Kansas Speedway is the site of this weekend’s NASCAR national series action. Kansas Speedway is a 1.5-mile tri-oval race track in Kansas City, Kansas. It was built in 2001 and it currently hosts two annual NASCAR race weekends. This weekend sees races for both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (Friday) and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (Saturday). The NASCAR XFINITY Series is off and returns to action May 17 at Iowa Speedway. Weekend storylines follow… Gordon’s Numbers Gaudy At Kansas This Jeff Gordon guy is pretty good. Every week, it seems like the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series travels to a track where Gordon has posted some hefty numbers. This week is no different. The No. 24 Chevrolet driver’s statistics at Kansas Speedway – site of Saturday’s SpongeBob SquarePants 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1) are downright gaudy. Gordon boasts a track record with three wins. Additionally, he claims 10 top fives in 18 starts at the 1.5-mile track – a whopping 55.6 percent. Winless this year, Gordon picked up his first victory of 2014 at Kansas to jumpstart a four-win campaign and arguably his best season since 2007 when he collected six checkered flags, 21 top fives and 30 top 10s on his way to a runner-up finish in the NSCS standings. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Recaptures Talladega Magic After a 10-year, 20-race winless drought at Talladega Superspeedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. captured the checkered flag on Sunday. Earnhardt’s winless streak was rather peculiar considering he visited Victory Lane at Talladega a track-record four consecutive times from Oct. 21, 2001 to April 6, 2003. In the two following races, he placed runner-up before winning at Talladega on Oct. 3, 2004 – his last victory before his weekend triumph. The No. 88 Chevrolet driver is now tied with Jeff Gordon for the active lead with six wins at Talladega. He only trails his father, the late Dale Earnhardt, for the most wins at the 2.66-mile track. The elder Earnhardt racked up 10 of his 76 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins at Talladega. Earnhardt will attempt to begin a winning streak in Saturday’s SpongeBob SquarePants 400 at Kansas Speedway – a place he has never reached Victory Lane. Kansas has still treated “Junior” well. The 12-time most popular driver has eight top-10 finishes (47.1%) in 17 starts at the 1.5-mile track. Homecoming Kings: Bowyer, Edwards and McMurray Return To Their Home Track The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to the “Heart of America” for the first time this season and will showcase some of the area’s native sons in Sunday’s SpongeBob SquarePants 400 at Kansas Speedway. Hometown heroes Clint Bowyer (Emporia, Kansas), Jamie McMurray (Joplin, Missouri) and Carl Edwards (Columbia, Missouri) will try to tame the 1.5-mile track in front of friends, family and members of their communities. None of the three drivers have won a NSCS race at Kansas, but 12 different competitors have won the track’s 18 races since it opened in 2001, showing parity is a pattern in the Jayhawk State. If the season ended today, only McMurray (seventh in the points standings) would make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Bowyer (17th) and Edwards (18th) trail Danica Patrick by four and 13 points, respectively, for the final spot. Martin Marches Up The Standings Martin Truex Jr. continued his sizzling hot start to the season, racking up his ninth top-10 finish of the season with a fifth-place showing at Talladega. The No. 78 Chevrolet driver jumped Joey Logano for the second spot in the standings and trails leader Kevin Harvick by 40 points. Truex – whose nine top 10s are tied with Harvick’s total for the most in the NSCS – will attempt to continue his one-man thrill ride in Saturday’s SpongeBob SquarePants 400 at Kansas Speedway. Coincidentally, the last and only other time he was as high as second in the points standings was after the eighth race of the 2012 season … at Kansas. Are You Ready Kid? Jones To Make First Career Start In SpongeBob SquarePants 400 At the beginning of every SpongeBob SquarePants Episode, the captain bellows, “Are you ready kids?” Well, in Saturday’s SpongeBob SquarePants 400, 18-year-old Erik Jones will attempt to prove he’s ready for the top level of NASCAR competition when he makes his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Jones, a NASCAR Next alum, saw his first NSCS action at Bristol two weeks ago when he replaced Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 Toyota following a rain delay, but the 26th-place result he piloted it to officially goes to Hamlin. Born and raised in Michigan, Jones has experienced early success in the NASCAR XFINITY and Camping World Truck Series. He claims four NCWTS wins and one XFINITY Series victory. Jones will be the third driver to make his Sprint Cup debut at Kansas, joining Denny Hamlin (October, 2005), Austin Dillon (October, 2011) and Ryan Blaney (May, 2014). Big Name Drivers Near Last Chance To Land NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race Spot Smash Mouth once bellowed, “All that glitters is gold.” That will be the case when the stalwarts of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series take the track at Charlotte Motor Speedway for a shot at $1 million in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race on Saturday, May 16 (7 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1). At this point in time the field is still not set. Drivers who haven’t qualified have one last chance to get into the race by winning a points race – the SponeBob SquarePants 400 at Kansas Speedway on Saturday. Otherwise, they must win a Sprint Showdown segment or the Sprint Fan Vote. Some of the big names that need to “get their game on” or risk missing the all-star race are Clint Bowyer, Greg Biffle, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson and Danica Patrick. Of the five, Biffle is the only one with a victory at Kansas. The No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing driver has two Kansas wins, but has not won there since 2010. Patrick placed seventh at Kanas last spring, while Larson and Truex finished second and fourth, respectively, at the Midwestern track in the fall. Bowyer’s last strong showing at Kansas was a fifth-place finish in spring of 2013. History Lesson: Kansas Native Jim Roper Won Controversial First Sprint Cup Race There were 1,948 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races before the first was held in the state of Kansas. However, it was a Kansan who took home top prize in the series’ very first race in June, 1949. Jim Roper learned about the NASCAR Strictly Stock (now Sprint Cup) Series while reading a syndicated comic strip in his local newspaper. Local being a relative term, of course, as Roper hailed from Halstead, Kansas, a short 1,200 miles west of Charlotte, North Carolina, where the series’ first race was to be held. But Roper did what any racer might do – he purchased a Lincoln Cosmopolitan and drove it straight from the showroom floor in Great Bend, Kansas, halfway across the country to Charlotte Speedway. After all, there was a $2,000 prize waiting for the winner. Roper took his place among the biggest names in stock car racing that afternoon – Curtis Turner, brothers Bob, Fonty and Tim Flock, and reigning NASCAR modified champion Red Byron – and beat all but one of them. Glenn Dunaway, from nearby Gastonia, North Carolina, crossed the finish line first in a 1947 Ford. The win was short-lived, though, as a post-race inspection found modifications to the rear springs to improve the car’s handling, an old bootlegger’s trick. This being the ‘Strictly Stock’ division, the entry blank clearly outlined 31 mechanical changes that were permitted to the cars, and modified springs did not appear on the list. Dunaway was disqualified, and the win was awarded to the runner-up Roper, despite the fact that he only finished 197 of the race’s 200 laps. Roper only competed in one more NASCAR race, finishing 15th at Occoneechee Speedway in Hillsboro, North Carolina, two months later. He retired from racing in 1955 after breaking a vertabra in a sprint car accident. Since Roper, there has only been one other Jayhawk to win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series – Clint Bowyer. Back in action May 17 at Iowa Speedway. Crafton Camping World Truck Series King At 1.5-Mile Tracks Matt Crafton has been crowned NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion two seasons in a row. A primary reason for that unprecedented feat: He’s been king at 1.5-mile tracks. In nine starts at intermediate courses dating back to Kansas last year, the No. 88 Toyota Tundra driver has tallied two wins, three runner ups and nine top-10 showings. His average finish in the nine starts – 3.4. Crafton will attempt to continue his reign at 1.5-mile tracks in Friday’s Toyota Tundra 250 at Kansas Speedway (8:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1). He has started all 14 NCWTS races at Kansas, more than any other driver. He is also tied for the track record with three top-five finishes. Mother Instrumental In Jones’ Racing Career Without his mother, Carol, it is unlikely Erik Jones would be competing in NASCAR or even have raced at all. Carol Jones pushed car-loving Erik into motorsports when he was 7 years old and convinced her husband, Dave Jones, to get involved as well, despite recently purchasing a new business and neither possessing any racing experience. The family also lived in Michigan, not a traditional NASCAR hotbed. Nearly 12 years later, Jones’ career has come full circle. In the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, Jones boasts four career wins and ranks third in the driver standings, a mere six points behind Matt Crafton. He will pull double-duty for the first time this weekend, racing in the NCWTS Toyota Tundra 250 (Friday at 8:30 p.m. ET) and making his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start in the SpongeBob SquarePants 400 (Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET). Maybe Jones can give his mother an early Mother’s Day gift – his first NCWTS win of the 2015. Blue Moon Set For Kansas As Newman Makes Rare Appearance In Trucks It’s a double-duty kind of weekend for Ryan Newman as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver will make a rare appearance in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driving for SWM-NEMCO Motorsports in the No. 8 Chevrolet. Newman makes a return to the trucks for the first time in almost two years. His last start came at the inaugural race at Eldora Speedway in 2013. Newman has made five previous starts in the NCWTS and has yet to finish outside the top five. In his career debut at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 2008, Newman drove to Victory Lane for then-truck-owner Kevin Harvick. Donning the side of the No. 8 Chevrolet will be Newman and wife Krissie’s charity, Rescue Ranch. Through its education program, Rescue Ranch promotes a respect for all animals and facilitates rehabilitation, rescue and responsible pet ownership. Currently, Rescue Ranch offers Humane Education programming to children ages 1 thru 16-years-old, allowing them the opportunity to learn while interacting with animals and the surrounding environment. Kansas Crowd Gets To See Some Fresh Young Talent On Friday night, the crowd at Kansas Speedway will get to see some of NASCAR’s top young talent in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Toyota Tundra 250. Half of the competitors in the 28-driver field will be making their first career Kansas start, including a number of drivers in the top 10: Tyler Reddick (second), Erik Jones (third), Ray Black Jr. (seventh) and Cameron Hayley (eighth). Kennedy Crew Chief Will Wear SpongeBob “Onesie” If Team Reaches Pediatric Cancer Fundraising Goal If Ben Kennedy’s No. 11 Red Horse Racing Team raises $10,000 for pediatric cancer by Friday’s Toyota Tundra 250 at Kansas Speedway, crew chief Scott Zippadelli will sport a SpongeBob SquarePants “onesie” matching its Toyota Tundra’s paint scheme. Donations can be made by visiting https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/7ywQ5/tw/04kHne. More importantly than embarrassing Zippadelli, the proceeds will go to the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation. In 2009, the Martin Truex Special Needs Fund was established at Levine Children’s Hospital to assist families that may have unusual or immediate financial need that can’t be met because of the high cost of treatment for their child. Last week, Kennedy visited the University of Kansas Hospital Pediatric Center and met children battling a variety of illnesses, including pediatric cancer. On Friday night, they will be honorary pit crew members for the No. 11 team. Cobb Returns To Where It All Started As Diddy would say “she’s coming home, coming home, tell the world she’s coming home.” Jennifer Jo Cobb returns to her hometown of Kansas City to race in Friday’s Toyota Tundra 250 at Kansas Speedway. The record-holder of the most career starts by a female driver in NASCAR Camping World Truck Series history with 93, Cobb made her NCWTS debut at Kansas on April 26, 2008, finishing 33rd. She ranks 17th in the NCWTS standings after three races and is also the only female owner/driver in a NASCAR national series. In 2011, Cobb founded non-profit organization Driven2Honor to recognize female military members at each NASCAR event with a VIP behind-the-scenes experience. She is a second generation driver, whose father (Joe Cobb) races locally at Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas on Friday nights, Linn County Speedway in Pleasanton, Kansas on Saturday nights and Topeka Raceway on Sunday evenings in Topeka, Kansas. source – NASCAR communications
