Racetrack Insider - News and Views of the Motorsports Industry from Insiders Drew Patey and Buddy Judy

Do You Have What it Takes to Get Behind the Wheel of a Real NASCAR Racecar and Hit the Track?

CLICK HERE to watch a personalized racing video starring YOU! It's our way of saying thanks to all of the loyal NASCAR fans and to give you an idea of what its like to experience the most realistic and authentic NASCAR driving experience ever created. After viewing your personal NASCAR Racing Experience video, you’ll automatically be entered to win a FREE Qualifier driving experience! www.877racelap.info



For holiday specials and more information call: 877-RACE-LAP (722-3527) or go to: www.NASCARRacingExperience.com

Superman - Jimmie Johnson Wins 4th Championship - Denny Hamlin Takes the Victory at Homestead

Jimmie Johnson made NASCAR history on Sunday by winning his fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title at Homestead. The Hendrick Motorsports driver came across the finish line in 5th place to be the only driver in the sports history to win the championship 4 times in a row. Cale Yarborough won three in a row in the 80's. Johnson had a strong car all weekend, winning the pole on Friday. At the start of the race, it was all Johnson until Tony Stewart came up to challenge. Johnson, knowing he had to finish 25th or better, settled into a consistent pace and stayed out of trouble for the rest of the afternoon. Mark Martin was the only driver who could deny Johnson the title, but he was never able to mount a charge and had to settle for a 12th-place finish and second in the points. Denny Hamlin was the other story of the day as he was able to take the lead at midway in the event and battle back and forth with Safety-Kleen's Kurt Busch. Jeff Burton continued to show the fans that he and his Safety-Kleen sponsored Richard Childress Racing car is coming back to the top as he was able to race to another second place after also being a runner-up at Phoenix last week. Burton's teammate Kevin Harvick ran up front all afternoon and came home in third after leading early on. Kurt Busch battled for the lead all race, but on the final restart, had to settle for fourth ahead of Johnson. Now off to Vegas for the Awards Banquet on December 4th. Before you know it, we will be back in Daytona for the Daytona 500 in February. All of us at Safety-Kleen want to congratulate the entire Hendrick Motorsports team for a great job and we are proud to support Hendrick Motorsports with our Safety-Kleen products and services.

Win the Race - Win the Championship Kyle Busch Style

Kyle Busch won the Nationwide Series title on Saturday and he did it Kyle Busch style by winning his ninth race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The title is Joe Gibbs Racing's second consecutive Nationwide Series title and first Championship for Toyota. The Joe Gibbs driver held off Carl Edwards in the closing laps after Edwards had pitted for fresh tires and came charging to the front after restarting in 8th place. Busch had stayed out during the last caution and did everything possible to hold off Edwards in the last two laps. Safety-Kleen's Jeff Burton finished third after leading the race for 49 laps followed by Joey Logano in fourth. Denny Hamlin finished fifth and did what he said he would do in Phoenix last Saturday and paid back Brad Keselowski by spinning out the JR Motorsports driver early in the race. Hamlin got a penalty but was able to rally back to the top five. Keselowski finished in 12th. Safety-Kleen's Brendan Gaughan was the highest finishing rookie of the race while Safety-Kleen driver Justin Allgaier took Rookie of the Year for 2009. Thanks to Todd Klein and the crew from the Medley, FL branch for helping out at the track this weekend. Great way to end the year.

Harvick Takes Truck Race in Homestead

Safety-Kleen's Kevin Harvick took his Chevy truck to victory lane on Friday night in the Ford 200 Camping World NASCAR Truck Series race at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. The victory was Harvick's second in a row, his third in six starts this year and the sixth of his career. Safety-Kleen driver Matt Crafton, who is the runner up in the points battle this year, came home in second followed by Colin Braun in third. The race finished with a green white checkered dash for the cash and all three of the top finishers dropped kick race leader Timothy Peters to fourth on the last lap. Todd Bodine had another good race and came home fifth, followed by Mike Skinner, David Starr, Hornaday, Johnny Sauter and T.J. Bell. Besides winning the race, Kevin Harvick Inc. came into Homestead with a 60 point lead over Billy Ballew Motorsports in the owners' standings. But bad luck bit Kyle Busch again as he suffered a cut tire and speed penalty on pit road, handing over the owners championship to Kevin Harvick Inc. The Camping World Series will hold its annual awards banquet on Monday night in Miami and the trophy will go to Safety-Kleen's Ron Hornaday. Congratulations to Ron and the entire Kevin Harvick Inc race team.

Robby Gordon - Champion of Off Road Series

Following a dominating season, Safety-Kleen's Robby Gordon and the #77 Monster Energy / Toyo Tires team were named the 2009 Overall Series and Trophy Truck division Champion for the Tecate SCORE International Off-Road Racing Series. Gordon, with the support from Safety-Kleen, clinched the championship with his top-five finish in the Baja 1000 on Saturday, November 21st. Throughout the 2009 Tecate SCORE International Off-Road Racing season, Gordon raced in all five events and finished in the top ten in each race. Additionally, Gordon actually scored two wins throughout the five race season. The 2009 Tecate SCORE International Off-Road season kicked off in January with the Laughlin Desert Challenge where Gordon dominated the competition, winning the unique two-day event. Gordon returned to victory lane following the PRIMM 300 in early September when he missed the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event in Richmond, VA. "I'm so pleased with the progress Robby Gordon Off-Road made throughout the 2009 SCORE International Off-Road season," commented Gordon. "When the season began, we didn't even know that we were going to compete in the entire season. But after winning the Laughlin Desert Challenge in such dominating fashion, we knew that we could make a run for the championship. The guys did a great job continually building and preparing the trophy truck, which made it easy to run upfront. I'm very proud of our success. Returning to my roots to win two of five races is great, but capturing the championship is very exciting and rewarding. The entire Robby Gordon Off-Road team is extremely thankful for such great sponsors. Because of the support of Monster Energy and Toyo Tires, we have experienced great success this season."

Jimmie Johnson One Step Closer

Jimmie Johnson bounced back from his misfortune of finishing 38th last week in Texas to dominate the race this weekend in Phoenix and moved one step closer to his fourth NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship. When you lead 238 of 312 laps, you demoralize the competition and put an exclamation point on a great season. The win on Sunday was the 7th of the season and 4th in the last 9 races of The Chase and 47th career win - what a year. Now Johnson has a 108 point lead over second place Mark Martin with one race to go at Homestead next Sunday. The challenges this weekend came from the Safety-Kleen sponsored Richard Childress Racing team with Jeff Burton being the standout finishing second. Denny Hamlin was also strong, but lacked the horsepower to run with Johnson's Chevy and had to settle for third with Jeff Gordon in fourth. Polesitter and Safety-Kleen driver Martin Truex Jr. finished fifth, his first top five of the year in his next-to-last race for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. Truex will drive Michael Waltrip Racing's No. 56 Toyota next year and Safety-Kleen will be on his Toyota for the 2010 season. Thanks to Les Bell for a fine job this weekend with the services for the teams and the coordination of the pit tours on Sunday. Don't miss Homestead next Sunday afternoon. Tune in on ABC and watch history in the making. Johnson should sew up his fourth championship and the Hendrick Motorsports teams will finish one, two and three in the championship.

Edwards Wins - Busch To Wait Another Week

Carl Edwards took his Ford to victory lane for the fifth time this season in the NASCAR Nationwide Series at Phoenix on Saturday while Kyle Busch could not muster enough points to clinch the championship. Busch finished in the top 10, but after having a 25 point penalty assessed earlier in the week by NASCAR for a technical violation in Texas, the championship will now be determined in Homestead next Saturday. All Busch has to do is show up and the 2009 Nationwide trophy goes home with him. Edwards did everything needed to keep any hope of the championship within sight. He led the most laps and won the race, but Busch has been consistent all year and deserves the championship. Safety-Kleen's Kevin Harvick finished second, coming close to scoring back to back wins after taking victory on Friday night in the Truck Series race, while Reed Sorenson had another good race finishing third for the Safety-Kleen backed Braun Racing. Another Safety-Kleen driver Clint Bowyer recovered from an early incident with Busch at the beginning of the race to finish fourth. Brad Keselowski rounded out the top five after having another run-in with Denny Hamlin. The two seem to always find each other on the track and tangle. Homestead will be interesting as Hamlin stated after the race that he will handle Brad in his own way next Saturday. One race to go - Busch will clinch the title and Edwards and Keselowski will battle for second. Tune in next week to see the results.

Safety-Kleen Trucks Wins in Phoenix

Kevin Harvick held off Kyle Busch to take the checkered flag in the Camping World Truck Series race on Friday night at Phoenix International Raceway. The boss won the race and his driver in the Truck Series, Ron Hornaday won the title giving two wins to Safety-Kleen in Phoenix. Harvick won the race despite bringing out the first caution on lap 6, with a spin off Turn 4 when he contacted Aric Almirola. Hornaday also had his "hiccups" and overcame an early penalty for improper fueling on the first pit stop. But that didn't stop him form claiming the series title by finishing ahead of Safety-Kleen's Matt Crafton in the year long battle. In a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the race one lap past its scheduled distance of 150 laps, Harvick won the race under caution after Tayler Malsam wrecked on the final lap. Almirola had a great race, bouncing back from the early race incident with Harvick, then leading the event at one point and finishing third, followed by Hornaday and polesitter Johnny Sauter. Crafton was only able to come to the checkered flag in eighth. The last race of the season is in Homestead next Friday, but with the championship and second place decided, the field is racing for third. Safety-Kleen finishes one and two in the NASCAR Truck Series this year - not bad results.

Hight Gives Safety-Kleen Funny Car Championship

Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army team won their sixth straight and seventh overall NHRA Full Throttle Series championship on Sunday by two points over Safety-Kleen's Larry Dixon, in the narrowest margin in NHRA history. The season went south for Dixon when he smoked the tires in the semifinals and lost to Spencer Massey, giving Schumacher's team the two point advantage and the big trophy. The other two championships were decided Saturday as Robert Hight and the Safety-Kleen John Force Racing Ford Mustang Funny Car team qualified for the race and thus scored enough points to outdistance his teammate Ashley Force Hook. In Pro Stock, Mike Edwards' team clinched their titles in qualifying over Safety-Kleen's Greg Anderson. The races in Pomona were won by Antron Brown running a 3.801 at 316.90 mph, winning for the sixth time this season over Massey, who fouled out in the Top Fuel final. In Funny car, Safety-Kleen's Mike Neff pedaled the Ford Drive One Mustang to a 5.131 at 285.05 to defeat teammate Ashley Force Hood, who was DQ'd for touching the wall. It was Neff's first career win for his John Force Racing team. In Pro Stock, Greg Anderson ran a 6.564 at 210.70 mph to defeat Kurt Johnson in the final, giving the Safety-Kleen driver his 3rd win of the season and securing his 4th straight second place finish in the points standings. Next up for the NHRA teams is some welcomed time off before returning to Pomona next February for the 50th running of the Winter Nationals.

Busch Wins - Johnson Wrecks - Martin Back In Championship Hunt

One of the Busch brothers led the most laps on Sunday, but didn't have enough gas to take the victory at the Sprint Cup race in Texas. Yes, you guessed. It was Kyle Busch out in front all afternoon, but with three laps to go his tank ran dry and brother Kurt went on the take the win. But that wasn't the story of the day for the 100,000 plus fans that packed the Texas Motor Speedway. On lap three, David Reutimann got loose in turn two and bumped Sam Hornish up the track into Series Points leader Jimmie Johnson, sending the champ into the inside retaining wall and then to the garage area. After 115 laps, Johnson came back to the race with a rebuilt race car, but over half of his points lead was gone. Johnson's bad luck gave Mark Martin a chance to make up ground and at the checkered flag, the margin was cut to just 73 points with two races to go in The Chase. What a race. This was definitely not a follow the leader race that we saw in Talladega last weekend. Texas is always an exciting battle and it looked like the excitement was going to peak with Kyle Busch heading for his third victory lane in three days. Busch had won the Truck Series race on Friday and the Nationwide event on Saturday. But fate was not on his side this weekend as he finished 11th and handed the win to the Safety-Kleen sponsored Dodge driven by Kurt. Denny Hamlin turned in another great performance this weekend and took advantage of the gas shortages and came home second with Matt Kenseth taking third. Mark Martin finished fourth, followed by Safety-Kleen's Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart. Great job this weekend by Jerry Harris and the crew from the Ft Worth branch. Phoenix is next and with only two races to go, The Chase is on. Can Mark Martin make up 73 points? Can Jeff Gordon come from third to first by the end of Homestead race? Or will Jimmie Johnson dig in and hold on to win the Championship? Tune into ABC TV next Sunday afternoon to see.