Posted by Jeff Anderson on Wed, Aug 05, 2009 @ 07:34 AM
Denny Hamlin held off Juan Pablo Montoya in the closing laps at Pocono Raceway to win the rain delayed Sprint Car race on Monday afternoon. The win was Hamlin's first win of the year and third time he took home the trophy at the Pennsylvania track. Safety-Kleen's Clint Bowyer had a great day as he scored a third place and led the race, showing that the RCR team is down but not out of the championship hunt. Another Safety-Kleen driver, Sam Hornishscored his best finish of his career coming to the checkered flag in fourth followed by Kasey Kahne. Some of the highlights of the race centered around engine problems for the Series front runners. Tony Stewart who had to start in the last row because of a wreck on Friday fought hard all afternoon and finished in 10th place and increased his lead to 197 points over Jimmie Johnson. Johnson also had problems and battled with spark plug and carburetor problems butcame back from three laps down to finish in 13th place. The Cup teams head up the road to Watkins Glen next weekend for the final road course race of the season. Walter Skurskiand the crew from the Wilkes Barre-Scranton branch worked through the rain showers this weekend and did a great jobof servicing the teams and keeping the Safety-Kleen flag flying. Five races untilThe Chase, things are heating up -stay tuned.
Posted by Jeff Anderson on Wed, Jul 29, 2009 @ 02:55 PM
Jimmie Johnson took his Hendrick Motorsports Chevy to victory lane in the Brickyard 400 on Sunday afternoon to win for the third time at Indy. But wait - how do you lead 116 of the 160 laps and lose the Brickyard? You get caught for speeding on pit road. That's what happened to Juan Pablo Montoya on Sunday. Montoya started in the top five, then took the lead on lap 5 and was the class of the field all day. But as he came off the race track on to pit road, he was too fast entering the pits. NASCAR levied a pass through penalty. He dropped to 15th and was only able to get back to 11th at the flag. With the fastest car now back in the pack, Johnson was left to battle with pole sitter Mark Martin for the win. Johnson started in 16th place and moved into the top ten as the race progressed. The event saw few cautions. The tire problems of last year seemed to be solved. Kyle Busch hit the wall early on to bring out a caution while Dale Earnhardt, Jr. blew his engine entering pit road to end his day. Points leader Tony Stewart had a great day finishing third, passing Greg Biffle on the final lap as Biffle tried to save gas to make it to the end. Brian Vickers rounded out the top five after running up front all day, while Safety-Kleen's Kevin Harvick finally had a good race and finished sixth followed by Kasey Kahne and Safety-Kleen's David Reutimann. Special thanks to Jim Trisler and Keith Miller for all the work at Indy this past week. Great job with the SK services and the pit tours on Sunday. Now Pocono next week - another flat track. Look for the Hendrick cars to be competitive next weekend.
Posted by Jeff Anderson on Wed, Jul 29, 2009 @ 02:07 PM
Virginia is for lovers of National Guard ADRL racing. At least that's what it looked like July 25, as a record-setting crowd witnessed Bubba Stanton, Jim Halsey, Chuck Ulsch, Lance Hines and Brian Gahm each collect a new Minuteman trophy from the ADRL NATIONALGUARD.com U.S. Drags II at Virginia Motorsports Park (VMP). The 600-acre facility south of Richmond issued a news release Saturday evening, stating attendance "overwhelmed everyone involved with the event." The release further said that since opening in 1994, VMP has hosted 14 other major-league drag racing events, "but the National Guard ADRL this weekend far surpassed crowds in the past," according to track general manager Bryan Pierce. In fact, Pierce pointed out for the first time in VMP's 15-year history, track and state officials agreed to close the entrance gates in order to reroute excessive traffic that was creating a more-than-four-mile traffic jam extending to the nearest Interstate. Safety-Kleen helped pack the stands and break attendance records both Friday and Saturday night by presenting their customer base with 10,000 two day passes to the event. All five classes had exciting runs all day long Saturday. A big thank you to Scott Fisher and Bill Terry for their support of Safety-Kleen Motorsports and the ADRL this weekend.
Posted by Jeff Anderson on Mon, Jul 20, 2009 @ 01:46 PM
Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud, driving an Arcura with Safety
-Kleen on board as one of the major sponsors, won the American Le Mans race on Saturday at Lime Rock Park. De Ferran and Pagenaud crossed the finish line 43 seconds ahead of the car driven by David Brabham and Scott Sharp after the Brabham/Sharp entry cut a tire with 13 minutes remaining in the race. The de Ferran team has now won all three races this year in the ALMS series. Johnny Mowlem and Stefan Johansson completed the LMP1 podium in their Corsa Motorsports car. In LP2, Dyson Racing won for the first time this year beating the Safety-Kleen backed team of Fernandez Racing while Jorg Bergmeister won in GT2 for the fourth straight year and extended his class victory streak to four races. The ALMS teams head to Road America next weekend.