August 2008 Archives

Kyle Busch won going away in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race on Saturday night at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. It prompted one reporter to ask if Busch considers himself the king of restarts.
That distinction belongs to Ron Hornaday Jr., a driver for Kevin Harvick Inc. on the Craftsman Truck Series. He developed his knack for building huge leads on restarts while racing late models at Saugus Speedway. He still has that reputation on the Truck Series. No one wants to be behind Hornaday on a restart late in a race.
Busch isn't ready to take that distinction away from Hornaday.
"I don't think anybody's really labeled me the king of restarts yet," Busch said. "That's always going to be Hornaday's. But I sort of caught up to him a little bit, I feel like anyways, as good if not right there with him."
Busch learned how to build leads on restarts racing legend cars and late models at the Bullring in Las Vegas in much the same way Hornaday learned at Saugus Speedway.
"As far as being able to learn that, it comes from my dad teaching us the ropes of restarts back in the day of racing legends cars, late models, all that stuff," Busch said. "Doing different things with gear ratios, and all that stuff. We can't really decide it here, but just having as sense of that knowledge really lays in and stays with you throughout your career."

A week after NASCAR levied severe penalties on the Nationwide Series teams for Joe Gibbs Racing, Kyle Busch had them back on top at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.
Busch won the Nationwide Series race in Fontana on Saturday night after the his No. 18 team and the No. 20 team were penalized for attempting to alter the dyno test data the teams provide to NASCAR.
The Joe Gibbs Racing teams have dominated the Nationwide Series this year. In an effort to make the series more competitive, NASCAR submitted guidelines to the Joe Gibbs Racing teams that were intended to reduce the horsepower in their engines.
Members of the team tried to alter the tests and those crew members, including both team's crew chiefs, received suspensions from NASCAR and Joe Gibbs Racing.
Busch said after winning the Nationwide Series race that those left on his crew rose to the challenge and gave him a great car.
"These guys are pumped up, they're excited," Busch said. "It doesn't matter if you win a late model race, a Nationwide race, truck race or Cup race - you never know when your last one is going to be so this one means a lot. These crew guys have had a lot of adversity on them in the past few weeks and they don't deserve the bad rap they've got."
Busch is familiar with the NASCAR police. He was put on probation after trying to spin out Carl Edwards after the Cup race at Bristol last weekend. Both drivers are on probation for the next six races, starting with the Cup race at Fontana.
"I don't care about my bad rap but these guys here are the ones that work hard at the shop and do all the hard work so I really have to thank these guys," Busch said.

I will be on the Back Stretch SIRIUS Satellite radio show around 12:30 p.m. We're going to talk about the Cup race in Fontana, Kyle and Carl and the Chase coming to Fontana next year.

Tim Huddleston of Agoura Hills won one of two NASCAR Late Model races at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale on Saturday night and took over the lead in the Late Model standings.
Huddleston, the reigning Late Model champion at the track, has a two-point lead over Nick Joanides of Woodland Hills. Joanides was second and fourth in the two races.
Huddleston added a third-place finish in the other Late Model race. Travis Irving, a driver from Long Beach, was the winner of the second Late Model race. It was his first win of the year.
Huddleston won his fourth race of the year and his third in the past five races.
Joanides has three wins in the Late Model division. There are two races left in the Late Model season at the track.

Kyle Busch added to his record-setting NASCAR season by winning the Nationwide Series race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana on Saturday night.
It was the seventh Nationwide Series win of the year and the 18th NASCAR win for Busch.
Carl Edwards finished second, but the only driver who had a car that could catch Busch at Fontana was Brian Vickers. Before the first pit stops, Vickers had a faster car than Busch, but Vickers had to drive through traffic to catch Busch, who started from the pole.
Vickers worked his way into second place, then ran into a series of mishaps.
He had a loose lug nut after the first pit stop and was called back into the pits. He lost valuable track position having to make a second pit stop to tighten the lug nut.
Then he hit the wall on lap 57 and fell back midway through the race.
As the race winded down, Vickers worked his way back to the front and finished third, behind Busch and Edwards.
"We fought traffic all night," Vickers said. "Just ran out of time really, more than anything. We definitely could have at least given him a race."

The Sporting News is reporting that Darian Grubb from Hendrick Motorsports will be Tony Stewart's crew chief next year at Stewart's new NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team.
Stewart said he will introduce his crew chief at Richmond International Raceway on Friday.
Grubb, who subbed as crew chief for Jimmie Johnson's team and won the Daytona 500 in 2006, was the crew chief for Casey Mears' No. 5 team in 2007. Grubb is the coordinator of on-track engineering for Hendrick Motorsports.

Dave Blaney had the fastest car in the afternoon practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.
His top lap was at 176.199 mph, almost 2 mph better than the second fastest driver.
"Practice went real well," said Blaney, driver of the No. 22 Toyota for Bill Davis Racing. "Actually the whole weekend is going well. We felt we ran well in every practice. We made a pretty good qualifying lap. It's going well, it's been good."
Jeff Gordon was second fastest at 174.571 mph. Jimmie Johnson, the pole winner for Sunday's Pepsi 500, was third fastest at 174.448 mph.
A.J. Allmendinger, who will start on the front row with Johnson, was fifth fastest in practice at 174.364 mph.
"We're definitely strong," said Allmendinger, driver of the No. 84 Toyota for Red Bull Racing. "I think to be great we need a little bit more, but we're in the ballpark."
Riverside's David Gilliland had a top 10 car in practice. He was ninth quickest at 174.039 mph.

Carl Edwards, the hottest driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and Jimmie Johnson, who won last year's Labor Day Cup race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, were the two fastest drivers in the first practice on Saturday at the track.
Edwards had a top lap at 177.958 mph. Johnson, the pole winner for the race, had a top lap at 177.117 mph.
A couple surprises in the top 10 in practice were David Ragan and Brian Vickers.
Ragan had the fourth fastest lap and Vickers had the sixth fastest.
The cars and drivers will return to the track for a final practice session at 5:20 p.m.

Kyle Busch won the pole for the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.
It was the 14th pole of his Nationwide Series career and his third Nationwide pole this year.
Jeff Burton will start second. It is his eighth top 10 Nationwide Series start of the year and his fifth in 10 races at Fontana.
Busch and Burton are also in the Sprint Cup Series race on Sunday.
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, qualified third for the Nationwide Series race. It is his first top 10 start at Fontana and his ninth top 10 start in 11 Nationwide Series this year. He was the highest qualifying driver who is not a regular on the Cup Series.
The Nationwide Series race starts at 7 p.m.

Jeff Gordon has not won a NASCAR Spint Cup Series race in 2008. The Hendrick Motorsports drivers have combined to win three Cup races this year. This from a team that won half, 18, of the Cup races last year.
He has won four Cup races at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana in his career, but his last came in 2004. Gordon's last win in any Cup race came on Oct. 13 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in North Carolina.
"It's been a little bit frustrating and disappointing," Gordon said. "We want to win. We want to be competitive. We came off such a great year last year. Our team has been phenomenal this year, we just haven't had the runs, haven't had the cars and when we did have the cars haven't been able to put it all together. So that's definitely been frustrating."
He's one of five drivers in Chase contention without a win. Gordon is ninth in the Sprint Cup Series standings with nine top-five finishes. Gordon said it's more important to put up consistent finishes than win races.
"A victory all that does is calm the media down," Gordon said. "That's all that does. A win is just to try to keep our streak going and those type of things. To me it's not about a win, it's about consistently running up front, leading laps. This is a perfect example, this race track. When we lead a lap here we're usually in the top-five. That's fairly typical for us so it's about being competitive enough to get up there and lead laps. When we lead laps we do very well."
Gordon qualified third for Sunday's Pepsi 500.

Jeff Burton will make his 500th career Cup start Sunday at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. His Richard Childress Racing teammates, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer, Childress, former driver and ESPN analyst Dale Jarrett and others attempted to roast him Saturday morning at the track.
About the best story to come out of the whole episode was that Burton has a strange attachment to shoes.
He wears the same pair from Daytona to Homestead during the NASCAR season. And that's not just for racing. His everyday shoes are apparently the same ones he had for the Daytona 500 and he said he will keep wearing them until the season finale at Homestead in November.
Knowing Burton's fondness for his shoes, Harvick said he and Bowyer played a little prank on Burton earlier in the year. They stole his shoes, tried to frame Matt Kenseth for it and put them up for auction on e-Bay. Burton didn't appreciate it too much, but Harvick said there was never any danger of someone actually buying the shoes on e-Bay.
Burton did, however, blame his midseason slump on not having his shoes.

Apparently Dale Earnhardt Jr. was supposed to visit the set of "The Office," but instead met a friend at the DirecTV offices. He ended up having what he called a "discussion" with his friend about the way DirecTV designs its remote controls.
"I think they should change it," Earnhardt Jr. said. "Do y'all have DirecTV? You know where the numbers are at the bottom of the remote, and you have to hold it kind of funny and it's very uncomfortable and awkward? And when you hold a normal remote, you want the numbers up in the middle."
Earnhardt Jr. prefers the numbers on his remote controls to be in a certain spot. The DirecTV remotes do not meet his high standards.
"It's a travesty," Earnhardt Jr. said. "It is. You change the channel by the numbers and everybody goes to the numbers. They put them down at the bottom and my thumb can't get down there and I drop the remote a lot. It's terrible."

A.J. Allmendinger will start Sunday's Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway on the front row, next to pole winner Jimmie Johnson. It will be the best Cup start of Allmendinger's career.
Allmendinger's car is 36th in the Cup owners standings and the top 35 cars earn automatic qualifying spots for races. There were 44 cars that attempted to qualify for the Pepsi 500, meaning one car outside the top 35 was going home.
"I'm going to talk to Jimmie," said Allmendinger, driver of the No. 84 Toyota for Red Bull Racing. "I think he said he's going to let me lead the first lap for the five points -- I need them -- he doesn't."
Johnson, who was sitting in the media room in the garage area of the track, looked a little surprised by Allmendinger's statement.
Drivers get five bonus points for leading a lap and five more points for leading the most laps. Allmendinger is 14 points behind the No. 77 car driven by Sam Hornish Jr. in 35th place.
"We have a lot of work to do still," Allmendinger said. "Our focus is to have a good solid day like we've been trying for the last two months and get back in the top 35. We had a taste of it but the last two weeks of it have been disappointing and hopefully this is a good kick start to Sunday."

Denny Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, spent Thursday volunteering at the L.A. Regional Foodbank. He packed boxes of food and his team donated a Toyota Prius to the Foodbank.
"It was really special to go out there and I think we prepared 1,200 meals Thursday afternoon for the food bank to underprivileged persons," Hamlin said Friday at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. "We were able to give away a Toyota Prius for the third time this year. We did one in Boston, one in Indianapolis and one here in L.A. For gas prices going up as much as they are, it was good to giveaway a hybrid vehicle to help deliver all these packages. FedEx delivers every day and those guys deliver everyday and we're just trying to help them the best we can to get all those packages and meals out. It was definitely a great experience to see that. The L.A. food bank does so much for their community that we felt like they deserve to get something back. By donating that Toyota Prius it was an honor for us."

Apparently Carl Edwards never made it to the NASCAR hauler. He talked to Robin Pemberton, the vice president of competition for NASCAR, after the race at Bristol. Edwards said to reporters at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana that NASCAR told him, "Look, you've got to take it easy."
"That's the way I take it, like, 'Don't go out there and do something really stupid,'" Edwards said.
He was asked if he was mad after the race at Bristol.
"No, I feel pretty good about how everything went down last week," Edwards said.
He was asked if he regrets what he did or said.
"No, I don't regret anything," Edwards said. "I did what I felt was best at the time and that's fine. In the grand scheme of things looking back on it, I don't even think there was really anything that was that bad about last week. I thought it was just real good hard racing and what happened afterwards is stuff that happens at every short track all around the country every week. The only bad part about it is just tearing up race cars when you don't need to. That's the only bad part."

There are varying degrees of probation in NASCAR. Jimmie Johnson, who's been placed on probation by NASCAR in the past, said it can be as severe as being grabbed by your shirt or as gentle as the proverbial slap on the wrist.
In the case of Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch, who were placed on probation by NASCAR for the next six races after crashing into each other at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night, the severity of their probation is unknown.
Busch was asked what kind of probation NASCAR gave him and he said, "Couldn't tell you."
Then he was asked if he could explain what happened in the NASCAR hauler after the race at Bristol, where NASCAR officials apparently talked to both Busch and Edwards, and Busch said, "Have you ever heard anyone explain what happens inside the hauler."
Busch was definitely testy and was not going to detail how severely he was punished by NASCAR.
Edwards has won the past two races and is catching Busch in the Sprint Cup Series standings. Entering this weekend's race at Auto Club Speedway, Busch has eight Cup wins, Edwards has six.
"He has a little bit better race cars than us," Busch said. "He caught up to us."
But Busch was quick to point out that in both races that Edwards won, he was second.
And Edwards is not the only driver Busch considers a threat, especially once the Chase starts in a couple weeks.
"I've always been worried about Jimmie Johnson," Busch said. "You never know about (Dale Earnhardt) Junior. Ultimately, he's been consistent all year long. The 31 car (Jeff Burton), those guys had a strong run at the beginning of the year."
Finally, Busch was asked if he has talked to Edwards since the Bristol race and he said, "No I haven't."
More from Edwards later.

The NASCAR races at Auto Club Speedway will have a touch of Hollywood. There are a number of celebrities who will at the track over the weekend.

Cheryl Burke of "Dancing with the Stars" and her new partner, sprinter Maurice Green, will be at the track on Saturday. Burke and Green will be giving some of the drivers dance lessons, perhaps looking for future contestants. Burke will also be the honorary starter for the Nationwide Series race on Saturday and be an honorary pit crew member for Carl Edwards' Cup team on Sunday. Edwards and Waltrip are expected to be two of the drivers getting dance lessons from Burke.

Ron Perlman, otherwise known as Hellboy, is the grand marshal for the Nationwide Series race on Saturday. He is also going to be on the new FX show "Sons of Anarchy."

Chris Cornell will be performing at the track on Sunday before the Pepsi 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. He will be in the FanZone at 2:30 p.m. Admission to the concert is free for all race ticket holders.

Drew Carey, the host of "The Price is Right," is the grand marshal for the Pepsi 500 on Sunday. Carey will also be the honorary crew chief for Edwards' Cup team.

Some of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers in this weekend's races at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana will be making appearances throughout Southern California. Here's a look at who will be out and where they will be.

Jimmie Johnson is playing in his second annual charity golf tournament in San Diego today. Juan Pablo Montoya and Jeff Gordon are also expected to play in the tournament. Proceeds from the tournament and dinner auction will benefit San Diego Habitat for Humanity.

Jeff Gordon and rapper/producer Pharrell (N.E.R.D.) are hosting a private party at Club Avalon in Hollywood tonight at 7.

Denny Hamlin will visit the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank on Thursday to meet with staff members.

Tony Stewart will be at The Home Depot at 11884 Foothill Blvd. in Rancho Cucamonga from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday to meet with fans.

The Stater Bros. Racefest from 5 to 9 p.m. on Thursday will include appearances from about a dozen past and current NASCAR drivers, including Richard Petty in the Opportunity, California FanZone at Auto Club Speedway. The Racefest is free. In addition to driver appearances, a freestyle Moto-X stunt show by Metal Mulisha, rides, games and souvenir rigs, music and a NASCAR hauler parade are on the schedule.

More Jeff Gordon. He will give seven fans a chance to jam with him in a rock music video game during the Racefest.

Reed Sorenson is the latest driver to switch teams. He will be driving for Gillett Evernham Motorsports in 2009, moving from Chip Ganassi's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team.
It was not clear if GEM will add another car to its three-car team.
"We will announce Reed's sponsorships and car number in the near future," said Tom Reddin, CEO of GEM. "He is a highly marketable young driver who knows how to win races, and has a long career full of promise ahead of him."
Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler and Patrick Carpentier are in the cars for GEM currently.
"I'm pretty pumped up about this," said Sorenson who started racing at age 6 before winning 250 quarter midget races and 84 Legends races.
"I can't wait to get in their cars," said Sorenson. "I really believe in what they are doing with their program with all their wins and poles this year. Ray Evernham and the Gilletts are going to give us the equipment we need to go out and be a contender each weekend and eventually race for a championship."

Everyone knew Joe Gibbs Racing was looking for a new driver for the No. 20 Toyota, soon to be vacated by Tony Stewart, who is forming his own Cup team for the 2009 season.
Joe Gibbs Racing will have a news conference on Monday, apparently announcing a new driver, crew chief and sponsor and what promises to be more.
It's hard to imagine any more the team could add.
All reports point toward Joey Logano, who won the Toyota All-Star Showdown at Irwindale last year, to be the next driver of the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.
But Home Depot has been a much a part of Joe Gibbs Racing as Stewart. It's hard to imagine anything other than a bright orange No. 20 running around the race track.
Then again, it was hard to imagine anything other that a bright red No. 8 racing around either.

Casey Mears will be in the Richard Childress Racing family next year and Clint Bowyer will have a new car.
Mears will be driving the No. 07 Chevrolet for RCR, the car Bowyer currently drives. Bowyer will move into the No. 33 car for the team.
"We're always looking for ways to improve RCR and feel strongly that this driver lineup will improve our company as a whole with our move to four teams next year," said Richard Childress, president and CEO of RCR. "These changes will continue to raise the bar and we have every intention of getting all four teams into the Chase in 2009 with the ultimate goal of one of our teams winning the championship. RCR is very fortunate to have partners like Jack Daniels, Shell-Pennzoil and AT&T, in addition to new sponsors Cheerios, Hamburger Helper and Caterpillar, that work with us and support our making the competition decisions necessary to provide them with the best on-track performance possible."
The No. 07 team will still be backed by Jack Daniels. The No. 33 car will have Cheerios and Hamburger Helper on as its primary sponsors.
Mears, the nephew of four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears, is racing the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. He won the Coca-Cola 600 for Hendrick in 2007 and has been racing at the Cup level for seven years.
"This is a great opportunity and I'm honored to become part of both the Jack Daniel's family and the RCR family," said Mears. "Richard Childress and everyone at Jack Daniel's have put a lot of faith in me to continue the winning tradition that's been established by the No. 07 Jack Daniels team over the last couple of years and I look forward to the chance to live up to those expectations."
Bowyer is leading the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings and has two Cup wins in his career with RCR.
"I'm proud to be joining the General Mills family," said Bowyer. "Cheerios and Hamburger Helper are brands my family and I grew up with. General Mills is a great sponsor and has been in NASCAR for many years. I look forward to driving the Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet Impala SS to victory lane.
"At the same time, I have to thank Jack Daniels for taking a chance on a rookie Cup Series driver and giving my career a great platform to build on. My focus now is to get into the Chase and again compete for the championship."
The Sporting News is reporting that Mears has signed a three-year deal with RCR. Since he is driving the No. 07 car, he will inherit the owners points for the car next season. That means Mears is guaranteed a starting spot in the first five races of the year next season if Bowyer put the No. 07 car in the top 35 in owners points, which is all but certain.
Bowyer gets put in the difficult position of racing for a new team, and not having a guaranteed starting spot in races. He will have to race his way into the first five races of the year and have his car in the top 35 in the owners standings before the sixth race.
Given Bowyer's track record over the past two years in Cup, that shouldn't be a problem. Still, he'll be racing without a safety net to start the season.

NASCAR has called a teleconference for Tuesday with president Mike Helton and the presidents of Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama and Atlanta Motor Speedway.
It is expected that the three tracks will swap their fall races. It will give Fontana a race in the Chase and give Atlanta Motor Speedway the Labor Day weekend races.
Fontana will most likely get the Talladega race, the fourth race in the Chase. Talledega will get the Atlanta race, the seventh race in the Chase. Atlanta gets the Labor Day weekend races, which have been at Fontana since 2004.
The change in the schedule won't happen until 2009.
The Associated Press, citing unnamed sources in NASCAR, is reporting that Atlanta will get the Labor Day weekend races in 2009. There has been speculation that Atlanta and Fontana would swap races next year, but Talladega has not been reported as included in those discussions.

Tim Huddleston of Agoura Hills won the NASCAR Late Model race, his third of the year, and Andrew Myers saw his championship chances disappear Saturday night at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale.
Nick Joanides of Woodland Hills held on to his lead in the Late Model standings by finishing second to Huddleston. Joanides entered the race with a four-point lead over Huddleston and a 12-point lead over Myers. With the win, Huddleston trails Joanides by two points.
Myers, a driver from Newport Beach, was sent to the back of the field for colliding with pole sitter Lindsey King, then assessed a stop-and-go penalty for rough driving. Myers finished 16th.
King, a driver for Huddleston's High Point Racing team, was also sent to the back of the 25-car field for colliding with Myers, but she worked her way back to eighth place at the end.
King became the first woman to win a Late Model race at the track the last time the Late Models raced two weeks ago. She started on the front row, in second, and led every lap of the 40-lap race.
She was on the front row again for Saturday night's race, this time on the pole, and Joanides was the one who put her there.
Joanides set the fastest lap in qualifying. But the starting order was randomly determined and the first six cars were inverted, putting King on the pole and Joanides in sixth.
"She got one free pass tonight," Joanides said. "I've been too nice to her I guess."
In the race King won two weeks ago, Joanides finished second and tried to pass her on a couple of occasions. He said afterward it's probably a good thing he wasn't able to pass her because if he did, he would have been the most hated driver at the track.
Benny Moon, another driver for High Point Racing, made his final start at Irwindale. He will return to race for High Point Racing at Las Vegas and Tucson Raceway Park in Arizona. Beau Debard will be in the High Point Racing car for the next Late Model race at Irwindale. Ryan Kaplan, who is racing in USAC, will finish the season in Moon's car at Irwindale.

Connor Cantrell of Santa Clarita won his sixth NASCAR Super Trucks race of the year and cut into Pat Mintey Jr.'s lead in the standings on Saturday night at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale.
Cantrell took the lead from pole sitter Rod Johnson Jr. of Canyon Country on lap 11 and avoided a seven-car crash that brought out a caution on lap 34. Ryan Fortier and Uli Perez took the most damage in the wreck that collected among others Dana Higgins and Josh Barker.
Cantrell, who has won two straight and five of the past seven races in the Super Trucks division, trails Mintey, a driver from Quartz Hill, by four points.
"It's going to be close, four races to go," Cantrell said. "It's going to be really close."
Cantrell, the leader in wins in the NASCAR Super Trucks division at Irwindale, avoided disaster in practice Friday night at the track.
A hime joint broke on his truck and he nearly crashed into the turn one wall. He stopped short of the wall and his team was able to make repairs to get his truck ready for Saturday night's race.
"It's a five dollar part," said Cantrell, a senior at Valencia High School. "But it's a five dollar part that could have cost us thousands of dollars."

Jonathan Bomarito, driving for Encino-based Mathiasen Motorsports, set the track record in qualifying Saturday for the Atlantic Series race at the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres in Quebec, Canada.
He turned a lap on the 1.521-mile street course in 58.989 seconds (92.824 mph) and broke the mark set by current NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver A.J. Allmendinger in 2003.
It is the third pole position of the season for Bomarito and the fourth of his Atlantic Series career. He earned six points for winning the pole and moved into sole possession of first place in the Atlantic Series standings, six ahead of Canadian James Hinchcliffe.
"What an amazing session, really," said Bomarito, who drives the No. 26 entry for Ray and Leslie Mathiasen of Encino. "We had it pretty much mapped out before we even went out and we stuck to the game plan. We made a good change on pit lane. It was a perfect session. I can't thank the guys enough."
The race in Quebec is the eighth of the 11-race Atlantic Series season. Bomarito has two wins this year and the past nine pole winners have won at Trois-Rivieres in the Atlantic Series.
"The whole Mathiasen Motorsports team is amazing," Bomarito said Saturday after qualifying. "We've got Atlantic legend Dave Empringham here working with us this weekend. It's really good to finally work with him on a race weekend. It's just been a lot of fun. We're enjoying it, we've got great momentum and we're looking forward to a good race tomorrow."

Mike Skinner will drive the No. 00 Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing for the next three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, including the race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana over Labor Day weekend.
Sklnner will take over driving duties for the team this weekend at Michigan International Speedway and will continue at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. This is only a temporary change, said team owner Michael Waltrip. Michael McDowell, the regular driver of the No. 00 Toyota, will return to the Cup series for the race at Richmond International Raceway following the Fontana race.
"Michael Waltrip Racing is fully committed to our sponsors, the success of our race teams and ensuring Michael McDowell, Josh Wise, David Reutimann and I have the necessary tools to succeed as drivers," Waltrip said. "We've asked Mike Skinner to evaluate areas where we can improve our on-track performance. I thought he did a really nice job of working with Red Bull and A.J. Allmendinger earlier this year and our No. 00 Champion Mortgage team could use the same experienced insight."
Waltrip added that he has confidence in McDowell, but wants Skinner's input on the performance of the No. 00 team.
"I support doing whatever it takes to improve the performance of our team," said McDowell. "No driver wants to get out of the car, but I understand that every part of our program needs to be evaluated, and that certainly includes me. I plan to support Mike Skinner and our team any way I can, and hopefully learn some things that will help when I get back in the car."

Auto Club Speedway in Fontana is offering a variety of ticket packages for the NASCAR races, featuring the Sprint Cup Series Pepsi 500, over Labor Day weekend, Aug. 29-31.
They have one for Auto Club members: Auto Club members receive a free pre-race weekend pit pass with a purchase of a $75 grandstand ticket to the Pepsi 500.
They have one for the Jimmie Johnson Foundation: $148, includes a Sunday race ticket and pit pass, commemorative gift and admission to a Jimmie Johnson Q&A session during race weekend. $48 of each package sold will benefit the Jimmie Johnson Foundation.
They have one for UCLA football fans: UCLA vs. Tennessee Football - $99, includes a guided tour of the Rose Bowl on Aug. 30, a Pepsi 500 race ticket and access to the VIP area for a Q&A session with NASCAR Veteran Sterling Marlin on Aug. 31, the day of the race, and a ticket to the UCLA vs. Tennessee NCAA Football game on Sept. 1.
To purchase any of these packages or for more information, please call 800-944-RACE. For event information, visit www.autoclubspeedway.com.