Returning sooner than expected from a burst fracture to his L1 vertebra suffered during an offseason all-terrain vehicle accident, Tony Stewart took to the track during opening NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice on Friday at Richmond International Raceway, preparing for his first competition of the season in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 (1 p.m. ET on FOX). Logano’s speed was 128.694.
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Richmond’s spring 2015 race was rained out and pushed back to Sunday. Harvick has three victories at the Virginia short track. “It’s a great season – would love to see him make a Chase push if he can and end on a good note”.
“From the way it finished past year, I hope it finishes the same way”, Harvick said. “It is good for the sport to have him back and he is just a good race auto driver and I am looking forward to finishing out the year with him”. It was the fourth win at Bristol for Edwards, who led the race eight times. “I think as a group we’ve definitely talked through a lot of things and been through a lot of things and I think we’re in a better position to kind of speak our opinion when things come up that we feel strongly about and let the people, whether it be fans or people involved, know where we stand and how we feel about it is important”.
With a strong chance of rain in the Friday afternoon forecast, Annett was pushing the issue, trying to post a fast lap in case qualifying was washed out and the field was ordered according to practice speeds.
“It’s just so quick, we are at Richmond, right”, he asked over his team radio.
“We went out there and made our qualifying run off the truck and then focused in on race trim thinking that we weren’t going to qualify anyway”, he said.
“It will be interesting just for the fact that the second and third times out weren’t near what the first time was because the tires fall off, which is great, ” he said. He made 38 laps in practice, the most of anyone, and will start 18th. “While we do not condone drivers lashing out freely at NASCAR, we do feel Tony was in his rights to state his opinion”. The nine-member Sprint Cup Driver Council has announced it would pay the fine .
The statement was first obtained late Thursday night by NBC Sports.
Joey Logano, a former teammate of Stewart, agreed. Its led to a rash of loose wheels the last two races. “He gave his opinion and especially when it’s something on safety, too”.
The driver council, which formed 11 months ago with NASCAR support, is comprised of members representing each manufacturer and is elected by drivers.
“As a sport we have some major decisions to make as to how we want to be identified, ” saidBrad Keselowski, a Council member. “I think [the Driver Council] has grown a lot over the last year and our communication as drivers, the barriers that we have, they have been broken down tremendously over the last year or two”.
NASCAR will re-evaluate the controversial lug nut policy in the aftermath of concerns from several drivers this week.
“For all the work and everything, all the bulletins and all the new stuff we have to do to superspeedway cars and all these other things they want us to do for safety, we can’t even make sure we put five lug nuts on the wheel”, Stewart said Wednesday.
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“There is an evolution going on now and I think the drivers are trying to find the right voice and the right way to interact with the RTA and also NASCAR”.
