Avondale, AZ — November 18, 2009

Raybestos® NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Rundown:
 
The official margin of victory for Jimmie Johnson in Sunday’s Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 was listed at 1.022 seconds but it wasn’t nearly that close.

Johnson crushed the field Sunday afternoon at Phoenix (Avondale, Ariz.) International Raceway, leading 238 of the 312 laps and took a giant step toward an unprecedented fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.  He leads second-place Mark Martin by 108 points and needs only to finish 25th or better in the season finale Nov. 22 at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway to win the title.

Johnson won for the fourth time in 13 races at Phoenix and racked up his seventh win and 15th top-five finish of the season.  He collected his 47th victory in 290 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts and won for the 18th time in the Chase.
There were four cautions for 23 laps in a race that took 2 hours, 49 minutes and 26 seconds to complete.  Johnson averaged 110.486 mph in a race that featured nine lead changes among four drivers. 
            
Joe Gibbs Racing Rundown:
 
Denny Hamlin chased Johnson hard in the middle stages of the race but could get no closer than a handful of car lengths back in second-place.  Hamlin scored a third-place finish, his 14th top-five of the season, and is eighth in the series championship standings, 31 points behind seventh-place Greg Biffle.

 “We had a good day,” Hamlin said.  “You know, we threw a lot of different things at the car [Sunday] morning, figuring that we were going to be a fifth to 10th-place car by the practice sheets.  We have a new car here and ran a setup that we never really ran before.

“Track position meant so much.  You got to try to push when you can and my pit crew did an awesome job closing the gap on that last pit stop.  I got within a car length of him (Jimmie Johnson) but I just used myself up getting there and the 31 (Jeff Burton) came on strong there.

“We’re running well every race.  This is a good finish for us and what we needed.  We are trying to crawl back up in the points just as high as we can.  We wanted to get back to the top five in points -- I highly doubt that’s going to happen, but you never know.  We’re making steps.”

Hamlin had high praise for Johnson and the performance of the No. 48 team, calling the group the “standard” of the sport. 

“They can win races a little bit easier than what everyone else can,” Hamlin said.  “Until everyone else steps up to the plate, they deserve to be champions.  Anytime that Jimmie is down is not usually because of performance, it's usually because of an incident like you had at Texas.  There was no doubt in my mind they were going to come this week and make a statement.  Leading all the laps pretty much and winning the race sends a statement out there that he is the best, that they’re not going to be denied this year. The only thing that was going to keep him from winning the championship this year was bad luck.  Obviously, they had a big enough gap where they could afford that one bad luck that they had last week.”

Kyle Busch was credited with a 12th-place finish and enters the final race of the 2009 season 45 points ahead of Matt Kenseth in the battle for 13th position in the series standings.

“We’re not satisfied with finishing 12th, but on the other hand we’re excited to start finishing 12th,” Dave Rogers, Busch’s crew chief, said.  “Joe Gibbs Racing made this (crew chief) change with three (races) to go so I can learn Kyle and I can learn the guys to get that communication established.  We learned a lot, some we learned by failures.  Our last stop there, me and the guys didn’t communicate clear enough and went the wrong way on our adjustments and we tried to balance the car out.  I’m disappointed but we know the big picture is 2010.  All those little lessons we can learn right now and getting them out of our way will make us that much stronger next year.” 

 
Joey Logano posted a 21st-place finish at Phoenix and claimed Raybestos® Rookie of the Race honors for the 25th time this season.  Logano leads Scott Speed by 36 points (238-202) in the rookie standings entering the season finale Nov. 22 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“We fought some thing that we should have worked on in practice,” Logano said.  “The tough part is that it wasn’t horrible.  We got decent at the end but we still weren’t where we need to be.  We just fought on trying to get this thing to turn all day: tight in the center, tight in the center, tight in the center.”

Logano spun out in the aftermath of a nine-car accident in Turn 4 on lap 172 but didn’t suffer any damage to the No. 20 Toyota.

 “I think everyone just checked-up,” Logano said of the altercation.  “Someone was spinning out and I was checking-up.  I think I got run over from behind and spun me around with ‘em all.  Not much you can do about that one but that didn’t really affect us that much.  It drove about the same.

“We’re going to keep fighting and keep digging to get these things better and better.  This race was a lot different than the first race.  The track was quite a bit different, too, because the sun was out.”
 
Raybestos® NASCAR Nationwide Series Rundown:
 
 Carl Edwards postponed Kyle Busch’s championship celebration for one week by winning Saturday’s Able Body Labor 200 at Phoenix.
Edwards led twice for 109 of the 200 laps and took the checkered flag 2.415 seconds ahead of second-place Kevin Harvick.  Busch finished ninth and needs only to start the race to collect his first series title.

Edwards won for the fifth time in 2009 and claimed his 25th victory in 175 career starts.  The victory was his second consecutive time in the fall race at Phoenix and his third in 10 starts at the one-mile Arizona speedway.

The official time of the race was one hour, 59 minutes and three seconds.  Edwards averaged 100.798 mph in a race that was slowed by six cautions for 29 laps.  There were three lead changes among two drivers.

 Justin Allgaier posted a 16th-place finish at Phoenix to earn top rookie honors for the second time in the last three races and the 11th time this season.  He owns an eight-point lead over Brendan Gaughan (230-222) in the overall Raybestos® Rookie standings and is sixth in the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship points, 14 behind fifth-place Mike Bliss and 86 ahead of seventh-place Steve Wallace.

“The Verizon Wireless guys did a great job all day long in and out of the pits,” Allgaier.  “We worked really hard to try to make this car better.  We just struggled.  I don’t know what the deal was but we just struggled all day long and never really could get the car to handle well.  I don’t know what it was.  It’s unfortunate.  I think we lost fifth in points but I think we padded our Raybestos® Rookie of the Year so that’s a definite plus.  We’re going to give it 110 percent.  We did that and hopefully the points that we did lose today, I don’t know how many eight spots are worth in points, but the points that we did lose hopefully we can overcome those next weekend at Homestead and get fifth back.”

Allgaier and Jason Leffler made contact on lap 92 of the 200-lap race which led to a cut tire and unscheduled stop for Allgaier.  The incident left Allgaier scratching his head.  

  
“I just went down in the corner and was going to let him have the bottom and got drove into,” Allgaier said.  “I don’t know why.  Jason and I have been good friends for a long time.  It’s really a shame because stuff like that shouldn’t happen.”     
 
Raybestos® NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Rundown:
 
Life couldn’t get much better for Kevin Harvick Friday night at Phoenix.

Harvick’s driver, Ron Hornaday Jr. clinched his fourth NASCAR Camping World Truck Series title while Harvick himself won the Lucas Oil 150 over Kyle Busch.

Hornaday Jr. became just the second driver to clinch a truck series title prior to the series’ final race.  He is the first four-time champion and the oldest NASCAR national series champ at age 51.

Harvick claimed his fifth victory in 100 truck series races and grabbed his second win in 2009.  He won for the fourth time in 10 starts at Phoenix.

Harvick led twice for 58 laps including the final 56 and survived four caution flags during the final 25 laps to win.  He averaged 99.743 mph in a race that took one hour, 30 minutes and 50 seconds to complete.  There were five lead changes among four drivers and seven cautions slowed the race for 26 laps.

 Johnny Sauter scored a fifth-place finish at Phoenix, his seventh top-five of the 2009 season.  He claimed Raybestos® Rookie of the Race honors for the 13th time this season and third consecutive event.  Sauter logged the second consecutive top-five by a Raybestos® Rookie at Phoenix.  Sauter is fifth in the series championship standings, 84 points behind fourth-place Todd Bodine and 13 ahead of sixth-place Brian Scott.

 Sauter won the pole at Phoenix, his second of the 2009 season.  He also nabbed the top starting spot earlier this season at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway -(race No. 20).  Sauter became the first Raybestos® Rookie pole winner in 17 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races at Phoenix.  

 
“We were good right off the truck,” Sauter said after his qualifying run.  “I can’t say enough about all these guys that work at ThorSport.  The Fun Sand/Curb Records Chevy was really good.  This is a truck that we felt like should have won a few weeks back at Loudon, New Hampshire.  I knew it was going to be good right off the truck and it was.  I can’t say enough about Joe Shear and all these guys.  It’s all about preparation and we came here prepared and it’s paying off.  It’s been pretty fun the last couple months.  We got our first win a few weeks back in Vegas and got our second pole here.  I hope we can keep the band together for next year and make a run for that championship.”

Despite running well in the race, Sauter was frustrated after the race with not challenging for the win.     
“Towards the end there we tried to adjust for it to get some more forward traction and ended up getting it tight in the center,” Sauter said.  “It’s a fine line you walk here.  We started loose, got tight and went back to being just a tick free.  All in all it was a good night.  We just kind of missed it a little bit.  We definitely had a top-three truck.  We’ve got some work to do and that’s why this is a team sport.”

The rest of the class: Tayler Malsam (17th), Ricky Carmichael (18th) and James Buescher (23rd). 
 
Raybestos® Brakes Status Sheet:

Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500  

                                          
1.  Jimmie Johnson         6.  Kurt Busch                                                                                                  
2.  Jeff Burton                7.  Clint Bowyer                                                                           
3.  Denny Hamlin           8.  Juan Pablo Montoya            
4.  Mark Martin             9.  Jeff Gordon                         

5.  Martin Truex Jr.      10. David Reutimann                  
  
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Points:

1. Jimmie Johnson           6,492
2. Mark Martin               6,384        
3. Jeff Gordon                6,323
4. Kurt Busch                 6,281 
5. Tony Stewart              6,207
6. Juan Pablo Montoya   6,203          
7. Greg Biffle                  6,171  
8. Denny Hamlin             6,140
9. Ryan Newman            6,081       
10. Kasey Kahne            6,016
 
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Raybestos® Rookie of the Year:
 
1. Joey Logano                  238
2. Scott Speed                   202
3. Max Papis                      150   

NASCAR Nationwide Series Raybestos® Rookie of the Year:

1. Justin Allgaier                 230
2. Brendan Gaughan           222 
3. Michael McDowell         193
4. Michael Annett               192
5. Erik Darnell                    156 
6. Scott Lagasse Jr.            154
7. John Wes Townley         138
8. Ken Butler III                   93
9. Terry Cook                      60 

NASCAR Camping World Series Raybestos® Rookie of the Year:

1. Johnny Sauter                 223   
2. Tayler Malsam                180
3. James Buescher              165
4. Ricky Carmichael            136
5. J R Fitzpatrick                   97
6. Brian Ickler                       95 
7. Chris Jones                       87
8. Brent Raymer                    79