Three Former Indy 500 Winners Dot Starting Grid At Phoenix

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Chris Schwartz, the director of communications at Penske Racing, is leaving the team to become the vice president of marketing for Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
That position was previously held by Terry Angstadt, who became president of commercial development for the Indy Racing League earlier this year.
Schwartz is a native of Indianapolis and a graduate of Indiana University.
Prior to joining Penske Racing in 2002, he was involved in the motorsports programs for Valvoline and later with Conseco.
He replaced legendary publicist Dan Luginbuhl when he joined Penske Racing.

• Carl Edwards won the pole with a lap at 132.773 miles per hour in a Ford Fusion, but his accomplishment was shared with former Indianapolis 500 winners Jacques Villeneuve (1995), Juan Pablo Montoya (2000) and Sam Hornish, Jr. (2006) as all three made the race.
Hornish made a Nextel Cup field for the first time in seven tries, qualifying 26th fastest at 131.062 miles per hour in a Penske Racing Dodge. Villeneuve started 27th at 131.014 mph in a Toyota and Montoya started 14th in a Dodge at 131.670 mph.
It was Edwards’s third pole in 120 Nextel Cup starts and his first pole and 10th top 10 in 2007.

• With so many open-wheel drivers coming to NASCAR, is the prototypical American stock-car driver  getting pushed aside?
“That’s a good question and I’ve thought about it a little bit,” Edwards said. “Dario Franchitti had a great quote about it, I can’t remember it, but he said, and I believe it, that those guys have all struggled in their own ways to make names for themselves. They’ve just done it in a different form of motorsports.
“I believe that it’s good for international drivers. Formula One caliber and champions in Formula One can come over here and race in NASCAR.  I think that’s a good thing.  I do believe and I have faith in the fact that this sport is so tough — Nextel Cup is so tough — that if they can’t hack it and if they can’t do the job, they won’t be here for very long.”
 
• Jimmie Johnson’s victory was the 26th for a Chevrolet driver this season. Team Chevy’s previous mark was 25 race wins in the 1958 season. In addition, the win was the 13th victory in 16 appearances for the Impala SS race car.

• Martin Truex, Jr. started second and appeared to be headed to victory lane before the team gambled on pit-stop strategy during the final caution. Crew chief Kevin Manion made the call and criticized his driver for not agreeing with the decision after Truex finished seventh.
“It is my decision,” Manion said. “I wanted to stay out. I thought out of 24 cars (on the lead lap) and the car was at the best and only had 26 green flag laps on it, I thought that was our best chance. It didn’t pan out. I absolutely thought more guys would stay out. It is Phoenix. It is a short track, less than a 100 laps to go you stay out. We had only just run a short little run, but it proved to be wrong. We just have to get our communication down to understand that we make calls on the pit box to win races; we don’t make calls to run seventh. We don’t make pit decisions to run us out of gas.
“No matter what pit sequence we decide on the pit box, we get ridiculed and criticized by the driver on the race track. It is tough to swallow.”
 
• Ryan Newman’s late-season surge continued with a fifth-place finish.
“I think both Penske teams have been good all year with the Car of Tomorrow,” Newman said. “We haven’t had the greatest finishes, but we’ve been competitive. Hopefully, we can build on that for next year in the Car of Tomorrow on those short tracks, but more importantly have a leg up on the intermediate tracks.” 

• After Kasey Kahne crashed into Villeneuve, he tried to make sense of the situation.
“Right there I just hit the wall,” he said. “Today was frustrating. We got into it with a couple other cars earlier and the car wasn’t where we wanted it to be. It was time for the day to be over.”

• Canadian Patrick Carpentier took over the No. 10 Dodge for Gillett Evernham Motorsports and finished 33rd. Carpentier replaces Scott Riggs.
“It’s so hard,” Carpentier said. “You have to be so smooth that it’s almost impossible. You have to go in hard and then get off the throttle. You abuse the car and then as soon as you do that for 10 laps, you are done. The car just slides. Every time they put new tires on, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is good. Oh, I got it. I get the picture.’ Then 10 laps later, I was back to battling the car.”