The Roush Racing Fords have been a dominant force in the past several years at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Jack Roush’s Fords have won five of the past seven races at Vegas coming in to this past weekends race. If you were ever going to bet on a Jack Roush car to win a race the UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400 would normally be that race, except this weekend was meant for the John Hendricks Chevrolets. The Winner: At one of the few races that Jimmie Johnson has never scored a top finish, he was determined to come into the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and get a good finish. Jimmie Johnson started Sunday’s UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400 in the ninth position, and quickly worked his way to the front of the pack. In the of the 267 lap race Jimmie led 107 and won his fifth of the last nine Nextel Cup races and the 15th of his career.
During post-race inspection the roof of the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevy was found to be 1.5 inches to short. On Tuesday, his Lowe’s team was docked 25 driver points and his crew chief, Chad Knaus, was suspended for two races and fined $ 35,000. Johnson’s car owner, Jeff Gordon, was also docked 25 driver points because of the infractions.
The Cheater: The Kevin Harvick team was also penalized for infractions that occurred during the race weekend. The No. 29 Goodwrench Chevrolet had an unapproved fuel filter and an unapproved fuel vent. This weekend during qualifying all teams were required to qualify with a full 22-gallon fuel cell, but Harvicks teams cheated and only ran with the fuel cell having 4 gallons in it. With only four gallons of fuel in their tank,
the No. 29 qualified 4th. After NASCAR found what they had done they put Kevin to the rear of the field and he had to start from the 42nd position.
Harvicks teams was docked 25 driver and owner points. The crew chief, Todd Berrier, has been suspended for four races and fined $25,000. These fines for the Goodwrench Chevrolet were so extreme because the act was premeditated.
The Disappointment : This weekend in Las Vegas,Dale Earnhardt Jr. was expected to make a comeback from his very disappointing run two weeks ago in Fontana, California, where he finished in the 32nd position. Last season, Jr. had a terrible run in the UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400; he finished in 37th and 40 laps behind the winner of that race, Matt Kenseth.
This year he ran into second year driver Brian Vickers on lap 12. The wreck collected four drivers in all which include Brian Vickers, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ricky Rudd, and Bobby Labonte. The wrecked left Jr. and Vickers behind the wall for the remainder of the race, where they finished 42nd and 43rd respectively. This year, Jr. is now 27th in the points standing 236 points behind the 2004 Champion Kurt Busch.
The Surprise : The younger brother of 2004 Nextel Cup Champion Kurt Busch got his first top five finish of his career this weekend. Kyle Busch in only the seventh race of his younger and look brighter and brighter everyday career brought home a second place finish, just behind his teammate Jimmie Johnson.
Kyle Busch was the runner-up in the NASCAR Busch Series championship standings last season, behind his good friend Martin Truex Jr. This is his first season in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series taking the place of the two-time Winston Cup Champion Terry Labonte in the No. 5 Kellogg’s Chevrolet owned by John Hendricks.
The UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 was a great race with both side-by-side and three wide racing. The Roush Fords failed to win this race for the first time in three years and it showed how the Hendrick Motorsports teams are the team to beat for the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup Seies Champinship.
3 replies on “NASCAR Teams and Drivers Roll Dice in Vegas”
Better than your previous articles… …but still sloppy.
You still have punctuation mistakes (apostrophes and commas) along with typos (go instead of got). You also left out a few spaces after commas (“…race,Matt Kenseth…”).
Much better than you last article.
See my other comment for my topical complaint.
Your conclusion has nothing to do with your articl You spend the entire article telling me about how Roush’s team failed to win and all the cheating that occured, and then you conclude “This was one of the best races that I have seen in a while at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The racing was great; there was side-by-side racing and three-wide racing. If all the races could be this competitive I would be one happy race fan!”
What does this have to do with your article? It is a great conclusion, but it is out of right field. You did not talk much about the competitive racing, nor did you talk about the race being good. You mentioned how the winner broke the rules and someone else cheated and how Earnhardt Jr. got knocked out and how Kyle Busch did well.
What does you conclusion have to do with that?
It does not.
I would much rather you changed the rest of the article than the conclusion because the conclusion is very good, but if you don’t want to change the rest of the article, you need to change the conclusion. It just does not go with this article.
Corrections I made a couple of corrections and chang the ending a little bit Could you please give me more advice and tell me what you think of it?