NASCAR At Las Vegas: 2012’s First Intermediate Track Race Goes To Tony Stewart

Las Vegas NASCAR race winner Tony Stewart gained eight spots in the Sprint Cup Series standings following his victory on Sunday, but he wasn’t the biggest gainer of the day.

That honor belonged to Jimmie Johnson, who moved up 14 positions to 23rd in points after a runnerup Las Vegas finish. Jamie McMurray’s eighth-place run paid big dividends as well, as the Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing driver vaulted 11 spots from 36th to 25th in points.

But in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, McMurray had an eighth-place result and his season took a turn for the better.

If only the same could be said about his health.

On a day when Dale Earnhardt Jr. led more laps in a single race than he had in all of 2011, NASCAR’s most popular driver was fired up about not finishing better than his 10th-place result at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

“I think we should run better than that,” he said. “I think the team felt like we should have been better than that. We’re just a little bit disappointed.”

Tony Stewart scratched another racetrack off the bucket list.

Powering away from Jimmie Johnson after a restart with four laps left in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the reigning Sprint Cup champion took the checkered flag .461 seconds ahead of Johnson.

Big names in new places need big days

Kasey Kahne and Clint Bowyer were two of the more prominent names to switch teams over the offseason. Thus far, two races into 2012 neither have had much success with their respective new rides.

Dodge is learning it has plenty of options to remain in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series next season despite its surprising breakup with Penske Racing.

After unveiling its 2013 Dodge Charger on Sunday morning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Dodge SRT brand CEO Ralph Gilles said he’s been pleased with the amount of interest from Cup teams.

It is a “Chamber of Commerce Day” for Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the Kobalt Tools 400. The sunshine continues as it has all weekend with race temperatures into the low to mid 70s. Towards the second half of the race, the winds may begin to increase out of the south-southwest getting up to 15-20 miles per hour.

Since the weather has been so nice this weekend, I decided to attend today’s race. Here’s hoping the action on the track is as good if not better than the weather has been all weekend.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. dominated the last 50 laps of Saturday’s Sam’s Town 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, pulling away from Mark Martin during a 39-lap green flag run to the finish.

The victory was Stenhouse’s first of the season and third in the series – and his first on an intermediate speedway. Series leader Elliott Sadler came home third, followed by Trevor Bayne and Las Vegas native Brendan Gaughan.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t won in 131 races. Jeff Burton has gone 115 races without a victory. And it’s been 83 races since Mark Martin last won.

But as hard as it is to believe, Carl Edwards is a member of the drought club, too. The man who led the Sprint Cup Series a year ago in top-five and top-10 finishes, and who lost the championship to Tony Stewart on a tiebreaker, hasn’t visited Victory Lane in a points race for more than a full year.

If Kasey Kahne is going to turn things around at Hendrick Motorsports, then Friday’s qualifying session at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was a good start.

Kahne won the pole position for Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, a much-needed boost for a driver who sits 31st in the point standings after the first two races with his new team.

The typical NASCAR driver press conference begins with a moderator asking a question about the weekend, followed by questions from the media.

Danica Patrick’s session with reporters on Friday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was different, though, and understandably so. Friday marked Patrick’s first visit to LVMS since the death of former IndyCar colleague Dan Wheldon, who was killed in an October crash.

Juan Pablo Montoya’s infamous Daytona 500 car – the one that blew up the jet dryer and caused a two-hour red flag last month – has arrived at its final resting place: The woods on Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s expansive property in North Carolina.

Former Earnhardt Jr. team engineer Chris “Sunshine” Heroy is now the crew chief for Montoya, so he called Earnhardt Jr. and offered to add it – for free – to the driver’s large collection of wrecked cars.

The Daytona 500 was memorable, but had nothing to do with the rest of the NASCAR season. Last week’s Phoenix race offered perhaps a few more hints as to how the Sprint Cup Series schedule will unfold, but the 1-mile oval somewhat stands on its own.

That’s why this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway is so important. The majority of the tracks in NASCAR are 1.5-mile venues, and this is the first such “intermediate” race of the year.

Driving in to Las Vegas Motor Speedway was a strange and sad experience on Friday morning.

I hadn’t thought about Dan Wheldon’s tragic crash on the drive from the hotel up I-15 toward the track, but as I pulled off the Speedway Blvd. exit and saw the grandstands, it suddenly hit me.