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closeNotebook | Las Vegas 400
Saturday, Mar. 10, 2007
Elevators
UP: GANASSI AND EVERNHAM
Chip Ganassi and Ray Evernham's race teams each have all three of their cars starting in today's top seven.
DOWN: CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY
There might have been as many people at Las Vegas for Saturday's Busch race as there were for the Cup, Busch and Truck races combined at Fontana.
UP: CHARITY AUCTIONS
Judging from Saturday's Busch race, there should be no shortage of mangled sheet metal to auction to interested bidders in the next few weeks.
News and Notes
Stremme starts from front-row spot today
David Stremme missed winning his first career Nextel Cup pole by about a tenth of a second, so he'll have to settle for starting on the outside of Row 1 alongside Kasey Kahne in today's race.
"My confidence is pretty good," said Stremme, the driver of the No..40 Dodge for Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates. "I think we should have had better finishes in the first two races, but the biggest thing is not getting any DNFs (did not finishes) the first part of the year because the points will jump around so much."
Stremme is 10th in the early standings after finishing 11th at Daytona and 19th at California. He dodged much of the last-lap crash in the Daytona 500 but got trapped by the timing of a pit stop at California, losing a lap he never made up.
Observer Picks
David Poole
Kasey Kahne: No front-row starter has ever won a Cup race at Las Vegas - until today.
Jim Utter
Matt Kenseth: Barely lost here last year. This time, he'll get a third career Las Vegas victory.
Practice Update
Clint Bowyer is making it a habit to run well in Saturday practice sessions. After leading one of the practices at California two weeks ago, Bowyer had the No..07 Chevrolet atop the speed chart in both sessions here.
Given his early-season problems and the fact he only qualified 28th best here, Dale Earnhardt Jr. being among the fastest cars in practice is also worth noting. He was third behind Bowyer and Jimmie Johnson in the opening session and fifth behind Bowyer, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton and Kurt Busch in the final round.