy keeping his eyes on the rest of the qualifiers on his Sprint Fan View. Oh and our hauler, yeah so far down its still not in the picture!

Saturday was a quick but eventful day. It started with Luke - our favorite shock specialist now on the #56 car - getting Marcos Ambrose to sign Tez's boxing Kangaroo flag for him. Apparently, Marcos wrapped himself up in it and said how much he wanted to go visit home...wish I was there with a camera but greatly appreciate Luke for making Tez practically pee his pants!

The only wreck in practice today was unfortunately my beloved Sammy. He smashed the car up real good and all three Penske teams pulled together to get the back up out and the wrecked car safe enough to haul back home.

Being a good teammate was definitely the theme of the day - as you all know Brad Keslowski was in Wisconsin racing the NW right about the time practice was starting at Sonoma. Hmmm, yet the 12 car was mysteriously out on the track...

BK can give a hearty thanks to KB for shaking down his car in both practice and Happy Hour and better hope the Blue Deuce is strong since we missed out on half of our practice time as KB ran between the cars....literally!

As it is already 10:45pm and I have a 6 am wake up call, I will leave you with one parting shot of the day...the mastermind at work on top of yes, yes a porta potty....

More to come....

Phoenix Race Report

2010-04-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

I could have stuck with the "spoiled" theme for this race day blog but instead we will go with Snake Bit. Meet the Brew Crew's team mascot for the weekend...

The guys freaked out a good number of fans and competitors with this little rattler - none better than a crewman on the #20 team - I thought he was going to hit his head on the top of the garage when he found it under Logano's car. Unfortunately, ultimately the joke was on us tonight. Sigh.

A few technical updates learned as we slogged thru inspection yet again today -- we made it thru weight and height sticks no problem this time but still got stuck again in the final inspection station with the car being too wide. Took out the wheel spacers again - but so did JJ so we thought we were in good company at least. This meant that Billy had to run back to the hauler again for tools making me the tool cart girl out to the grid again!

Anyway back to the tidbits. So yes Tez, very astute observation that the spoiler is vertical unlike the previous one and it's specs are finalized by NASCAR. It bolts directly to the lip of the decklid and NASCAR provides special bolts with numbers on them to show it has been approved. The part that will change is above -- the fin along the left side of the rear window and deck lid. For Phoenix and the previous races the fin has been 2.5 inches but for Texas they will increase it to 3.5 inches but the height of the spoiler will not change. Make sense?

While we were going thru inspection, Travis, our rear tire changer was busy modifying his helmet for the night race. His five dollar fix had nothing on the jack man for the 20 team. The entire inside lip of his helmet was lit up with LED lights - he looked like he belonged in Vegas. Travis scoffed at that helmet - easily costing Gibbs upwards of $300 -- because we know you've got to be good, not just flashy!

For once I was actually standing in a good spot for driver intro's and got to high five a few and get some good close ups. I only got the top 15 or so and here are some of the best shots and blogger favs...

Lookin' like he owns the place...

A smile! Clearly not looking at me...

What is up with his haircut??

What happened to my goofy, fun always happy Junebug?

Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi! Oi! Oi!

And the only shot I got of Kurt today...

So back to being snake bit. Our race was over on lap 15 when Kurt slid up into Kasey as they were racing to avoid going a lap down early and our night was over. We pitted about 4x and were able to stay on the lead lap in between fixes but the front end was destroyed.

They couldn't get the fenders off the wheels and had to use some ingenuity to create a tool to pull the sheet metal away. Larry, Dave and Travis got some random metal bits from the war wagon, used a saw and hammer and rigged up this little contraption (above). They then attached it to the larger crow bar and we were back in business. They were able to get the tires changed and the car adjusted and somewhat driveable. Unfortunately we stayed out too long trying to get into Lucky Dog position and Kurt blew a tire. It was shredded by the damage a bunch of wire from inside the tire got wrapped all around the duct work and brakes ripping them up. The guys did their best to pull it away but they ended up having to saw it off as well as replace half the splitter and we lost 8 laps in the process.

(you might be able to see some of the wire off to the top right...)

It made me realize how dangerous their work can be. Travis was completely under a jacked up car with his head under a red hot wheel and his arms up under the car pulling off broken bits. Larry and Dave both hurt their hands trying to pull that wire out and they were all exhausted after 10 stops in a row. Darin our engine tuner and car chief, Jeffrey made several appearances over the wall to help fix the car and Addington was off his box investigating the tires and damage often. Was bummed to see the broadcast of the race - the guys really did some great patchwork but none of it was on TV - you would think they might actually show some of the "team work" involved but no. Here are a few shots from the pits...

In the second picture above you might be able to see that silver bar along side the car. The crew held these on both sides to re-align the wheels for Kurt.

We had an extra man over the wall to help with the bug problem and I just thought this was an extra cool shot of Stretch getting the tear off off!

And here is part of the collection of tools used to fix the Blue Deuce! Oy our pit was a mess.

We were pitted between Joe Nemechek and Max Papis and it was amazing to see the pits of the start and park/underfunded teams. We probably had 15 sets of tires - they had two. They had incomplete pit crews, four guys total in their pit box as far as I counted and Papis went to the garage to get service, he was only in his pit once. That is racing on the barest of bones. But it did afford me two good spots to watch the race since no one was in those pits next to us about half way thru the race! LOL

Ok, pop quiz...what is different about these tires?

Well you might have noticed the wheels are not our Miller Lite yellow. As soon as Kurt was out of the race we gave away all of our "stickers" to the 77 and 12 teams and took the scuffs from the 12. The crew had to re-prep the scuffs and re-glue the lugs so they were a busy bunch on Saturday night.

Another change mid-race was our rear tire changer. Travis was sent to the 12 team to change tires after their guy got sick. He came to our pit since our stops didn't really matter anymore. Mostly he sat by a trash can waiting to throw up...but held it together! LOL

We thought for sure the late caution was going to hand JJ the win. Newman winning seemed to go over well with the fans. He almost nailed a few of the photographers when he hit the inside track wall doing his burnouts....

And look-ie who I ran into heading to Victory Lane...for being the winning owner I've got to say he didn't look to happy at the time. Maybe it was me...

And finally, it wouldn't be a Phoenix race report without me hiding behind a cactus in Victory Lane...at least it wasn't JJ but one day I would really love it to be Kurt and the Brew Crew!!

Thanks for reading! Next garage report hopefully coming to you from Sonoma...

Phoenix Friday Garage Report

2010-04-09T23:49:00.000-07:00

A spoiler can be defined in many ways...yes we have a "new" (old) addition to the car that is looking mighty slapped welded together for the moment as NASCAR fine tunes the specs. Didn't realize how much I disliked the wing until it was gone.

Then we have Superman who is spoiling the entire series...here we see JJ and super evil genius Knaus passing the secret "black portfolio" on the way to their team meeting in the 24 hauler after qualifying. I am pretty sure Chad was passing it to Jimmie so he wouldn't have to share its contents with the other crew chiefs with the hope that the drivers wouldn't make head or tails of the jibberish within. Forget lugs (and cookies), we have a new target - get on the storyline SpeedBeagle!

And finally we have just plain spoiled rotten - as in my dad spent lots of money so I can race cars - but yet somehow is in the top 12 in points.

Oops! Didn't mean to put that picture of Junior in there (BTW talk about spoiling a beautiful face - ugh that beard is worse in person!)

No no no, I was talking about Mr. Menard.

Enough spoilage? Moving on...so I was working on my psychological voodoo trying to perfect "getting in the drivers heads." Naturally, I had to try my stuff out on Smoke first. I stood for much of the practices right behind Kurt's garage stall, which just happened to be the spot that Smoke would see in his rear view mirror as he backed out of his stall a few garages down. After getting a mirror full of that pumpkin-headed Miller Lite girl starring him down for nearly 3 hours he finally succumbed - as Smoke pulled out for his final run in Happy Hour he smacked Bowyer's tool cart with his right front fender sending the tool cart skidding off nearly ramming some photographers and bashing in his fender. I am no Yoda, but I might be onto something! Sadly, I have no pictures of the crash so I'll just give you one of Jabba the Hutt instead.

Here we have Da Biff playing the role of Obi Wan as he counsels young Luke (aka Kasey) on how best to lay down a fast lap in the desert.

Speaking of Dancing with the Star Wars - nope, sorry no Helio, I am still waiting to Mambo with him but instead I had a lovely exchange with our 3rd place qualifer, Sam Hornish who was quite pleased with his quick step today. Interesting to note, some have speculated that the engine and mechanical problems the 77 team has had this year could be due to over-revving the engine in the pits. Its an IRL thing apparently and hard to unlearn.

Someone who is not going to be dancing anytime soon is last week's winner and someone who I hope you did not pick on your Fantasy team this week. The Hamster is clearly hobbled - Casey Mears traded off with him several times in practice but Denny qualified the #11. Seems he was none too pleased with is effort as he came screaming into the garages and fishtailed it into his garage stall stopping on a dime in the nick of time. Shockingly no one bothered him for autographs as he limped his way to his hauler.

And in honor of Kurt Busch Nation - finally your Kurt and Brew crew updates for the day! First, atta'boys went all around for their recent efforts. In response on how best to represent in the stands - wear Miller Lite gear, drink Miller Lite, have fun and cheer loud!

Kurt was in good spirits today. The car was fast in race trim and we knew we would have to pass some cars after pulling the 2nd qualifying spot. Kurt and Eva spent their off weekend in St. Lucia while I believe Steve Addington was in St. Thomas. So they are coming into this race weekend relaxed and ready to go.

Unfortunately, we had a few problems getting through inspection so we were really late getting out to the grid today. Above is the team pow-wow deciding how best to make adjustments on the width of the car in order to pass. Billy had to run back to the garages so I was the unofficial tool cart girl again pulling it all the way down pit road. We were so late that Kurt jumped in the car after the final inspection spot and got pushed out to the grid. It was a little frantic to get the car ready to go but all in all they were pleased with the effort.

Word on the street is that Roger will be in attendance on race day and last but not least a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Stump - our hauler driver who turns 57 today. Being soaked with Miller Lite in Victory Lane is better than cake right?

Fontana Garage Report - Race Day

2010-02-21T21:42:00.000-08:00

Early start for today but you couldn't really say it was "bright"...after a downpour last night and threatening skies this morning, the only clear thing was that weather was going to be a factor. The first couple of people I ran into in the garage were our Daytona 500 champ talking with Jeff Burton who was on his way to do "story time" for kids at the track.

I always love race day because not only do I get to hang with my favorite mechanics but I also got to catch up with the guys on the pit crew. The Penske pit crews all flew out yesterday and are flying back tonight whereas the all the mechanics are going straight to Vegas after meeting a 6 car hauler and switching out the team cars. This is a new plan in attempt to save money - taking bets on who in the Brew Crew gets into the most trouble in Vegas!

Another far less popular change in the garage and at Penske is the absence of the BBQ's in front of the team haulers. Apparently there has been some concern regarding food safety issues (what? solvents, gas, and toxic fumes are not a good marinade?) and fire safety concerns (seems to me the BBQ is the least of their worries...) so NASCAR has started to discourage BBQing at the haulers. Now the guys have to trek all the way across the garage to a catering hauler AKA "the Garlic Garage" to get some grub. This change is particularly crappy for the Brew Crew - not only is Cindy one of the best cooks in the garage - she was also just about to be featured with the new NASCAR chef and now won't get that well deserved press. Plus, no more hot dog machine in the hauler. Boo!

From one Cindy to another - Got a chance to meet one of Kurt's biggest fans and the mastermind behind Kurt Busch Nation (www.kbnation.com). Meeting up with fellow bloggers and fans is one of the coolest things about going to the races - great to meet you girl!

After hanging with Cinde in the pits, I followed the Blue Deuce through inspection and got a chance to get to know Dave Hansen, our new shock guy, better. He is a really great guy - with a food phobia at the track anyway...he refuses to eat anything out of the Garlic Garage and survives solely on snacks and power bars! He had some interesting insights on Toyota (remember he came from Logano's team). He said they share everything between all Toyota teams - absolutely transparent across the board except for some proprietary engine info primarily at Gibbs. So when Toyota teams test every Toyota team gets that information as well as data from NW and Trucks. Seems like a huge advantage but apparently it is so much information the teams have yet to figure out how to streamline and use it most effectively. He said they are working on that now and once they do - they will be a force. Might explain how MWR got up to speed so quickly and he said when Red Bull came into the sport Gibbs was essentially told to tell them everything...might be the only way to compete against the HMS/SHR powerhouse. Which bodes poorly for the lonely Penske Dodges in the long run.

While hanging in inspection we also had a reunion of sorts - its "10-4" Pat Tryson visiting his old mates...

And not to be out done...Addington found his old crew a little later on pit road...

NASCAR is just one big incestuous family! Speaking of family - how cute is Matt Kenseth with his daughter, Kaylin! There will be lots more pictures like this one come next year...

I snapped these pictures as the drivers headed to their "bus" to go to driver introductions. Apparently, the infield was too wet and muddy for them to walk thru. Got the funny picture of the day here - not sure what is up with Bobby Labonte and the tongues?? The guy in the back is a crack up!

I headed out to pit road and caught up with Kurt at the car with Eva. She is super excited because she got herself a beautiful new horse in February - an Andalusian from Europe that she is hoping to show in Dressage soon. His name is Lorro and you can almost see Kurt's eyes glazing over as she talks horses...LOL!

The race got underway and we had a surprise guest in our pit - "Lil Gator" was in the house! I won't bore you with deets from the race itself since you have all been there - seen that - or slept through it anyway! I will challenge you to figure out what is unique in this video of one of our pit stops. Watch closely as to who is the odd duck working on the front of the car. Did you catch it?

Video to be added asap - You Tube still processing!

Clearly the race was long but our guys passed the time on their home made "tire couch" in their "man cave" - with the rains we had to protect the glue on the lugs from getting wet. They look comfy eh??

And of course I had to get an updated version of Travis eating something in the pits...last time it was Tasty Cakes (still not sure what those are exactly) this time roast "beast" sandwich.

The Brew Crew should be very proud of their efforts today - coming back from what seemed like some bad adjustments at mid race to finish a solid 6th. Kurt and Steve seemed to be on the same wavelength making calls on when to pit and what to do to the car and finally the crew seemed to be able to catch up after a brutal Speedweeks losing two cars so early on. I didn't bother seeing JJ in Victory Lane - seen it too many times. Instead headed to the hauler and caught the Blue Deuce heading for the heavens...

Thanks to the entire Miller Lite team for hosting me again this weekend - hope to catch you again in Phoenix!

Fontana - Sat Garage Report

2010-02-20T21:57:00.000-08:00

Greetings from cold, windy and slightly rainy Southern California. I got to the track early today since I still had to get my credentials and wanted to catch NW qualifying and got to see a rare sight - an empty Cup garage. The big guns didn't have to start until 9:30a today.

I headed to the NW garage and found the #22 Penske team going thru inspection. Of course nearly everyone was milling about the No 7 hauler...well almost everyone...Front Row Joe was out and about checking out his competition.

I stuck around long enough to snap a pic of the Driving Diva herself as she headed out to qualify but the media mob was just completely over the top about 2 minutes later so I headed over to the Cup garage to see some talent instead.

I got a warm welcome from my NASCAR friends and of course the Brew Crew. There are a few new faces, as you know, Luke the shock guy is now with Pat Tryson on the #56 team and we now have Dave, who came to us from the #20 team.

Our superb rear end mechanic, Steve, is no longer doing the Catch Can duties on Sundays. He was bummed about the change but said NASCAR is moving towards a different fueling system that will no longer require the catch can (they have started using it already in the truck series) and they will likely implement it next year. Steve would have liked to finish out the "job" especially because his son, Chris, is our gas man but is glad he is still a traveling mechanic.

Of course the biggest change is the addition of Steve Addington...who I might add is way taller in person! I didn't get a chance to meet Steve formally today but the crew says they are very impressed so far. Rumor has it Steve and the team started gel-in' at Daytona during a particularly festive Super Bowl party.

Kurt was also elusive today and was all business as they worked the Blue Deuce over today during both practices trying to get it fast and comfortable. Unfortunately, Kurt barely found the wall again (he tagged in quals yesterday) and "Stretch" and our fab guys had some extra work to do...oops!

Perhaps the intensity was high in the No 2 garage because The Captain was here - on a special day in fact! One that he told me I am not supposed to tell anyone about - but it usually involves cake...

Here Mr. Penske is predicting the winner of the Auto Club 500 for me...Mr. Penske spent a ton of time in our garage reviewing the performance of the car with Steve and Kurt. He also spent a good deal of time chatting with our neighbor Jeff Gordon. Talk about a power couple! I think with 5 teams now competing, Penske is putting more focus on NASCAR and it is great to see him in the garage.

I spent most of today wandering around soaking in the sights and sounds just happy to be back in the garages. After downloading my pictures of the day, I seem to have a ton of driver shots. How 'bout we start with "FIND THE DRIVER!" in the next few...

All I can say is my dad never dressed so cool...at least he won't embarrass Ella Sophia!

Do you see the garage ghost with only 2!!! photographers around? The rest are following his NW driver.

And here is the "Oh-my-Gawd-its-a-MIRACLE-Not-Only-is-hell-Freezing-but-so-is-California" picture of the day...That pumpkin shaped man in black is ACTUALLY signing autographs!! I kid because I care...

Here are a few more driver pics just for fun...

Your Daytona 500 Champ looking up at his crew chief like a little kid in trouble for some reason.

An "arty" shot for my good friend "RA6AN"...

The obligatory porta potty shot...sorry Colin!

And finally, a fan favorite with the best hair in NASCAR...

I finished my day tailgating with Luke and his family, friends and some of his crew buddies - thanks for a delicious meal and great company! Will be hitting the track early tomorrow so off to bed with dreams of Victory Lane dancing in my head.

V8 Isn't Just For Breakfast Anymore!

2010-02-08T13:59:00.001-08:00

Road Rules are the Pits

I haven’t seen much written about the two new pit road rules that NASCAR has introduced for 2010 so thought I would pass them along.

The first new rule states a driver can no longer speed down pit road to avoid being lapped. For example, your favorite driver cannot sit in their pits getting repairs for as long as possible then hit the after burners to beat the pace car out and end up on the tail end of the field. Nope now if they do, they will be put a lap down.

I like this one as it should add to some strategy and keep those on pit road just a bit safer. It could result in more lapped cars out there and might effect the quality of repair work done putting even more pressure on those pit crews.

The second rule change fixes the situation when a driver crosses the pit-road commitment line under green but then the yellow comes out before the driver hits the pit-road entrance line. Now, the driver can continue down the closed pit road be put back in line where the car was when it entered pit road.
This one seems like a no-brainer and takes away just a little bit of that bad racing luck.

Please keep in mind, however, that these are NASCAR rules so the likelihood they are actually enforced consistently is ??

A Word on Bump Drafting…

The “Powers That Be” have also announced they will punish bump drafting no more and it is up to the drivers to self police out on the track. I dunno about you, but I think there was plenty of bump drafting last year with no less than five NASCAR babies on the way!

Cousin Carl will be the first changing diapers with his first baby girl due during the Vegas race weekend. ESad will follow in March with his first son. Then we have the holy trinity of babies –The Champ with his first, Big Daddy with his second, and Mr. Juanderful with his third - all due this summer.

If you need a sleeper Daytona 500 fantasy racing pick, I would pick from one of these expert bump drafters if I were you…

Speaking of fantasy leagues – if you haven’t joined KLV’s NASCAR NUTS on Yahoo Sports time is running short! Group ID is #15288 and the password is “lugnut”.

Ok, I Am So Totally Getting This!

Since I never did get my Dale Jr GPS last year (and as a result still have a perfect record finding my parking spot!) I think I will have to put the SoundRacerV8 on my wish list.

My little Nissan Sentra so needs this gadget! Now if they would only make it in Dale Jr or Miller Lite colors…

Bloggers Unite Sonoma 2010

Sounds like there is interest in doing another blogger race meet up at Sonoma again this year. RA6AN and I will definitely be going and would love to invite the rest of you to join us for the June 20^th weekend. Anyone interested leave a comment and we can start planning early!

Hold On To Your Lugs!

And finally, no lugnut will be safe as I am heading to Fontana for the Cup race in a few weeks with the Miller Lite team. Any questions for the Brew Crew, Kurt or others in the garages feel free to ask below and I will do my best to get some answers! I am really looking forward to meeting Steve Addington – he just seems like a kick in the pants!

My Favorite "Twits" and a Beer Challenge

2009-09-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am aware no less than three weeks ago I said I would be blogging more often - well, we can all see how successful I have been at that!   I have another That's Debatable blog in the works but I got a few interesting tidbits from Miller Lite Racing that I thought I would pass along...

Let's start with my favorite Twits...
The Brew Crew has entered the wide world of Twitter and are "tweeting the Chase" from the track and the Penske garages for the next ten weeks.    Luke (shocks), Darin (engines), Stretch (mechanic), Bill (interior/gas), Mule (tires) as well as Pat Tryson and the rest of the pit crew will be answering questions and giving us exclusive updates and insights in real time.   You can follow them on twitter as "@BlueDeuce2Win."   Be sure to ask them who their favorite tool cart girl is...

Penske Racing is also hosting a Chase contest through its Twitter page. Followers of "@penskeracing" can participate by tweeting their guess as to where Kurt will finish in that week's race. Those that correctly guess Kurt's finishing position will be identified and up to 10 winners will be randomly selected to receive a free Penske Racing t-shirt. One weekly grand prize winner will also be selected to receive an autographed No. 2 car diecast signed by Kurt.

On Another Note...
The Battle of the Beer Cars might actually happen this year. Miller Lite once again threw down the gauntlet challenging Budweiser to a weekly duel for charity. If Budweiser accepts, which ever beer car finishes ahead of the other will win $2,500 each race for their charity of choice and whomever finishes higher in the Chase standings will win $25,000 for their charity.

Kurt Busch is racing for Operation Homefront - an organization that provides emergency and morale assistance for our troops, the families they leave behind and for wounded warriors when they return home.   I had the honor of meeting some of the staff for this amazing organization at the Texas race in 2007 as well as several members of the military who were attending their first ever NASCAR race - and who of course went home with some lugnuts!

Let's hope Bud finally antes up and gets in the game for the sake of charity...Go Kurt!

And Finally...
As you can imagine, I was heartbroken to hear the news that Pat Tryson is indeed leaving Penske for MWR and the No. 56 with Martin Truex, Jr. in 2010. Many have attributed this move to a rift between Pat and Kurt and use the evidence of Kurt's, ahem, "passionate" expressions over the radio. This could not be further from the truth - Pat was woo'ed with a hefty raise and job security and in this economy and current state of affairs for teams/crews, no one can blame him for looking out for number one. Word is Penske is looking to go in a different direction and utilize their strength in engineering as they seek new crew chiefs for both the Cup and Nationwide series.

I would like to personally thank Pat for always saying hello (and heck, he even knows my name!) and for being so available for autograph requests and to answer your questions. He will be missed!

That's Debatable - Chasing Kyle Busch

2009-08-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

I realize I have not been able to write much on my own blog lately and am vowing for that to change. I am working on a few blogging ideas that lend themselves to more consistent posting and that are not solely focused on the Brew Crew (although I will continue to bring you the inside scoop when I can).

As we all know, the world of NASCAR is ripe with controversies, opinions, and heated discussions and I hope to highlight some of them here and get your take on it.

So without further ado, onto this week's THAT'S DEBATABLE!

WHO: Kyle Busch, aka "The Show", "Thorn", "Rowdy" or "Shrub" and public enemy numero uno to Junior Nation, Brian Vickers Nation (albeit a small, peaceful nation) or pretty much anyone Kyle is racing around.

When the checkered flag flies, you will find Kyle either taking a bow (4 times this year) or confronting a fellow driver and stomping off avoiding the media. Love him or hate him, with the #18 team there is no in between.

WHAT: The Chase for the Championship is only two races away and Kyle sits 34 points out of the 12th and final spot in the Chase.

SO WHAT? It is possible that Kyle could enter The Chase seeded first (or nearly so) based on his number of wins this season or he could be the first driver with four wins to not make The Chase.

Many fans believe Brian France took away all incentive for the top teams to race for wins by creating The Chase resulting in a less-than-entertaining sport of points racing. Clearly, as Kyle's situation demonstrates, it pays to be a top 15 finisher every race rather than going "wreckers or checkers."

I have seen many articles, blogs and tweets already bemoaning the fact we are heading into a part of the season where only a few drivers will actually be racing and the rest will be "playing it safe." The Chase has become a game of who can avoid problems not who wins the most races.

Now many of you will say, wait Kristen - the Cup Championship used to highly reward consistency not wins, so what's the diff?

You tell me.

Seems unlikely The Chase is going away and I for one am a fan of going for broke and getting the win. So how I see it, the only way to get any excitement into The Chase this year is to root against Kyle. Even better, what if he misses The Chase by a mere point or two, triggering monumental frustration which results in him driving like a drunk hummingbird, taking it four-wide every opportunity and spanking the field as he runs away with win after win. What if he ends up with more wins than the Champ and racks up more points than anyone else in the last 10 races? Then what Brian?

So, The Chase for the Championship is neither a chase nor a championship....Discuss

Shocking, Isn't It?

2009-08-05T14:41:00.000-07:00

In my never-ending quest to try to report about what actually goes on in the NASCAR garages, I bring you the shocking story of the procedure the rear-end shocks move through on race weekend. My partner in crime is none other than Luke Cunnington, our very own Miller Lite Dodge Shock Specialist. Luke was kind enough to let me follow him from the moment he removed the shocks from the car to when he turned them into NASCAR to finally getting them back on the Blue Deuce on Sunday.

To make this all the more shocking you get to watch it, not just read about it! But you'll still have to deal with me and my cheesy questions...

To start, here is Luke previewing the procedure with the rear-end shocks.

In this next video clip, we have moved into the Miller Lite hauler where Luke explains the difference between shocks on a road course vs. an oval and then shows us the shock dyno. (sorry for the rough edits!)

This video clip shows just a bit of the shock dyno working and then Luke explains the output on the computer. It is difficult to see the computer screen but essentially there is a graph with two curving lines that curve away from one another. So not only do these guys wrench on the cars, they do need a lot of computer knowledge as well to keep themselves on the cutting edge of the technology of speed.

Here Luke shows off the uber-organized shock cabinet in the Miller Lite hauler. I have found all the Penske haulers would put my closet to shame. Luke said it is imperative to have the shocks easy to find especially when they need to change them out quickly during practice.

And here you get a better flavor of how packed in the haulers are with crew members and equipment. Luke completes the process with the shocks in the hauler by removing all the air pressure from them and discusses how some teams abused shocks to get an advantage.

Finally, in this video clip we head over to the NASCAR Shock inspection station. Every team must have their shocks inspected, tagged and stored here before the garage closes.

On race day, the Brew Crew gets the car tuned as they want it and then pushes the car through inspection. The first inspection station they arrive at is always the shock station. Here they find the same inspectors from the night before with their tagged shocks. They cut the yellow tie off them and Luke usually has Stretch (aka Eric Bailey, the general mechanic on the No. 2 car) put them back in the car. Sadly, I don't have the picture of Stretch under the car so this will have to do.

Hope you enjoyed following the Miller Lite shocks around the garage -- Thanks to Luke and the officials for letting me document this on video and film!

And as always...thanks for reading!

Indy Week -- Tirelessly Talkin' Tires

2009-07-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

As we know from last year at Indy, four infamous Goodyear Eagle racing tires can make you or break you on race day. We may think we know tires, but there is a lot “More-2-It” than we realize. How many of us have actually tried to change all four of our tires in under 15 seconds with six other friends? Not many I reckon! Let me tell you what I have learned from the Miller Lite racing team about their tires.

First off, one tire costs about $450 and most teams buy between 10-15 sets of tires for each race weekend. That’s a lot of dough! The teams give Goodyear their wheels and Goodyear mounts the racing tire chosen for that particular race for the teams at the track. The Miller Lite tires are always easy to find because they are the only ones with blue wheels. The tires each weigh about 60 pounds when they have the inner safety liner (used at high speed tracks like Daytona) and about 45 pounds without the safety liner (used at road courses and lower speed tracks). Each set of tires has an average life of about 150 miles.

One last thing, these tires are “smooth”, they have no tread on them. When teams use new tires out on the track they are called “stickers” because they still have the sticker on them from Goodyear indicating the batch and once the tires have one “hot lap” on them they are called “scuffs.” Sometimes teams “scuff” tires in practice just in case their car setup works better on older tires.

The Miller Lite Dodge arrives at the track with a set of “Set Up Tires” that are clearly marked on the outside in blue writing. These tires come from the shop and are not counted towards the team’s tire limit for the weekend. They cannot be used outside of the garage area. Each team’s tires are labeled with the team numbers and are bar coded so Goodyear can track them if the teams have any problems with them. Dave “Mule” Nichols is the Miller Lite team’s “tire guy” and he is responsible for getting the tires from Goodyear for practice, qualifying and for the race and making sure they are all at the desired air pressure amounts as decided by the crew chief, Pat Tryson.
Here is a video of Mule telling me about his tire routine and his reactions to the Indy race last year.

Mule starts his weekend by trotting over to the Goodyear garage and picking up tires for practice and qualifying. On race day, he gets help from the pit crew as they lug their tires to the pit box. One of Mule’s main jobs is removing the air from the tires and replacing it with nitrogen. By using nitrogen instead of air, they have more control over how much the pressure will increase when the tires heat up. He also measures the circumference of each tire and takes other measurements to try to match them into sets.

Each tire has five to six “wear holes” about the size of the tip of a sharpie marker in a diagonal across the tire. Mule uses a gauge that measures the depth of these holes and notes them before they put them on the Miller Lite Dodge. After the team makes a practice run and Mule again checks the depth of the wear holes to see how the different set ups are wearing the tires.
Often when the car comes into the pits, there is a bunch of rubber and debris built up on the tire from the track. You’ll see Mule using a small torch to heat up that rubber and then he scrapes it off to clean off the tire so he can get back to those wear holes. Right after a pit stop, you’ll see Mule radioing the information he learns about the tire wear, tire temperature, and air pressure build-up to Pat Tryson (crew chief) and Dave Winston, the team engineer who has to make sense of that data.

But I am getting ahead of myself. There is a whole lot of work that goes into the tires on race day before they are used in the race. Usually the pit crew is responsible for getting and preparing the sets of tires to be used during the race. Teams have anywhere between 5 and 10 sets of tires in their pits depending on the type of race. The tires are labeled by Mule with chalk “LF, LR, RF, RR” to indicate where on the car they go and he numbers them to indicate which set they belong to.

The pit crew then uses a strip of hot pink tape to indicate the left side tires and a strip of bright blue tape to indicate right side tires. They place this tape in the same place on each tire because it also indicates where the tire carriers should hold the tires as they carry them during the pit stops. This ensures they get the tire consistently and easily lined up with the studs for quick stops.

Each rim has to be “cleaned” and the team uses three different types of steel brushes on each tire to clean the holes for the studs and the center hole that slides over the wheel cap. After the grime and paint is removed by the brushes, the wheels are ready for the lugs. About four hours before the start of the race, the pit crew starts gluing on the bright yellow lug nuts onto the wheels with a weather stripping adhesive. Finally, they use a heavy, flat piece of metal that presses the lugs into the adhesive and makes for a good seal.

When the Miller Lite Dodge rolls out onto pit road on race day, the pit crew also lubes the studs on the car so the tires slide on and off easier. The studs are long and have no threads for the first three-quarters of an inch so the lug nuts glued to the rim don’t get cross-threaded when the tire changers are putting the tires on the car. When the wheel is placed on the car during the pit stop, the air gun torque breaks the adhesive and the lug nut is tightened normally. Sometimes the adhesive is too gooey and sometimes to brittle and it will interfere with the “feel” and rhythm of the tire changers. There is always a danger that the lug nuts might fall off while changing the tire, so the over-the-wall guys wear special gloves that have a couple lug nuts attached to them on top by their wrists so they can grab them quickly if needed.

Tired of reading about tires yet? I have a feeling this isn't the last time you'll be hearing about tires this week but all indications seems to point to the fact that Goodyear has finally figured something out.

The Most Exciting Racing You'll See This Weekend!

2009-07-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

and Sloppy Joe takes the win!

RANDOM TIDBITS FROM THE WORLD OF NASCAR

**Rumors are flying that Happy Harvick has asked to be released from his RCR ride at the end of the year so he can take Shell with him to SHR. BAH! It makes sense with Harvick having both Newman and Smoke in his NW rides this year. I still don't like it...precisely because I do like Harvick (and Newman...sigh).

**More on beloved Smoke -- as reported by Jay Hart over at Yahoo! Sports apparently after his (in)famous Sonoma media appearance, Smoke called the assembled media "douchebags" under his breathe as he left. And yet, I thought there was at least ONE novel question that day. More evidence as to why I just don't like him...

**Yesterday on Twitter Kenny Wallace let it fly that NASCAR was making the media call the double-file restarts "Shootout Style". Since, there has been some "clarification" on twitter by others tied into the powers that be saying NASCAR has preferences..."free pass" instead of "lucky dog" but no mandate. I just don't get this. I can understand NASCAR mandating what not to say but having such influence over the broadcasts might explain a lot. More WWF tactics controlling the product when it just should sell itself!

KURT IN CHI-TOWN

**In case you missed TNT's prerace show, Kurt was featured in his favorite Windy City spots. You've GOT to tune in to see him and Marty Snider dancing at the hot dawg restaurant...Oh my!
http://www.nascar.com/video/cup/2009/07/11/cup.chi.snider.busch.nascar/index.html

**Kurt hasn't yet made it to Frothy's but when he comes, he'll bring free beer!
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/video/index.html?pid=ceddyUfGd8EIEyAZZAnEk9__sMaMGNQt

**Kurt also raced in the Mobil One Smart Car Challenge along with teammates Sam Hornish, Jr. and David Stremme. Of course the drivers beat the pants off their respective challengers from the media on the miniature road course that involved zippy parallel parking at the end. Who won? Sam Hornish of course!

AND FINALLY

Now that the bulk of NASCAR bloggers from Foxsports.com have migrated to Blogspot, is there any interest in creating a "master blog" with all of us as authors as a central place to chat and promote our individual blogs? If so, we need a gmail account to register it under and a blog title...

Let me know if you are interested AND your suggestions for name.

Example of this type of blog can be found on HotfootLori's blog -http://hotfootlori.blogspot.com/- she belongs to the "Alabama Bloggers"

Body and Soul

2009-07-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

As race fans, we all love the roar of the engines and the beauty of the slick bodies on a NASCAR Sprint Cup racing machine especially at the super speedway races like we just had at Daytona. I was able to pick the brains of the engine tuner for the Miller Lite Dodge and a couple of the fabricators who specialize on the super speedway cars in the Penske stable. Here is what I found out.

The Penske Powerhouse
Darin Russell, the primary engine tuner for the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, attended an auto technical school to obtain his college degree and was originally hired by Robert Yates Racing where he cut his teeth for four years before being hired by Penske Racing. (Darin in the center of the picture "working it" in the garages at Sonoma...)

Darin is in his fourth year tuning the engines at the track which he loves because he says, “the engines are the heart of the race car and what racing is all about.” Darin can choose to tune the Miller Lite engine for more horsepower or for better fuel mileage depending on the track and the race. While at the track, Darin becomes an amateur weatherman as he monitors things like temperature, barometer and vapor pressure, all which affect how these finely tuned engines will run under racing conditions.

At the track, Darin is responsible for anything engine related and has to complete this checklist each day the Miller Lite Dodge goes out on the track.

The Penske Dodges have a 15/16th plate engine that produces “approximately” 400 HP and has special “Spintron” technology that runs the valve train system. Dodge supplies all the Dodge teams with the basic racing engine block and then each Dodge team tweaks the engines to their needs. The Dodge racing teams do not share that information with each other but they do share information with Dodge.

There are 60 employees at the Penske Racing Engine shop, which is actually located about 45 minutes from the main Penske Racing garage. Not only does this shop house about 100 engine blocks, with 30-40 engines fully built at anytime, it also is the main source for Penske engine parts. Penske used to outsource their parts but since competition has become so fierce in the NASCAR garages, this is yet another way they can assure other teams do not find out what parts they are using or how they are modifying them.

It takes about three days for the Penske team to build an engine from start to finish. Each engine has about 50 cycles put on it on the Penske shop dyno machine before its put in a Miller Lite race car. Once it is in the car the engine will go through about another 25 cycles on the chassis dyno before it hits the track. The engine parts all go through tremendous amounts of testing before they are assembled into the engine. (This is Dale Jr's engine from Talladega last year...Penske does a better job of covering their engines!)

The Miller Lite team tears down the engine after every race and surprisingly, this process only takes about a half an hour. In fact, the Brew Crew can change out an entire engine at the track in about the same amount of time if a Penske powerhouse unfortunately “blows.” These days if you lose an engine at the track, you usually don’t bother fixing it, instead you just swap it out to be safe and tear it down afterwards to analyze the malfunction. That also means they only use an engine once. However, the team might re-use certain engine parts like the heads, blocks, and cranks but they keep a close eye on the mileage to determine when to stop using them. Usually races will put about 800 miles on an engine per race weekend and the Miller Lite team has tested durability for some of its parts for up to 1100 miles.

The biggest difference with the “new” Penske engine being used full time by the three Penske teams is that is it lighter and now looks more like the Ford racing engines because the distributors are now up front. It also (of course) produces more horsepower and torque.

Fab-ulous
There are 28 fabricators at the Penske shop and instead of working on each Penske racing team, they are divided by type of race car. There are eight senior fabricators that focus on the super speedway cars and the rest work on the down force cars.

There are six surface plates the cars are built on and they estimate it takes about 10 days to build a car, up to 16 days to build a super speedway car. For most races, they have seven cars built total, two for each racing team and one is kept at the shop in case of dire emergency. For the Daytona 500, they build 10 cars total just because it is such an important race and there is so much time on the track. At any one time, the Penske fabricators have about 15 cars built per race team and they are always try to be at least one week ahead of the race schedule.

The Miller Lite Dodge and the rest of the Penske cars are fabricated out of 24 gauge sheet metal. Penske gets the main body parts like the nose and the rear deck lid from Dodge and those parts are stock “stamped” so NASCAR can see they came from the manufacturer. This season, all of the Dodge teams got a new nose and it seems to have helped them turn better through the corners.

It takes the fabricators two days alone to get the roof, deck lid and hood shaped just right especially on a super speedway car. However, the nose and front fenders are the most important part on the super speedway car. Another difference on the super speedway cars is that they use thicker windows and use lots of extra braces and brackets to hold the sheet metal in place because the draft is so violent it can literally skin the sheet metal right off the car.

The fabricators work 7:00AM to 4:00PM daily and in November and December they tend to work seven days a week preparing for Daytona. They said the worst part of their job is trying to get the cars to fit NASCAR’s templates as they have very little wiggle room to make adjustments on the COT but they keep trying to get an edge. Penske uses the wind tunnel at Dodge headquarters in Detroit but more recently has begun using a local wind tunnel in North Carolina because it saves them time and money to not have to travel for three days.

I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about the engine and body shops at Penske Racing. The next time you see that Blue Deuce, I hope you’ll appreciate more the time and effort it takes to make it rumble around the track.

Inspection Please!

2009-07-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

The Miller Lite Dodge must pass NASCAR inspection several times each race weekend, primarily on Fridays and Sundays. The inspection sites are run by the same NASCAR officials each race weekend and believe me, they know these guys well! That also means they know their jobs extremely well. As many of you know, the NASCAR garages are “open”, meaning teams work on their cars in full view of each other, and the inspections sites are no different. Anyone can watch the cars move through inspection making cheating or giving advantages to a team nearly impossible. The teams push their cars through inspection whenever they are ready, there is no set time or order. Interestingly, I learned this past weekend at Sonoma that if you are “late” and need to get ahead in line, your car chief or crew chief runs up and asks permission from the other teams to cut in – the officials do not get involved in making sure the teams are on time.

Friday Inspection
Inspection starts on Friday morning before the cars hit the track for practice. During this first inspection, each car gets an official NASCAR seal on the fuel cell and the rear wing. This seal indicates these two parts of the car have been approved and the seal serves a second function of eliminating any chance of the teams altering them in anyway which could gain them an advantage. Also on Friday morning, the transmission, carburetor, radiator are cleared and the gear ratio set by NASCAR is confirmed. The final step in getting the Miller Lite Dodge ready for practice is clearing the body template. NASCAR lowers a full body template from the top of the inspection tent over each car. If it passes, the car gets that familiar round orange sticker on the windshield to indicate it is track worthy.

Saturday Confiscation
Saturday just before the garage closes Luke Cunningham, the Miller Lite Dodge Shock Specialist must take the rear shocks to the NASCAR shock inspection site where NASCAR holds them until Sunday morning. At the inspection site, Luke must empty the shocks in front of the inspectors and then fill them back up to the desired psi within the NASCAR specifications for each race. NASCAR confiscates the rear shocks so the teams cannot tamper with them in any way.

Sunday Inspection
There are four main inspection sites the teams must pass through each race day. The entire Miller Lite mechanical crew is present including the Crew Chief, Pat Tryson, as they push the No. 2 car through these four sites. Bill, the interior mechanic is usually pulling a large toolbox just in case adjustments need to be made.

The first station is the Shock Installation Station where officials give the rear shocks back to Luke and usually he has “Stretch” (one of the general mechanics) re-install them on the Miller Lite Dodge. This is my favorite inspection site because I have befriended the officials that work here and they always give me some good inside scoop!

The team then pushes the car to the second inspection station which is the Template Line. Here a swarm of officials descend on the No. 2 car and use templates to measure nearly every body part including the angles on the quarter panels, front and rear windows, the nose and rear end, the bumpers and the chassis at the “A”, “B” and “C” posts. These are points along the top of the roof near the front window, just behind the driver and near the rear window.

At this inspection site, NASCAR also measures the tire to the ground where they are looking for 1” of “droop” or travel between the tire and the wheel well. Finally, they check the splitter making sure it is adjusted so it is level with the car using the nose grid.

The third inspection site is Height Sticks and Scales. NASCAR only allows four crew members at a time inside this inspection area and they are watched closely as they push the Miller Lite Dodge onto the scales to make sure they do not cheat in anyway by affecting the weight of the car. NASCAR measures the entire weight of the car as well as the right side weight. NASCAR dictates the weight of the right side of the car based on the weight of the driver.

The officials also measure the height of the car and it has to be within the minimum and maximum heights required by NASCAR. Finally, Mule, the Miller Lite Dodge Tire Specialist observes as they check the tire pressure. NASCAR dictates they must start at the “recommended tire pressure” for each race.

The final inspection site measures the wheel base of the car to measure how offset the chassis and suspension are. This is the station where several teams have failed in the past because their cars were too “yawed out” to fit on the template. They also measure the length of the cars here.

Once the Miller Lite Dodge has cleared all of the inspection sites the crew pushes the No. 2 car out onto pit road to their spot on the starting grid. The crew covers the car and an official stands and watches over all the cars until the start of the race. About an hour before the start of the race, one of the mechanics to start up the generator to heat the oil up. When Kurt arrives at the No. 2 car after driver introductions, the crew tightens the lug nuts one more time and Mule checks the air pressures again to make sure they are what Pat Tryson called for.

At this point, the Miller Lite Dodge is handed off to Kurt to work his magic out on the track. I hope you enjoyed this trip through the NASCAR inspection stations, now it is up to you to figure out where the grey areas are!

Sonoma Garage Report - Race Day

2009-06-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

Sunday was another early start with all bloggers finally in attendance at the track. We made plans to meet up on pit road at the Brew Crew pit box but first I went in to the garages to say hi to the guys and get some scoop.

The crew was busy getting the car ready for inspection so I sought out some of my contacts in the garages and asked their opinion of the NASCAR drug policy. First, anyone who works on the cars can be selected for the random drug testing each week. People are randomly selected based on a number on their hard card and it can be officials, crew or team members or drivers.

When asked about the fairness of not knowing the specific substances on the banned list -- most felt it was completely fair and they know if they are concerned about some drug they are taking they can talk to NASCAR's MD to get that medication noted and "cleared." No one seemed reluctant to go to the MD to discuss their medications and many felt it was the best drug program in sports.

A random tidbit -- some were not in the least surprised by Mayfield getting caught. Hmmmmmmm.....

It was time to meet up with the bloggers at the Miller Lite pit box. RA6AN was writing good luck messages to her beloved Roush teams and IowaGirl, YeeMum and Jon464 were getting the royal tour of the pit box courtesy of Larry, the rear tire carrier. Larry is "almost famous" for his pit box tours as you will see in a video I hope to have up soon. He also admits to reading the blogs and recognized some of the bloggers in attendance! So if you write on Wednesdays and Thursdays don't be surprised if the Brew Crew knows what you said about them! Here is RA6AN trying to counteract the #2 team mojo by holding up a #6 for her favorite driver.

The bloggers headed off to collect signatures and lugnuts from the other crews and I headed back into the garage. The Brew Crew was pushing the Miller Lite Dodge past me towards the first inspection station -- putting the rear shocks back in the car -- so I caught up with them and resumed my duties as the unofficial tool car girl. While we were in line for inspection our teammate, Sam Hornish, Jr. pulled in in his rental car -- a Dodge of course!

Infineon is one of the few tracks where the driver's do not bring their motor coaches and instead stay in local resorts in wine country. As a result they are often stuck in the same traffic we are and its a hoot to see fans recognize drivers in the cars next to them.

We were making it through inspection without a hitch -- well until the final inspection stop. The Blue Deuce was rolled up onto a ramp where the templates sit to check for the yaw and length of the cars. We passed inspection and "Stretch", the general mechanic on the crew, was sitting in the window ready to steer off the ramp and down the hill to pit road. Well, it was a very tight squeeze and he couldn't react fast enough and ended up ripping the lower skirt off the car on the right hand side. OOPS!

Above is Stretch holding the piece that broke off. Not to worry, the Stretch, the car chief Jeffrey, and Steve the rear-end mechanic took the skirt off, cut a new piece of plastic to go in its place and had the car all ready to go about 15 min later. Of course the NASCAR officials were watching "closely" as Jeffrey joked about what a great diversion tactic so they could fiddle with the left side of the car. Given how well the Miller Lite Dodge handled in the race compared to practice, I would say Stretch might be onto something!

Once the car was safely out on pit road it was time to head back to the hauler for some of Cindy's tasty grub. Beef tips, rice and corn were on the menu today. While the guys dug in I admired their most recent trophy -- The Kings Cup.

The Brew Crew had won the annual go-kart race for charity beating out Denny Hamlin's team for the Cup which they proudly displayed all weekend outside the hauler. WOOT!
The guys are also in another competition...weight loss! Inspired by crew chief Pat Tryson's dramatic weight loss over the course of the 2008 season, several of the crew are battling to be the biggest loser this year. Based on their progress chart, I would say they are practicing "Yo-Yo" diets -- baby steps right?! LOL

The drivers started heading out of their haulers to driver introductions and of course one of the most popular dad's on this Father's Day race was "Big Daddy" Jeff Gordon. Here he is with Ella as everyone yelled Happy Father's Day to him.

In a rare event, the Miller Lite Dodge was lined up exactly with our pit box so Kurt had a nice shady place to hang out before having to get in the car.

Kurt filled us in on the hunting trip he was heading to in Montana on his way home from California this week...including the 3 hour donkey ride he had to take to get to the hunting spot -- Man, I wish I could get some pictures of that!!! He's plan is to hunt bear with his compound bow and arrow...let's hope he shows up for Louden!

Here is nearly the entire team lined up for the prayer and anthem...

And another moving moment -- especially for me as a "retired" National Park Police Mounted Patrol groom -- was when the Oakland Police Department motorcycles lead the field on the pace laps in honor of the four officers killed on duty earlier this year.

To our right in the pits was Elliot Sadler's team where The King had chosen to watch the race. It sure was fun watching them cheer on their teammate to the victory.

To our left in the pits was pole-sitter Brian Vickers. One very interested party in the Red Bull teams this weekend was Front Row Joe who sold his ride to Scott Speed and instead was hanging around the pits.

Some of you may remember we have a father-son team on the Miller Lite crew. Steve, the rear-end mechanic and catch can man (seen previously in my blogs eating chicken wings with me) is the father of Chris, our gas man. Chris was a good son and didn't forget to wish his dad a Happy Father's Day -- in the form of a neon sticker on his helmet that his dad could read as they were gassing the car!

Of course, you all know that Kurt was kicking booty and taking names as he drove the Blue Deuce through the field from 27th up to the lead and was in contention for certainly a top 5 finish. Finally this generated some media attention and we had the lovely Lindsey in our pits interviewing crew chief Pat Tryson.

We were all pretty excited to hear the No. 2 car was getting awesome gas mileage and we were good to go on two stops, well until Jimmie Johnson decided to try passing Kurt through the "esses" and blatantly took Kurt out as he slammed hard into the tire barrier. Apparently JJ apologized but his crew chief did not pass that message along to Kurt who headed to the pits with a badly wounded ride.

The only good news was this fired Kurt up and he drove like mad in the final 30 laps to end up with a 15th-place finish. That and I managed to snag a small part of sheet metal as a souvenir! Several of you saw me on TV as Kurt was being interviewed after the race. He was clearly disappointed in Jimmie's judgment and thought he could trust Jimmie as the two former champs usually raced clean. As soon as Kurt finished his TV interview, Johnson headed over to apologize. I didn't get too close but it was clear Jimmie was saying he lost control of his car going over the rumble strips. Not sure if Kurt *really* forgave him but he was gracious nonetheless. We might see this one come back around...

The Miller Lite racing team had the car loaded and they were all heading out to the plane for the long flight home soon after. I said my goodbyes and good lucks and hope to see them again during the Chase.

Stay tuned for some more blogs from The Bloggers Weekend at Sonoma!

Sonoma Garage Report -- Qualifying

2009-06-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Infineon Raceway in beautiful Sonoma, CA where it is "Bloggers weekend" - with six bloggers from FOXSports.com along with Valli, author of The Fast and The Fabulous all meeting up for a raucous good time!

Friday -- Qualifying Day
I made it into the garages around 10am after picking up my credentials and saying hello to the bloggers in attendance. One of the first images I came upon was Patrick Carpentier having some fun with the NASCAR officials "weighing" himself at the second to last inspection site. I have a feeling he was not heavy enough to even register!

I popped over to say hi to the Miller Lite Brew Crew in garage stall #5 and stopped by the hauler before heading out and taking in the sights. Marcos Ambrose was a very popular interview this weekend, here he is taping with TNT. Per the request of a fellow Aussie fan, I did chant "Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi! Oi! Oi!" as he walked back to his hauler. Marcos laughed and said, "good show!"

Of course, another popular driver this weekend is the defending champion of this race, Kyle "Thorn" Busch who was driving a super slick 18 car with an M&M's Transformers paint scheme.

I watched most of practice from the main grandstand with fellow blogger, RA6AN and then headed down to listen in to some of the drivers in the top 12 did their media interviews. Much of the questions centered around the economic situation and the recent cutback by Chevy as well as the new double-file restart rule. It was funny to hear the varied opinions on how the restarts would go here at the road course, from "we are all professionals, it will be fine" to "it is going to be a disaster."

I then got back to the Brew Crew who were just heading out to inspection. Above you see our engine tuner, Darin, posing for a laugh after working like dogs making numerous repairs to the Blue Deuce after practice searching for the right setup and fixing the splitter after breaking some of the brackets on the rumble strips. They were the last car out of the garage and had to cut in line in order to get through inspection in time to get the car out on pit road for their third-place qualifying spot. Interestingly, I learned in order to cut ahead of other teams you had to ask each team for permission. I thought the NASCAR officials waved you up. So our car chief, Jeffery, was running all over the place getting permission to jump in line.

I resumed my un-official job as the "tool cart girl" because the entire team was needed to steer and stop the car as it rolled off the final inspection site and down the hill to pit road.

I *love* being on pit road before qualifying - all the drivers are out socializing and not nearly as tense as before the race. Cousin Carl was getting a lot of attention next to us because his car failed the height sticks and weight inspection site a few times and he was without his Aflac ride right up until the start of qualifying. He joked that he might have to run around the track to qualify! Here are some driver shots.

And of course, our usual game of "Where's Junior" as he tries his best to be stealthy to get to his No. 88 ride.

Kurt went out third and had a great lap going until he went in too hard into a turn and went just into the grass resulting in ultimately a 27th place qualifying run. I found it interesting the lack of respect the No. 2 team gets from the media. They are in 4th place in the points, the only Dodge in the top 12 and yet Kurt didn't even get interviewed after his qualifying effort, instead the media flocked to Carl Edwards who eventually ended up qualifying way worse in 34th. Not sure what this team has to do to impress and get some respect!!

Up next...Sonoma Race Day!

Your Atlanta Winning Pit Crew!

2009-06-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

A big CONGRATS goes out to Kurt Busch and the Miller Lite Racing team on their dominating win this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway! After all their struggles the past year adapting to the COT, I am very proud of these guys for their perseverance and hope they all enjoy the well-deserved spoils of Victory!

For a little tribute to the over-the-wall guys for their stellar work this weekend, I thought I would share with you their answers to this question:

“You may not believe it, but as far as jobs go, at one time in my life I…” (Courtesy of TRPR.com)

Ray Gallaghan, Jackman: “worked at Auto Bell Car Wash during high school and the first year of college. I was like their MVP guy in that I knew how to do anything there. Inside cleanup and vacuuming were my specialties.” (Ray --these skills will be a big hit with the ladies!)

Jay Hackney, Front Tire Changer: “worked in a sawmill. My dad knew how hard the work was and he wanted me to get off on the right foot while I was getting out of school and having to do things on my own. I did everything from cutting and hauling the dropped trees to all the work at the mill. Dad was right, that was the hardest work I can imagine doing…” (Jay puts his sawing and cutting skills to work on the BBQ)

Travis Johnson, Rear Tire Changer: “worked on a pheasant farm performing all the jobs there…yeah, even de-feathered and gutted them…I don’t talk about it much because my girlfriend doesn’t like it. I grew up on a dairy farm, so it really wasn’t all that strange to me…(Travis gave up on game meats and now snacks on Tasty Cakes)

Dave Littau, Front Tire Carrier: “was a paid dish-washer. It only took me two hours to figure out that kind of work was not for me. Ever since I was 13 or so, I’ve never done anything else except something that was automotive-related…” (Dave is the "senior" member on the pit crew and has gone from cleaning dishes to cleaning wheel wells)

Larry Robinett, Rear Tire Carrier: “was a ‘repo man’ back out in Texas, where I grew up. We had a nice little setup, with a truck that hid all our tools. We could pull up front of a car that we were after, drop our tailgate, make our hitch and get out of there in a hurry. I’m fortunate that I never got shot at, but there were a bunch of pretty hairy situations that I better not talk about…” (Oh my Larry! This is so you...enough said!)

Chris Williams, Gasman: “worked for a while waiting tables at a restaurant.” Steve (father) comments, “Chris was really good at it, too. He was working at Damon’s at the time. I brought a huge group and we sat at one of his tables. He came over and took our orders without writing a single thing down. Man, was I ever impressed that our orders were perfect down to the little special items a couple of us requested. Chris has always had a sharp mind and a great memory. Working at that job probably helped him more in that department than he’d ever admit…” (No garlic please, Chris and extra fries with that!)

Steve Williams, Catch Can: “worked for four years at the General Electric plant north of Cincinnati where we built jet engines. I was a union steward there when GE had the contract to build the F101 engines that powered the B-1B strategic bomber…” (Wow, the rear end of the Miller Lite Dodge must look pretty simple compared to a Bomber engine!)

All I can say knowing these guys is ...HOW FITTING!

(Thanks TR for this great inside story on the Brew Crew--italics and pictures are mine)

Phoenix Friday

2009-06-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

Finally here is the inside scoop from my time in the garages at Phoenix! I will get the Saturday Garage report out soon and also have a blog focusing on Kurt and the Brew Crew at Phoenix.

Friday - Practice and Quals

The teams arrived in Phoenix on Thursday and had the cars already through initial inspections so they would be ready to roll onto the track for the 10a first practice. I arrived at the track around 9a, grabbed my credentials and found the Brew Crew already hard at work.

(From left: Jeffrey (new car chief), Steve (rear-end mechanic), Billy (windshield/interior) and Darren (engine))

As Steve. the rear-end mechanic likes to say to me with a smile, "If you can't get there on time, get there when you can." As they toiled in the hot Arizona sun I made my rounds to say hello to the rest of the crew and others in the garages I have gotten to know. The first practice was a marathon 2 hours and started with a scare for the Brew Crew as the Miller Lite Dodge shut itself off just as Kurt pulled out for practice. The crew went to work immediately correcting the problem -- I think something with the ignition box and got the Blue Deuce out on the track.

While they were practicing I made my way over to the now famous Start and Parkers to snoop around. It was a sad sight to see these teams with little to no equipment, no visable hauler, one small tool box and most of the teams don't even have uniforms. Brandon Ash's crew was working in jeans and matching T-shirts. Here we have a shot of Blaney's #66 Prism Motorsports Toyota.

My sources tell me that owner Phil Parsons has no intention of finishing races, the crew does not even get paid (Blaney or who ever is driving does) and that the officials are not going after their bogus reasons for dropping out of the races because if they make the start and parkers tear down their cars then they would have to tear down the legit cars and they don't want to make the legit teams work that hard (or the officials don't want to work that hard).

I told my source that fans would be highly disappointed to hear that Blaney was okay with this and the resopnse was "well if Blaney was a better driver he wouldn't be in this situation, sorry truth hurts." OUCH! So since these crews aren't even getting paid I decided to stick with my job of pulling the tool box through inspections for the Brew Crew instead.

There was only a half an hour in between practice and Happy Hour and it seemed all the drivers were doing their media interviews during that time. Everywhere you looked --drivers drivers everywhere. Here is our very own Lee Spencer getting the scoop on Junior's new diet...

I was peeking in on Carl Edward's interview and wasn't really paying attention to whose hauler area I was standing in and out pops "THE SHOW" to grab an icy cold beverage...

Of course, Smoke had to blow off some fans asking for autographs on his way to talk to his teammate after practice to compare notes. He and Ryan talked the entire time in between practices and had fans drooling with delight.

And as SpeedBeagle so graciously pointed out -- The #2 hauler was right next to Gordon's hauler in the garages (remember that they line up according to points and the current Champ always gets the first spot) so I have lots of pictures of Jeffy poo...and yes, also a few of those uber-important, heavy little golden lugs too(!)

After Happy Hour the crews had a few hours to get the cars through inspection before qualifying. I asked them if anything was new on the car other than the longer studs and they said this antennae -- no one on the crew really knew what it was for but they thought it had something to do with the TV cameras.

Also new this year are the super cute new engine vent covers (ok I don't really know what that part of the car is called so feel free to chime in). NASCAR is making the teams provide them now and some of the teams are getting pretty creative!

The sleek Mobil 1 pegausus...

The cuddly Aarons Dream Machine pup...

and of course the obvious Miller Lite six-pack!

We pushed the Miller Lite Dodge out on pit road and lined up for qualifying. I just love this because I am "with the team" and can stay on pit road where only the broadcast media is allowed -- so I can get cool pictures like this...

and chat with the Penske teammates and get them to pose for a picture.

And snap this shot for our very own RA6AN...

Kurt laid down a great qualifying lap, picking up a lot of speed from practice. The crew was only expecting a top 15 starting spot. Must have been the pep talk by the Captain just before Kurt went out on the track that did the trick.

After qualifying was over, I did not stay for the Nationwide race but instead hit the road to visit with my family. I have much more to come in the next blog about race day including more info on those pesky longer studs, even more problems with the 88 team, and a poor baby bird! Stay tuned!

Phoenix 4.09

2009-06-20T16:40:00.001-07:00

Saturday - Race Day!

The crews got to sleep in today -- good thing since a few of our guys had one too many margaritas the night before -- as the garages opened around noon today. My day started off on an autograph hunt since I did not have a chance on Friday to get the Kurt Busch hat autographed that HoosierRacer won for naming the backwards Victory Lap the "Unwind Lap." Pat Tryson was in the hauler so that was easy but Kurt was in his coach and was unlikely to come over until race time so TR (Kurt's PR guy) walked me over to the coach lot (my first time ever in there!) and we hung out for a bit watching the Alabama crimson and white scrimmage on TV until Kurt popped out and did the deed. Mission accomplished Hoosier!

TR is a HUGE 'Bama fan and was glued to the TV so he trusted me to "let myself out" of the coach area. Given that I was dressed in my usual Miller Lite garb I was hardly inconspicious so I did a brief run around the coach area but it was impossible to tell the coaches apart. Saw lots of drivers out and about but not the one I was really looking for...LOL

After safely tucking the autographed hat away I headed out to pit road to see the pit crew. They had flown in that morning and had the pit box all set up already. I caught up with the guys and asked them about the problematic longer studs.

There appears to be two issues. First, the reason some teams are having more problems than others is that they were cutting back on the threads. So rather than having 6 threads holding the lugs on some teams were down to two threads (not the Penske teams of course -- you might recall some other teams losing wheels last year...now you know why). The longer studs ensure that teams cannot skimp on the threads which is obviously a pretty dangerous modification. Neither Jay (Front Tire Changer) nor Travis (Rear Tire Changer) said the longer stud affected their rhythm much but some teams are having much slower stops now because of this issue.

The second issue has been more widely reported on, which is the glue problem. Teams are experimenting with different glues and how far in advance to glue the lugs onto the wheel wells before the race. If it is too sticky they it gets the lugs all gummy and clogs up the air guns but we are also seeing lots of lugs popping off when they slam the tires on. Penske has found something they like.

I then had to get back to my tool box pulling duties since the crew had the Blue Deuce ready to go through inspection for the final time. We were nearly the last car out which is unusual for this crew and were stuck waiting baking in the sun for nearly an hour and half! During that time the future of Penske Racing popped by...

Yup, thats "lil Gator" -- Justin Algier, Penske's NW driver with Billy whose job it really is to pull the toolbox! I was also able to get to know Dave Winston, the new team engineer much better while we waited. He used to work on Biffle's team when Kurt was still at Roush and then moved to Red Bull Racing before coming to Penske. He has clearly made a huge difference and is one of the main reasons the team has figured out how to get that COT to turn better for Kurt.

We had a "camber issue" on our inital pass through the height/weight inspection site and had to circle back around after fixing it which put us nearly last pushing out onto the grid...nearly last...we cleared the final inspection area that measures the wheel base and checks to see how offset the chassis and suspension are and who is stuck parked next to the final inspection spot? The 88 team looking glum...guilty?

We pushed the car out all they way up to the third starting spot on pit road -- I tell you that is a good workout!

I headed back to the hauler to grab a quick bite to eat as driver introductions were only about 10 mins away. As I was stuffing down some steak and baked potatoes off the grill out came the Gordon family! (Personally I really like her hair short...)

On my way back out to the track I passed by the final inspection site and sure enough, the 88 was still on the template and Tony Eury Jr was having a heated discussion with several officials.

I asked the crew, "Isn't that kind of an odd inspection site to get stuck at?" and they all agreed it was very odd. The best they could guess was maybe the car was too wide or the suspension was offset too much. By the looks of the conversation Tony Eury Jr. was having I thought Junior might not ever make it out on the track.

Driver introductions were already in progress and I managed to get out to our pit box in time to get some good pictures. Of course you all know it is tradition for me to have at least one funny photo of a driver in a compromising position so here it is...Junior's crotch shot!

And then comes another favorite part of mine...lining up with the crew for the prayer and anthem...

Just before the start of the race, the Ray (Jack man) was sweeping our pit stall and this adorable tiny baby bird (morning dove?) haphazardly flew into our pit. The tiny thing was clearly trying to learn how to fly and RAY swept him out of our pit and he ended up inside the outer pit wall! The HORROR!!

He walked along the wall until I couldn't see him anymore and God only knows what happened to him after the first round of pit stops. That poor bird!

Something I had not seen before...we had an Official in Training in our pit stall for the night. He is the one taking notes. He worked our pit while the veteran official supervised. I am sure it takes a while to learn, they keep track of everything the team is doing from the pit stops themselves to every air pressure change in the tires.

I staked out a great spot right up against the pit wall in the opening next to our pit stall. Matt Yocum was next to me the whole night and the Fox cameras were shooting our pit stall just over my shoulder. Perhaps I should have pulled a "Digger" and popped up in front of them!

We had stellar pit stops most of the night...

and had a happy crew as a result...

Course we all know who won...

As Mark drove down the pit road to Victory Lane, I headed down pit road to the post race interviews. Many of you saw me on TV walking behind Kurt during his interview..

And sneeking up to take Jimmie's picture as well. (Really I think the beard looks fantastic on him..)

I followed Kurt to the media center for his post race print media interviews and on the way he made a detour to Victory Lane to congradulate Mark. Of course, I did not hesitate to follow him right in!

Then he settled in next to his best bud for more interviews...

And finally, I headed back out to the garages where the Brew Crew was busy tearing down the #2 for the officials. They had several hours of work left before flying out making it a very long two days but two very good ones at least!

Thats it - I'll have another blog up more focused on Kurt and the Miller Lite team in a few days...Kurt was in rare form this weekend and funny as heck so I'll share some of those stories next time!

Phoenix Race Wrap Up

2009-06-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

In my quest to continue to bring you the human side of the super stars of NASCAR, I wanted to share a couple of stories about Kurt from the Phoenix race weekend. I know he got a lot of backlash after Martinsville for the radio exchange with The Captain. When you ask his crew how they put up with it, over and over they say they all stand 100% behind him because they would much rather have a driver who is passionate and angry when the car isn’t good than be complacent and accepting of a top 20 finish. Make no mistake about it -- Kurt and the Brew Crew are in it to win it.

Some of you may have read the CNNSI article on Kurt last week where the author said that the chemistry on the Brew Crew was bad -- “I've seen more cheerful funerals” was the quote. Not sure what was going on when he wrote this but those guys have some of the best chemistry in the garages – as evidenced by their ability to stick together through the rotten year they had last year. The Brew Crew somber? No way – not my guys! Maybe they were just sad I wasn’t there yet!

Our crew has some seasoned members – our new car chief was the car chief for most of Rusty’s career, our new engineer, Dave, has been around the block and the rear-end mechanic, Steve is one of the elder statesmen in the garages. True, they don’t joke around like some of the young guys on other teams --the reporter compared them to the #48 team – but Johnson’s team is hardly performing their best with three pit road errors on Saturday night alone. I think that reporter needs to remember that “happy/joking” doesn’t always equate to being focused or having good chemistry.

As for the rumor the CNNSI article put out there about other teams going after Kurt – yea, I’ve heard some rumors suggesting Kyle is trying to get his brother over to the Toyota camp. But to Gibbs? Really, you think Kyle and Kurt would want to compete with each other for top dog status and be around each other all the time? No way -- another Toyota team maybe and there is only one that fits the bill (and it is not the 55 car.)

Ok – onto some stories about Kurt from the Phoenix race weekend…

Kurt always goes to the media center for his NASCAR mandated interviews (most of the drivers make the media come to them and stand outside their haulers) so I followed Kurt in for his session on Friday afternoon before qualifying. None of the media had any questions for him except for this female reporter (remember her she will come up again) who asked Kurt about In-N-Out Burger.

Seemed like a pretty odd question and apparently by everyone’s reaction she and Kurt had discussed this before. Kurt reiterated his love of the Double Double with cheese, no tomato, no onion – which happens to be my fav burger there as well – and then went on to explain the secret menu to the media. Clearly a slow news day and easy to see why some drivers go bonkers with some of the questions they are asked but Kurt took it in stride and got us all a little hungry in the process. Word is he wouldn’t mind having In-N-Out Burger on the quarter panel of the Blue Deuce but personally I think it would be a better sponsor for Smoke.

Shortly before qualifying, I found Kurt was in the Miller Lite garage – no, not checking on the car but cleaning it. Billy (a championship winning IRL car chief in his own right) is the mechanic in charge of the interior of the car, the windows, and keeping Kurt’s helmet clean. Well, with the Arizona sun blinding many drivers, Kurt was out there showing Billy how to properly clean a window. Not only was Kurt doing his best gas station attendant impression, he had the entire crew in stitches ripping on Billy. Kurt took a good ten minutes to “properly” clean both sides of the windshield. Then while instructing Billy on where to put the sun-blocking stickers they use, he decided the best bet would be to just stick one to the brim of his baseball hat and call it good. People don’t do this at funerals do they?

After qualifying, Kurt was interviewed by “older than dirt” #### Berggren for his third-place effort and prior to the start of the interview the two of them decided to exchange glasses. Kurt did the entire interview dead pan wearing ####’s granny glasses perched on his nose while #### was looking sporty in Kurt’s wrap around mirrored glasses. I kid because I care…but seriously, can you imagine JJ doing this?

On the warm up laps, not sure how many of you caught DW talking with Kurt? Did you catch the exchange? “Kurt this is DW – you got me?” “10-4 DW dude…” Funny!

Back in the media center after the race Kurt was talking about the book his mom got him a few years ago by Mark Martin called “Strength Training.”

Strength Training for Performance Driving

He was mid-sentence when that same female reporter interrupted him and asked very seriously for the name of the book again. Kurt spoke nice and slow “Strength…Training” and Smoke, sitting next to Kurt, might have actually hurt himself with the eye roll he gave the woman and the two of them shared a laugh. See they are Frenemies!

Finally, The Country Music Channel (CMT) has been airing “Cribs” this year featuring several NASCAR drivers. Kurt taped an episode earlier this year and it is ready to air this week. Look for the official premiere on Saturday, April 25th with repeats running for the next week. Along with Kurt’s crib, the episode will also feature Dale Earnhardt Jr’s and Martin Truex, Jr’s cribs. Should be good, check it out!

You Saw It Here First

2009-06-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

With the All-Star race upon us, we cannot always count on great racing but we can count on some sa-weet paint jobs out on the track.

Look no further than the "lickable" (and I quote Kurt's PR guy there) Miller Lite "Taste Protector" Blue Duece.

Here are some early shots from the Penske garage.

This bad boy will be looking good under the lights and under the checkers! Feel free to add your favorite All-Star paint schemes in the comments.

Michigan Race Report

2008-08-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Michigan International Speedway garage! I had another amazing weekend and wanted to fill you all in on my adventures with the Miller Lite Racing team!

On Friday, I made it to the track early and hopped in the golf cart and went in the “backstretch entrance” to the garage and when I say backstretch, I mean it! We literally drove across the race track in the golf cart…it was quite the view! Thankfully, we didn't have to play Frogger with any race cars!

Once inside you could see why the crew doesn’t love this garage, apparently it is setup much like Fontana, and despite having a huge infield there is very little room for the teams to work. The cars are severely angled into the garage stalls, which were made to house Indy cars. The rear ends are nearly touching and it takes about a 6-point turn to push the cars backwards into the garage stall (usually it is a 3-point turn). The ONLY good thing about the garage setup is that the haulers aren't parked directly across from the garage stalls. Now why is that a good thing? Well, for fans lucky enough to be in there, it means the drivers can't sprint across as fast so you have lots more opportunities for autographs.

Of course, I immediately found the Brew Crew and discovered that we had a “new” engine guy working with us this week. JP or "HOP" is taking over for Darren who tore his ACL and had to have surgery. JP isn’t really new, he sets up the Penske engines at the shop and is well qualified to do so at the track. The team had already made it through initial inspection when I got there and were busy setting up the car for practice before qualifying. They started with the car in race setup and then with about 45 minutes left in practice they switched the Miller Lite Dodge over to qualifying trim and made two lap runs.

After practice, I watched as NASCAR literally used a LOTTO ball machine to pick the qualifying order right outside the Sprint Cup Hauler...I couldn't believe they actually used that machine!

Kurt was picked to go out 23rd which was pretty good because they wanted to go later in the order. I watched about half of qualifying from the roof of the hauler. Surprisingly, you could only see Turn 4 and only if the cars were running the high line so that won't be the place to watch the race on Sunday. Kurt will start the race from the 13th spot, right behind his brother. Overall, the crew was okay with that effort, but they were a little faster in practice than in qualifying so they are expecting good things.

In between practice and qualifying, we went over to the infield around Turn 1 where Miller Lite had a huge hospitality suite set up. This thing was amazing! It was a beach-theme complete with sand, a "lake", palm trees, hammocks and beach chairs and three hot tubs! Of course, there was also food, ice cold Miller Lites and several viewing decks to watch the race from. The Miller Lite girls were all there, and Kurt and the Brew Crew made appearances to mingle with the fans.

On Saturday morning, I managed to get to the garage right before it opened so I had the opportunity to line up outside the garage area with the Miller Lite crew and the rest of the teams and pour into the garage area as soon as NASCAR opened it. It was a sight to see as the crews rushed in like ants at a picnic and got immediately to work.

I started off watching JP tear down Ryan Newman's blown engine from Friday. He was very stealthy--as he took it apart as he covered the parts with rags so no one could see them or take pictures. The parts he took off the engine he wrapped in rags or put in ziplock bags and put them in a "tear down box." Then they took the bulk of the engine over to a NASCAR inspection station where JP had to show the officials enough proof to justify the engine change.

While JP was working he told me they will rebuild the engine and put it back in the stock. It was interesting to learn that Penske has about 75 engines in stock and about 35 guys working in the engine shop for all 3 Cup teams and the part time NW team.

When Kurt was on the track for practice, we took the opportunity to film a couple videos for www.millerliteracing.com. The first is a tour of the hauler and cab with Cindy Lewis, one of the transport drivers. After Happy Hour, we caught up with Dave “Mule” Nichols who did a great bit on the tires for us—so keep a look out for those videos soon.

I watched as the team tore down the car in preparation for race day. They have until the garage closed at 5p to get as much work done on the car as possible. They check every part down to retightening every screw on the car. Each crew member has to complete a checklist of duties before the car can go through final inspection on Sunday morning. I was invited to go in the garage and watch Corey and JP work on the front end and the engine and Bill Spencer let me lean in the interior and get a good look at the cockpit. He explained everything on the dash to me. They have the gauges set so they are illuminated blue when things are normal but turn red if there is a problem so Kurt doesn't have to focus too hard to figure out if there is a problem during the race.

On race day, I got to the garage when it opened at 8:00 AM and immediately found the crew hard at work finishing up their checklists. While they finished up, I headed out to pit road to say hello to the pit crew who had just arrived at the track that morning and were busy setting up the pit box. We were in pit stall number 4, nearly at the exit of pit road and right next to eventual race winner Carl Edwards’ pit. The pit crew had the pit stall already put together and were starting to prep the tires. I asked them about pitting the car last weekend at Watkins Glen where pit road is “backwards” for them. Larry Robinett said they only practiced for three days at the shop because they didn’t really want to get out of their rhythm too much just for one race. Despite not having any problems pitting the car, the change slowed their stops by several seconds. The biggest problem is for the rear tire changer and carrier (which is Larry’s job) to avoid the gas man and catch can man. They were definitely happy to pitting “normally” this weekend.

Larry was also picked by the ESPN broadcast team to wear the helmet-cam for the race. Larry had to wear a large battery pack to run the camera and audio and get used to a “strange” helmet. He made it his own by putting some Miller Lite stickers on it but was most worried he might curse on TV!

I headed back to the garage to follow the crew as they pushed the car through four main inspection sites (without incident) and out onto pit road to be lined up for the race. After the car is on pit road, the crew can finally relax for a bit. They tend to have several hours because they are consistently one of the first cars through inspection on Sundays. They head back to the hauler for an always tasty BBQ lunch served up by Cindy and hold their team meeting.

Just before drivers’ introductions, Kurt and Eva stopped by the hauler and I got a chance to ask Eva about the horse Kurt bought her for their anniversary. ‘CJ’ is a beautiful grey Arabian that she plans to show next year. She laughed as she said Kurt’s golf game might improve because she will be spending more time at the barn.
I followed them out to pit road and stayed behind the Miller Lite pit box the entire race. Kurt had the Blue Duece in the top 10 for much of the first half of the race until a two tire pit stop altered the handling on the car and he started sliding back. Then bad luck struck as the No. 70 car hit Kurt on a restart and sliced the left rear tire. Before Kurt could get back to pit road the tire blew spinning him through the grass. He quickly saved it and got it on the apron so no caution was thrown, but that only sent Kurt down another lap.

The Miller Lite team finished a disappointing 36th as a result but I know these guys and they will be more than ready to take on Bristol next weekend.

Tirelessly Talkin' Tires

2008-07-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

Four infamous Goodyear Eagle racing tires can make you or break you on race day. We may think we know tires, but there is a lot “More-2-It” than we realize. And how many of us have actually tried to change all four of our tires in under 15 seconds with six other friends? Not many I reckon! Let me tell you what I have learned from the Miller Lite racing team about their tires.

First off, one tire costs about $450 and most teams buy between 10-15 sets of tires for each race weekend. That’s a lot of dough! The teams give Goodyear their wheels and Goodyear mounts the racing tire chosen for that particular race for the teams at the track. The Miller Lite tires are always easy to find because they are the only ones with blue wheels. The tires each weigh about 60 pounds when they have the inner safety liner (used at high speed tracks like Daytona) and about 45 pounds without the safety liner (used at road courses and lower speed tracks). Each set of tires has an average life of about 150 miles.

One last thing, these tires are “smooth”, they have no tread on them. When teams use new tires out on the track they are called “stickers” because they still have the sticker on them from Goodyear indicating the batch and once the tires have one “hot lap” on them they are called “scuffs.” Sometimes teams “scuff” tires in practice just in case their car setup works better on older tires.

The Miller Lite Dodge arrives at the track with a set of “Set Up Tires” that are clearly marked on the outside in blue writing. These tires come from the shop and are not counted towards the team’s tire limit for the weekend. They cannot be used outside of the garage area. Each team’s tires are labeled with the team numbers and are bar coded so Goodyear can track them if the teams have any problems with them. Dave “Mule” Nichols is the Miller Lite team’s “tire guy” and he is responsible for getting the tires from Goodyear for practice, qualifying and for the race and making sure they are all at the desired air pressure amounts as decided by the crew chief, Pat Tryson. One of Mule’s main jobs is removing the air from the tires and replacing it with nitrogen. By using nitrogen instead of air, they have more control over how much the pressure will increase when the tires heat up.

Each tire has five to six “wear holes” about the size of the tip of a sharpie marker in a diagonal across the tire. Mule uses a gauge that measures the depth of these holes and notes them before they put them on the Miller Lite Dodge. After the team makes a practice run and Mule again checks the depth of the wear holes to see how the different set ups are wearing the tires. Often when the car comes into the pits, there is a bunch of rubber and debris built up on the tire from the track. You’ll see Mule using a small torch to heat up that rubber and then he scrapes it off to clean off the tire so he can get back to those wear holes. Right after a pit stop, you’ll see Mule radioing the information he learns about the tire wear, tire temperature, and air pressure build-up to Pat Tryson (crew chief) and Brian Wilson, the team engineer who has to make sense of that data.

But I am getting ahead of myself. There is a whole lot of work that goes into the tires on race day before they are used in the race. Usually the pit crew is responsible for getting and preparing the sets of tires to be used during the race. Teams have anywhere between 5 and 10 sets of tires in their pits depending on the type of race. The tires are labeled with chalk “LF, LR, RF, RR” to indicate where on the car they go and numbered to indicate which set they belong to.

The pit crew then uses a strip of hot pink tape to indicate the left side tires and a strip of bright blue tape to indicate right side tires. They place this tape in the same place on each tire because it also indicates where the tire carriers should hold the tires as they carry them during the pit stops. This ensures they get the tire consistently and easily lined up with the studs for quick stops.

Each rim has to be “cleaned” and the team uses three different types of steel brushes on each tire to clean the holes for the studs and the center hole that slides over the wheel cap. After the grime and paint is removed by the brushes, the wheels are ready for the lugs. About four hours before the start of the race, the pit crew starts gluing on the bright yellow lug nuts onto the wheels with a weather stripping adhesive. Finally, they use a heavy, flat piece of metal that presses the lugs into the adhesive and makes for a good seal.

When the Miller Lite Dodge rolls out onto pit road on race day, the pit crew also lubes the studs on the car so the tires slide on and off easier. The studs are long and have no threads for the first three-quarters of an inch so the lug nuts glued to the rim don’t get cross-threaded when the tire changers are putting the tires on the car. When the wheel is placed on the car during the pit stop, the air gun torque breaks the adhesive and the lug nut is tightened normally. Sometimes the adhesive is too gooey and sometimes to brittle and it will interfere with the “feel” and rhythm of the tire changers. There is always a danger that the lug nuts might fall off while changing the tire, so the over-the-wall guys wear special gloves that have a couple lug nuts attached to them on top by their wrists so they can grab them quickly if needed.

Tired of reading about tires yet? Feel like your ready to be a Tire Specialist? Told ya there was “More-2-It”!

In the Garage with Pat Tryson

2008-07-06T21:23:00.001-07:00

During the race weekend at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA I was lucky enough to catch Pat Tryson, the crew chief of Penske Racing’s No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge for a little chat outside the team hauler. The Sonoma race marked Pat’s one year anniversary with the team and to date he has enjoyed three trips to Victory Lane (Pocono and Michigan in 2007; New Hampshire in 2008) with the Brew Crew. Pat is an intimidating guy around the garage, kind of the strong silent type, but really he is easy to talk to, has a great sense of humor and a lot of Pennsylvania pride!

Pat has been hanging around racing garages for a long time. At age 16, he got his first taste in the garage at the drag racing strips with his father, who was an engine builder. Pat didn’t only get his education in the garages though, he graduated from West Chester University of Pennsylvania with a B.A in Business Administration (but really he went there to play football!). He moved to North Carolina and worked with the Allison brothers building chassis and then landed a job as the car chief/mechanic on Kenny Bernstein’s top fuel dragster.

His first year as a NASCAR crew chief came in 1997 for Geoffrey Bodine and then in 1998, he was the crew chief for Geoff’s brother, Todd Bodine. In 1999, Pat was snatched up by the Roush organization where he started as Kevin Lepage’s crew chief. He left Roush in 2001 to work for the Wood Brother’s as the crew chief on the No. 21 car with Ricky Rudd and Elliott Sadler but returned to Roush in 2003 as the crew chief for the No. 6 team and Mark Martin and then for Greg Biffle before joining the Miller Lite team in June 2007.

Pat worked his way up through the ranks but it has come with some sacrifices. His schedule is grueling as he works at the Penske shop Monday through Thursday, when he gets the afternoon off and then leaves with the team on Thursday evening and is on the pit box until Sunday night. Pat admits the hardest part is not spending much time with his wife and seven year old daughter, but unfortunately, it comes with the territory of being a crew chief on a top team.

Pat’s experience has given him a wealth of knowledge but admits the new car (the “Car of Tomorrow” or COT) which was introduced full time this year by NASCAR means starting over with setups. He spoke candidly about the difficulty setting up the car since NASCAR regulates nearly everything it has taken away much of the crew chiefs’ creativity and tools to set up the car. Drivers who are used to setting up the car’s to their “liking” and who are used to a certain feel of the car through the turns seem to be struggling the most to adapt to the COT and there is not a happy crew chief in the garages as far as I can tell. The main problem for the No. 2 team has been getting the car to turn without blowing the right front tires out.

Both Pat and Kurt Busch believe there is an easy fix—raise the splitter 3 inches and eliminate the bump stops. However, NASCAR isn’t listening to the teams because Pat says, “they won’t admit they are wrong.” He said moving to the COT was not really about safety as NASCAR advertised, although safety improvements have been included in the new car, it was instead an attempt by NASCAR to get IROC-style (International Race of Champions-where the cars are set up exactly the same) racing results. But instead of side-by-side racing, NASCAR got a car that cannot pass.

According to Pat, NASCAR has been hearing the teams loud and clear, loud enough to call a halt to the complaints in a special drivers meeting several weeks ago. So look for NASCAR to make it seem like they didn’t make any mistakes with the car, but instead advertise only “improvements” like their newfound idea to give unlimited tests (read- the teams can’t figure out the set ups but NASCAR can’t be wrong so let’s just test more!).

Pat and the Brew Crew won’t stop trying to get creative with the setups and working hard to get Kurt the best car possible. I know they will be back in Victory Lane again very soon. Thanks for the inside scoop Pat!

Miller Lite Team Photos-Sonoma

2008-06-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

Infineon Garage Report- Race Day

2008-06-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, I am finally recovered from my 5am to 9pm day at the track on Sunday enough to re-live it! Honestly, I do not know how the teams keep these schedules but they claim it becomes routine. So here is the report from the garage on Sunday!

When I arrived, I first checked in at the Miller Lite garage. The crew was going over the car with a fine tooth comb and doing their individual checklists before final inspection. It took them about 2.5 hours to work over the entire car. While they were doing that I sauntered out to our excellent pit stall (the Miller Lite pit was the last pit by the main grandstands, right in front of Victory Lane with a huge opening next to it so I could get up nice and close as you will see...)

I don't get to spend as much time with the over-the-wall guys as I do with the mechanics, because they usually fly in only on race day. I reintroduced msyelf to the ones I knew and got to know the few I had not yet met. They are also a great bunch of guys and were very entertaining in their answers to my questions for the website. They are pretty stoked we are focusing on them for the new Miller Lite Racing website. We also got a great video with Larry, the rear tire carrier, who walks us through everything they do to get the tires set up on race day. He sounded like he had done it on tape a million times...the guys put a sign "Pit Tours By Larry" up during our filming so unfortunately you can hear me laughing on tape but Larry was most impressed by the fact he didn't cuss once!

We had to book it back to the garage to meet up with the crew so we could finish the rest of the video about the shocks. The inspectors remembered us from yesterday (in fact the inspector giving Luke bunny ears in the picture from the blog from yesterday worked the Miller Lite pit during the race). The guys continued on through inspection and I went off in search of a few more interviews. I was lucky to catch Pat Tryson, Kurt's crew chief, hanging outside the hauler (he is rarely outside of the hauler unless he is working) and he was kind enough to spend 15 minutes talking with me. Look for a blog about that conversation where he was very candid about the car at a later date. I also did an interview with the only female engineer at Penske, Andrea Mueller. She told me how she got started in motorsports and some of her reactions to women in the sport.

The race started off very promising with Kurt running up front for the first third of the race. He was locking up the right front every time he had to stand on the brakes and was sliding around the turns with no grip but he thought if they took the bump stops out they might have a good setup. Unfortunately, after the first caution, he got shuffled back to mid-pack and ended up getting hit by Scott Pruett and it created a bad tire rub. They had to bring the car in to fix it and Kurt went a lap down and never recovered. It was very disappointing for the entire team. Knowing how hard they work on the car each and every weekend and the tough luck this team has had this year, it was just a heart breaker. I did however, get some great shots of the pit crew in action thanks to our stellar pit road location.

I hung out and watched the top five finishers be interviewed on TNT and then popped by Victory Lane to see Kyle Busch's celebration and FINALLY eat something. I was completely sunburnt, exhausted, and at least 5 pounds heavier from all the used lugnuts I grabbed from pit road in my pockets, so I headed home.

Words can barely describe what it is like to be in the garages with hot pass access and I cannot thank Miller Lite and the #2 enough for being so good to me. The next race I will be "working" is the August race at Michigan so I hope to keep us entertained with some more detailed blogs from my adventures in the garage.

As always, thanks for reading!