Bowyer Takes Pole; Hornish Fails To Make First Nextel Cup Attempt

LOUDON, N.H. — With much of Saturday’s on-track activity washed away by rain, the rumor mill had plenty of opportunity to gather steam. 
One rumor likely to be confirmed as fact in a Dallas press conference on Wednesday is Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s car number and sponsorship with Hendrick Motorsports in 2008. The number will be 88 — repeating his traditional single digit which remains with Dale Earnhardt, Inc., owned by his stepmother, Teresa.
Hendrick has acquired the new number, with NASCAR’s approval, from Robert Yates Racing, where it has been used this year by the retiring Ricky Rudd and previously by Dale Jarrett since 1996.
The primary sponsorship is likely to be one or more youth-oriented Pepsi products in combination with the National Guard.
The 88 has been carried by Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports Busch Series cars the past two seasons.

• Budweiser is strongly rumored to be headed for Kasey Kahne and the revitalized Gillett-Evernham Racing Dodge in 2008.

• Bud Pole Qualifying at NHIS on Friday saw Clint Bowyer win the pole at a non-record speed of 130.412 miles per hour, with Martin Truex, Jr. taking the outside of the front row. Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson took the second row spots, leaving fifth-fastest Ryan Newman as the best of the non-Chase drivers. The rest of the Chasers were scattered through the field with four-time NHIS winner Jeff Burton 23rd and Matt Kenseth 30th.

• Sam Hornish, Jr., in his much-anticipated Nextel Cup debut for Penske Racing, posted practice times among the top five, but couldn’t repeat them when it counted and missed the race by two spots.
John Andretti, in what was scheduled to be his last race in the BAM Racing Dodge, timed into the field, but his run was disallowed, reportedly due to a front-end height violation. That put Boris Said, driving a fourth Gillett-Evernham entry, into the field.
The non-qualifiers, aside from Hornish and Andretti, were the usual suspects — Dale Jarrett, Michael Waltrip, Jeremy Mayfield and Kevin Lepage.  

• Clint Bowyer won his first Nextel Cup race in his 64th start, and joined Casey Mears (Lowe’s), Martin Truex, Jr. (Dover), and Juan Pablo Montoya (Infineon) as first-time winners in 2007. He also became the 18th driver to win in all three NASCAR national series — Nextel Cup, Busch Series, and Craftsman Trucks.

• Before he stepped onto the national stage, Bowyer was a NASCAR weekly series regional champion, racing a modified at Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City. His post-race press conference included a hilarous, and probably much-embellished, account of his first street-stock win at Junction City, Kan., complete with a free-for-all with the bad guy who tried to wreck him.

• After one race of The Chase, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon are tied for the Nextel Cup point lead, although Johnson gets credit for the lead based on his greater full-season win total. While Clint Bowyer, the junior member of the Richard Childress Racing trio in The Chase, was basking in victory, his teammates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton took heavy hits for their 17th- and 18th-place finishes.
Harvick trails by 88 points and Burton by 91 heading to Dover. Last in The Chase is 2004 champion Kurt Busch, whose 25th at NHIS put him 102 points behind.

• In the Hendrick Motorsports scheme, Jeff Gordon is the owner of record for Jimmie Johnson’s car. As a result, he’s currently tied with himself... tied for the owner’s point lead with the number 48 while being tied for the driver’s point lead with the number 24. 
The more meaningful end of the owners’ point list revolves around the 35th spot and the guaranteed start at the next race. No owners gained or lost places from 29th through 45th at NHIS, leaving the Wood Brothers 35th and Bill Davis on the outside looking in by 39 points. 

• David Ragan continued his late-season run at Juan Pablo Montoya for Raybestos Rookie of the Year honors, winning the rookie-of-the-race award for the third-straight race and 12th time in 27 races.

• J.J. Yeley pulled triple duty at NHIS. He drove a car bearing the colors of the late Tom Baldwin, Sr. — the black No. 7NY — in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event on Saturday afternoon, qualifying fifth but never figuring in the race.
Then he jumped into the A.J. Foyt USAC Silver Crown car, again painted black, and led every lap of the darkness-shortened open cockpit event. On Sunday he wheeled the Joe Gibbs’ Interstate Batteries Chevrolet to 10th in the Sylvania 300.