Sunday, October 05, 2008

Safe Escape from Talladega


In one race, he kept his championship lead. In the other, he kept his truck in one piece. Both were quite the accomplishment considering Scott Speed’s latest double-duty weekend came at Talladega Superspeedway.

The site of his first stock car start in October 2007, Talladega was a defining chapter in Speed’s race to the ARCA RE/MAX Series title. He and his closest championship rival, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., were involved in separate incidents Friday — Speed’s being a blown right-rear tire — that sent both cars behind the wall for repairs.

They returned to the track multiple laps down, with Speed’s No. 2 Red Bull Toyota crossing the stripe five positions ahead of Stenhouse in 23rd. He lengthened his championship lead to 85 points over Stenhouse, as five drivers will have a title shot in the Oct. 12 season finale at Toledo Speedway.

In Saturday’s Craftsman Truck race, Speed beat, banged and bounced around 2.66-mile Talladega to finish 15th in the No. 22 Red Bull Toyota. It was Speed’s seventh top-15 finish in 11 truck starts, and he got a healthy dose of just how dicey Talladega can be.

“That was just ridiculous,” Speed said. “The two races here were crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun out there but I was sweating at the same time. It was mayhem out there, but we still managed to get the job done and that’s all that matters.”

Speed will attempt to make his NASCAR Sprint Cup debut Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., then hopes to lock up the ARCA championship the next day in Toledo, Ohio.

Down in Dega: Brian Vickers, in the No. 83, and Mike Skinner's No. 84 start ninth and 21st, respectively, in today's Talladega 500 (2 p.m. ET).

7 Comments:

Blogger Chris said...

SS's truck was in the top 5-10 all day, but at the end it seemed like he just didn't have the power to stay at the front of the draft

9:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why didn't the 83 come in and take tires? Bad Call! Now out of the race.

12:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad that Scott's ARCA crew got him back out to make some laps and stay ahead of the Stenhouse. Hopefully they will have a good race and will be celebrating in Toledo next weekend.

I'm also glad that AJ padded the points for the 84 team in Kansas. Looks like they will still be 60 or so points to the good on the top 35 for Charlotte.

And yay for AJ saying he is almost set for next season and possibly in a car as soon as next weekend. It will be good for him to get a jumpstart on next season.

3:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

AJ in the 00 @ Lowes =)

12:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aj in the 00 in Charlotte.

1:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

AJ is going to race the 00 this weekend for MWR. I hope he does well and gets the 00 back in the top 35. Then RBR might have thought twice to keep him.

3:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So can we stop talking about Aj now?

4:20 PM  

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