McMurray led 30 laps in the race there a year ago, gambling on a fuel strategy that faltered when he came up two laps short as his car ran dry while leading the race. Now, he's hoping to take that momentum all the way in Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the Sonoma, Calif., road course.
“Sonoma is a race that has been circled on my calendar all season long," he said. "Last year, I thought it was our race to win; we were so fast the entire day. When we took the fuel gamble late in the race, it was a big gamble that did not play out in our favor. I was so disappointed following that race. This past weekend in Michigan we faced the same issue late in the race – take the gamble or come in and pit for a safe finish. We opted to come in, and it paid off with a top-10 finish for our team."
"Last year was so much fun after we won the pole, and then to run as well as we did, it was great," McMurray said. "This weekend we have to focus on making sure the car is balanced throughout the course, make sure our brake package is where it needs to be, and finally, we need to have good pit strategy. If we can make all of that happen, I think we’ll have a great weekend at Sonoma.”
The No. 4 Open Joist Dodge truck should have a familiar ring to it. The Grand Rapids-based Universal Forest Products, Inc., has renewed its marketing alliance with Bobby Hamilton Racing (BHR) this season, and it will be promoting its Open Joist product on the truck. Open Joist is a versatile, open-web, all-wood floor truss. Universal broke into Craftsman Trucks last year with BHR, which lost its founder, Bobby Hamilton Sr., in January of 2007 to cancer. The team drove on despite losing Hamilton, who won the 2004 championship. Last year proved to be a transitional season in which a handful of drivers took turns racing the Open Joist truck, but things are looking up in 2008.
Stacy Compton has been hired to race the Open Joist Dodge full-time, and after clocking in fifth fastest last weekend in a Daytona test session, he said he is confident 2008 will be a competitive one for him and his team.
Universal was founded in 1955 and now has over 100 facilities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It will be investing in other racing marketing opportunities, too.
"The exposure we have received for the Open Joist brand with this investment is something we would never get in other mediums if we spent the same amount of money," said Larry Kroh, the Open Joist sales manager. "Renewel is the key to keeping this credibility going. We have the opportunity to build brand recognition even more."
Dario Franchitti, #27 Canadian Club Dallara/Honda/Firestone
“The Canadian Club car was pretty good today. There is so little difference here between the top-five drivers. If we can get the car right and do our job a little better it can make all the difference for us this weekend.”
From PaddockTalk.com:
Practice for the Motorola Indy 300 at Infineon Raceway Sears Point got underway today on the 2.26-mile, 12-turn undulating circuit. From the start, top position on the speed charts traded back and forth between Helio Castroneves and Dario Franchitti, with the Brazilian pipping the Scot in both morning and afternoon sessions to earn the choice of going first or last in tomorrow’s qualifying line.
Castroneves, who had to sit out the first 25 minutes of the two-hour morning test session following a meeting with Brian Barnhart over his antics in Kentucky two weeks ago, quickly rose through the ranks and was quickest, both in the morning session (108.193 mph) and this afternoon (108.158 mph).
“I was driving my butt off out there,” said the ebullient Castroneves. “This place is very challenging; it’s like a roller coaster. We hit the right spot on the setup but tomorrow, the times will improve,” he noted. Although Castroneves thought the track would be “way better this afternoon, it was different. The grip was changing from one end of the car to the other.” His best tour came on the ninth of 12 total laps in the second, quicker group of cars.
Franchitti ended up second in both the morning (107.861 mph) and afternoon (107.971 mph). Hoping his spate of poor luck at Michigan and Kentucky is over for now, the championship leader since he won the Indianapolis 500 in May – only eight points ahead of Scott Dixon – would “prefer the 65-point lead I had” before things stopped going his way.
Although Franchitti hasn’t got a championship yet – and all four of his closest pursuers have made that jump – he is firm on the conviction that he just needs to “have fun and do the best we can as we have all season long. Good luck stops eventually and this has, no question, been the luckiest year of my career.”
Tony Kanaan finished third for the day and improved his position from morning practice, when he experienced a few incidents that included a mid-session spin at the very popular second turn. Kanaan ended up with third this afternoon and for the day, with his 10th of 13 laps at 107.764 mph, nearly half a mile per hour better than his earlier best (107.222 mph). Kanaan is third in points, 52 behind Franchitti.
Last year’s winner here, Marco Andretti came fourth for the afternoon with his afternoon lap of 107.737 mph, using his 12th or 13 laps to make that speed. 2003 IRL champion Scott Dixon came fifth for the day, based on his morning lap of 107.727 mph).
The Colorado license plate gives away the final destination. Other transporters leave the racetrack and head east on the Interstate, toward North Carolina and the hub of NASCAR nation. But the brown and black truck turns west, on the lonely road toward the only Nextel Cup shop nestled on the front range of the Rocky Mountains.
Furniture Row is owned by Barney Visser, a Denver-based businessman who has fielded cars on NASCAR's top circuit since 2005. The attempt to go full-time has been a difficult one, with the team making just 10 events this season. The organization split with driver Kenny Wallace after the Aug. 12 race at Watkins Glen, failed to make Michigan with Scott Wimmer in the seat, and will have Sterling Marlin in the No. 78 car for this weekend's event at Bristol.
"The common thought is, there are a lot of negative things, maybe all negative things, about being out in that area. What we're finding is, there are some positives," Team Manager Joe Garone said. "Once you have your people, and whether you train them or whether you hire them, once they're there, they're more apt to be focused more on their program. They don't have any race teams there to be interrupting their work or their thought process.
"We've gotten some people from some big organizations to come here, and they were in the same boat that I was -- tired of being in the rat race in Mooresville, where people are jumping ship all the time and all that," Crew Chief Jay Guy said. "This is kind of refreshing, because there are no other race teams around here on this level. You can work on a lot of projects and keep secrets that will help the car go fast from getting out by lunchtime."
They rave about the skiing, and the landscape, and the fact that you don't bump into employees from other shops in line at the grocery store. But the distance clearly presents hurdles, most of them logistical for a team much father removed from eastern races than its competitors. Cars are prepared not two weeks out, but four weeks. Parts have to be ordered a week earlier than they would be for a team based near Charlotte, where many of the sport's vendors are located as well. Cars have to be loaded a day earlier on the transporters, which have to depart the race shop a day earlier than their eastern counterparts.
"The location is not a problem at all, because we have both trucks running up and down the road," Guy said. "You just have to have enough good people in place to where your stuff is done a little ahead of everybody else. Anywhere from like Texas west, we're a lot closer than anybody else."
"Some people, and I've found this surprising, would rather live in Denver than in North Carolina. A lot of skiers and a lot of people who like that dry air. It's not been a bad deal."
"Obviously, you want to compete to run up front," Guy said. "But you've got to be realistic with your goals. Lately, we've fallen short on our goals in qualifying, and haven't really been able to work on anything race-related. But we've got a seven-post shaker machine installed [in Denver], and we're working on that a little better, the guys in the engine shop are working harder and harder to get us more horsepower.
Sterling Marlin will be in the Furniture Row shop in Denver Colorado on Friday for a seat fitting in preparation to drive the number 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet at Bristol on August 25th. Scott Wimmer will be driving for Furniture Row this weekend in Michigan. Could this be a possible pairing for Furniture Row for next year allowing Sterling to run a part time schedule? I still expect Wimmer will drive the fourth Childress entry next year. But if not, he might have a full or part time deal with Furniture Row.
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