NASCAR At Phoenix International Raceway 2012: Denny Hamlin Cruises To Win

Brad Keselowski is NASCAR’s version of a mutual fund disclaimer: His past performance is not indicative of his future results.

In Keselowski’s case, we mean that in the best way possible. The Penske Racing driver continues to shake off his own history at tracks where he once struggled, replacing lackluster finishes with surprisingly strong ones.

Denny Hamlin’s victory at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday propelled him into the Sprint Cup Series points lead, where he sits six points ahead of Greg Biffle.

Sunday’s runnerup Kevin Harvick is eight points back, followed by Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Ryan Newman conceded Carl Edwards likely didn’t wreck him intentionally on lap 256 of Sunday’s NASCAR race at Phoenix International Raceway.

But that doesn’t matter much when a potentially good finish goes by the wayside.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn’t too pleased with how his car ran on Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway – and suggested it might be time for Goodyear to try a different tire combination on the newly repaved track.

While he acknowledged the No. 88 car didn’t have enough speed throughout the weekend (“We weren’t very good,” he said), Earnhardt Jr. suggested an inconsistent tire contributed to the team’s troubles.

A couple more drops of Sunoco, and it might have been a different driver/crew chief pairing celebrating their first win together rather than Denny Hamlin and Darian Grubb.

Instead, Kevin Harvick, in his second race with Shane Wilson atop his pit box, limped across the finish line in second place Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway after running out of fuel two laps from the finish.

Kasey Kahne limped through the Phoenix International Raceway garage toward his hauler, walking slowly after a 34th-place finish that left him 38 laps down.

How could this happen? Kahne had finally arrived at Hendrick Motorsports this season after an 18-month wait, full of optimism and excitement over the best opportunity of his career.

At the racetrack that dashed his championship hopes in 2010, Denny Hamlin found redemption in Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

In his second race with 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship crew chief Darian Grubb on his pit box, Hamlin held off Kevin Harvick in a 53-lap green-flag run to finish the 312-lap race at the one-mile track. Hamlin took over the series points lead for the first time since surrendering it in the final race of 2010 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Here are some storylines to watch for in today’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway:

Earlier in the week, NASCAR announced it had penalized Hendrick Motorsports for illegal C-posts found on the 48 car during inspection for the Daytona 500. The sanctioning body subsequently deducted 25 driver points from Jimmie Johnson, 25 owner points from Rick Hendrick and suspended both crew chief Chad Knaus and car chief Ron Malec for six weeks.

Beginning with today’s Sprint Cup Series race in Phoenix, NASCAR will deploy an extra caution car to trail jet dryers and warn drivers to slow down when passing trucks filled with explosive jet fuel.

NASCAR informed the drivers of the change to its jet dryer policy at Sunday’s pre-race drivers meeting, and it is clearly a reaction to Juan Pablo Montoya’s collision with a jet dryer during the Daytona 500.

One of the strangest moments of last week’s bizarre Daytona 500 was when FOX cameras showed track workers using Tide laundry detergent to clean the track after the now-infamous jet dryer explosion.

Smartly, Tide has capitalized on the unintentional product placement with a new commercial that will debut during today’s telecast of the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, reports USA Today.

Here’s a sneak peek of the new ad:

It’s NASCAR race day at Phoenix International Raceway and we’ve got the actual race start time, the starting lineup and some other facts about today’s race for you below.

What time does the race start today? Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh – today’s grand marshal – will command drivers to fire their engines at 3:08 p.m. Eastern Time (that’s 1:08 p.m. in Phoenix). After a few pace laps, the field will take the green at 3:15 p.m. Eastern. So if you’re looking to skip the pre-race show, tune in at 3:15.

Elliott Sadler took the lead with 25 laps left in the Bashas’ Supermarkets 200 at Phoenix International Raceway and held off hard-charging Brad Keselowski to win for the first time at PIR and the sixth time in his Nationwide Series career.

Defending series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ran third, followed by rookie Austin Dillon and Kevin Harvick, who dominated the race but fell victim to pit strategy in the late going.

As if anyone doubted it, the old man can still get it done.

Mark Martin, 53, won the pole position for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway, snatching the top spot away from former protegé Regan Smith with just two cars remaining in Saturday’s qualifying session.

If you’re one of the 88,000 people who follow NASCAR driver Kenny Wallace on Twitter, you know he’s in a difficult sponsorship situation.

Wallace tweeted this week his future is in doubt due to a lack of funding at the RAB Racing team in the Nationwide Series. The driver has essentially begged for a company to support his efforts to keep racing.

You can’t make a better NASCAR weekend than the one we’re expecting at Phoenix International Raceway. Weather is not a problem. Lots of sunshine for both Saturday and Sunday. Temperatures will be nice and warm during the day. Highs for Saturday will reach the mid 70s and for Sunday highs will work into the low to mid 80s.

SATURDAY:

1:00 p.m ET

Nationwide qualifying – Sunny – temp: 70

2:30 p.m ET

Sprint Cup qualifying – Sunny – temp: 69

4:30 p.m ET

Nationwide race – Sunny – temp: 72

SUNDAY:

3 p.m ET

Sprint Cup race – Sunny and warm – temp: 80

Brad Keselowski made news last week for tweeting from the backstretch during a long delay in the Daytona 500 – but his reasons for keeping a phone in his car have nothing to do with his Twitter account.

“The reason why I keep a phone in my car – it’s a lengthy story,” said Keselowski, who picked up more than 100,000 new Twitter followers during the two-hour, five-minute stoppage that followed Juan Pablo Montoya’s collision with a jet dryer and subsequent fuel fire at Daytona.

Sitting negative in points is not a position Jimmie Johnson is at all familiar with.

“It is certainly not a position we want to be in,” Johnson said Friday when he met with reporters. “But there is a lot of racing between now and September (for the Chase cutoff). Right now, we are focused on doing the best job we can and getting as many points as we possibly can.”

Just days after Juan Pablo Montoya’s harrowing wreck in the Daytona 500 – when his car suddenly swerved into a jet dryer and set off an explosion involving 200 gallons of jet fuel – the Colombian driver told reporters at Phoenix he felt fortunate to escape unharmed.

“I’m still a little sore, but not bad,” Montoya said outside his hauler. “It’s kind of interesting five days later when you look back at the impact – I’m pretty lucky, to be honest.”

The end of the Daytona 500 seemed like the perfect time for Denny Hamlin to pair up with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and challenge the two Roush Fenway Racing cars up front for the win.

Well, at least Hamlin thought so.

After rain delayed the start of the 2012 NASCAR season at Daytona International Speedway, we’re back on schedule this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway.

The weekend is dry and sunny. Highs on Saturday will be in the low-to-mid 70s, with highs on Sunday getting into the low 80s. It will just be a little windy for Friday afternoon practices. Winds will be out of the north blowing 15 to 25 mph, with wind gusts near 40 mph.

During Monday night’s red flag at the Daytona 500, FOX’s TV cameras showed the drivers chatting with one another and looking at Brad Keselowski’s phone after the driver had tweeted from inside the car.

At one point, viewers saw an shot of Dale Earnhardt Jr. seeming to chuckle as he scrolled through Keselowski’s mobile device.

Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Chad Knaus said he was “deeply saddened” and “disappointed” by NASCAR’s heavy-handed penalty this week for the illegally modified C-posts found on Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 car at Daytona International Speedway.

Knaus, who was suspended for six weeks along with car chief Ron Malec and fined $100,000, said Friday he “really didn’t expect” NASCAR to have an issue with the C-posts and did not believe he was taking a risk with the parts.