Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Check out this lap that Junior layed down during qualifying Friday! He beat Cousin Carl by more than two tenths. This will give Hendrick Motorsports its first pole of the 2008 season. You could hear the crowd erupt with screams of joy as the lap times went up on the board and the number 88 went to the top of the pole!

When asked in the post qualifying interview Dale Junior said that those laps didn’t feel any different than the ones that he ran in practice, the car was just real smooth and had great power. That is good news for the Junior Nation as this may translate into  the first win for Dale Junior since coming to Hendrick Motorsports. He usually does real well at Texas, with a win in 2000 and 3 top 5′s, and 7 top tens, Dale Earnhardt Junior is no stranger to success at Texas. Couple that with the dominating race shops at Hendrick Motorsports and Junior fans have something to smile about.

In other news

Michael Mcdowell slammed nose first into the Safer Barrier in his number 00 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota Camry. He then did ten to 15 barrel rolls and ended up right side up on the back stretch. This was a crash reminiscent of the one that took Dale Earnhardt’s life at the Daytona 500. The amazing thing is that he got out of the car and walked away from it. Here go watch this then come back here. David Pool wrote in his blog that Dale Earnhardt Senior saved that young mans life. I have to agree with you David, if it were not for all the new safety equipment that came about from Dale Senior’s death, Including the Safer Barrier, This young man might very well be dead right now. His car will be transported to the Nascar Development Lab in Concord North Carolina by Nascar to be studied in order to obtain important data that comes from the installation of on board data recorders. These are another one of the innovations in safety that Nascar has mandated in the new cars since Dale Earnhardt’s death. These recorders measure and store important crash dynamics in many areas of the car, from speed at impact to g-forces loaded into the drivers seat on impact. If you ever had any doubts about the safety of this new car just like Larry Mac said, they should all be gone now! Thank you to the University of Nebraska for their research into the safer barrier too! My hats off to you folks. It really works!

The Lineup

Here is how they will line up Sunday for the Samsung 500.

POS	CAR	DRIVER	MAKE	SPONSOR	SPEED	TIME	BEHIND
1	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevrolet	National Guard / AMP Energy	190.907	28.286	Leader
2	99	Carl Edwards	Ford	Aflac	189.487	28.498	-0.212
3	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	Interstate Batteries	189.069	28.561	-0.275
4	12	Ryan Newman	Dodge	Samsung HDTV / ALLTEL	189.042	28.565	-0.279
5	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	Lowe’s	188.772	28.606	-0.320
6	44	David Reutimann	Toyota	UPS	188.732	28.612	-0.326
7	6	David Ragan	Ford	AAA Insurance	188.534	28.642	-0.356
8	17	Matt Kenseth	Ford	DEWALT	188.475	28.651	-0.365
9	84	Mike Skinner	Toyota	Red Bull	188.390	28.664	-0.378
10	9	Kasey Kahne	Dodge	Budweiser	188.245	28.686	-0.400
11	42	Juan Montoya	Dodge	Texaco / Havoline	188.160	28.699	-0.413
12	1	Martin Truex Jr.	Chevrolet	Bass Pro Shops / Tracker	188.140	28.702	-0.416
13	66	Scott Riggs	Chevrolet	State Water Heaters	188.009	28.722	-0.436
14	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	FedEx Ground	187.990	28.725	-0.439
15	7	Robby Gordon	Dodge	Jim Beam	187.931	28.734	-0.448
16	16	Greg Biffle	Ford	DISH Network / DishDVRs	187.865	28.744	-0.458
17	77	Sam Hornish Jr.*	Dodge	Mobil 1	187.741	28.763	-0.477
18	24	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet	DuPont	187.611	28.783	-0.497
19	15	Paul Menard	Chevrolet	Quaker State / Menards	187.598	28.785	-0.499
20	55	Michael Waltrip	Toyota	NAPA AUTO PARTS	187.591	28.786	-0.500
21	29	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet	Shell / Pennzoil	187.493	28.801	-0.515
22	5	Casey Mears	Chevrolet	Cheez-It / CARQUEST	187.474	28.804	-0.518
23	2	Kurt Busch	Dodge	Miller Lite	187.311	28.829	-0.543
24	20	Tony Stewart	Toyota	The Home Depot	187.195	28.847	-0.561
25	07	Clint Bowyer	Chevrolet	Jack Daniel’s	187.156	28.853	-0.567
26	19	Elliott Sadler	Dodge	Best Buy / Garmin	187.007	28.876	-0.590
27	10	Patrick Carpentier*	Dodge	Valvoline	186.981	28.880	-0.594
28	21	Bill Elliott	Ford	Motorcraft	186.974	28.881	-0.595
29	22	Dave Blaney	Toyota	Caterpillar	186.948	28.885	-0.599
30	43	Bobby Labonte	Dodge	Cheerios Racing / Sam’s Club	186.935	28.887	-0.601
31	8	Mark Martin	Chevrolet	U.S. Army	186.793	28.909	-0.623
32	26	Jamie McMurray	Ford	Crown Royal Cask No. 16	186.645	28.932	-0.646
33	96	J.J. Yeley	Toyota	DLP HDTV	186.220	28.998	-0.712
34	01	Regan Smith*	Chevrolet	DEI / Principal Financial Group	186.046	29.025	-0.739
35	31	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet	Prilosec OTC	185.995	29.033	-0.747
36	83	Brian Vickers	Toyota	Red Bull	185.752	29.071	-0.785
37	34	John Andretti	Chevrolet	Front Row Motorsports	185.669	29.084	-0.798
38	28	Travis Kvapil	Ford	Yates Racing	185.631	29.090	-0.804
39	70	Jeremy Mayfield	Chevrolet	Haas Automation	185.350	29.134	-0.848
40	00	Michael McDowell+*	Toyota	Aaron’s Dream Machine	182.933	29.519	-1.233
41	38	David Gilliland+	Ford	Yates Racing	-	-	-
42	41	Reed Sorenson+	Dodge	Target	-	-	-
43	78	Joe Nemechek	Chevrolet	Furniture Row / DenverMattress.com	185.191	29.159	-0.873
Did Not Qualify
44	40	Dario Franchitti*	Dodge	Kennametal	185.122	29.170	-0.884
45	45	Chad McCumbee	Dodge	Marathon American Spirit Motor Oil	183.736	29.390	-1.104
46	08	Burney Lamar	Dodge	rhino’s energy drink	181.996	29.671	-1.385

Race coverage starts at 12:30 with pre race on FOX. The green flag should drop around 1 p.m. central time. Texas is usually a pretty good race to watch as it is a nice and smooth 1.5 mile intermediate speedway. It is forgiving if you have you car dialed in, but a terror for those that don’t. You know that I will be pulling strongly for Junior so may the Yellow Rose Of Texas smile down on him Sunday!

Keep up the good work you do for us out there on the big road and please stay safe out there!