Keselowski meets with NASCAR before race
AVONDALE, Ariz. (AP)—Brad Keselowski met with top NASCAR officials for about 20 minutes before Sunday’s race at Phoenix International Raceway, where the young driver had yet another on-track run-in with Denny Hamlin.
Keselowski was summoned to a closed-door meeting in the NASCAR truck with president Mike Helton, vice president of competition Robin Pemberton and Nationwide Series director Joe Balash to discuss growing tension among rival drivers about Keselowski’s aggressive nature.
NASCAR chairman Brian France entered the truck mid-meeting.
“I really respect the fact that Brian France walked in there, that meant a lot to me,” Keselowski said after the meeting. “It’s really the first time I’ve ever had a conversation with him. I think that’s a good sign for the sport that he was involved in that conversation.”
At issue is an escalating feud with Hamlin. Contact between the two has led to five Hamlin wrecks dating back to last season, and the latest came in Saturday’s Nationwide race at PIR.
Hamlin hit Keselowski on a restart, and Keselowski retaliated by hitting him back to knock Hamlin’s car out of line. He then followed with a second hit that wrecked Hamlin.
“The second time was a little overboard,” Pemberton said.
Hamlin has vowed revenge in next week’s Nationwide finale at Homestead, pretty much promising to wreck Keselowski. He’s grown increasingly frustrated with an inability to discuss on-track issues with his new rival, and it continued after Saturday night’s race when the two had a short but animated conversation in which Hamlin declared he’d have been more successful making his point “talking to the concrete.”
Keselowski said after meeting with NASCAR that he doesn’t see a need to talk to Hamlin about their conflict.
“I don’t really want to engage that,” he said. “I’m quite satisfied with my own role in the sport as it is with the other drivers. So I don’t feel the need to engage that situation.”
But Rick Hendrick, who co-owns the Nationwide car that Keselowski will drive one last time next weekend, said he thinks the two need to sit down and resolve their differences.
“The sooner they get that behind them, the better off they are going to be,” Hendrick said. “Those kind of things only tear you down and slow you down and get your head all tore up. The way to bury that deal is face-to-face, talk it out, and it will be over.”
Keselowski is moving to Penske Racing full time next season for a Sprint Cup Series ride, and there seems to be a growing list of drivers who hope Keselowski has a difficult transition. Hendrick thinks Keselowski needs to avoid that situation.
“If you get to a point where everybody you get to wants to put a fender on you, you are not going to be very successful,” Hendrick said.
DRIVER ANNOUNCEMENT COMING?: Chip Ganassi has had a seat to fill since July, when Martin Truex Jr. said he’d vacate the No. 1 Chevrolet to drive for Michael Waltrip Racing next season.
Ganassi vowed to take his time replacing Truex, and has: With one week left in the season, he’s yet to announce a replacement.
That could change next week, though. Ganassi said before Sunday’s race that he should be able to discuss the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing lineup next week.
Although Ganassi declined to discuss specifics, he’s expected to reunite with Jamie McMurray, who left his team to drive for Roush Fenway Racing in 2006. But Roush has to cut a team at the end of the year to meet NASCAR’s four-car cap, and McMurray is his only driver in a contract year.
Ganassi’s seat is one of the few competitive opportunities available, but there were whispers of potential sponsor problems in that Bass Pro Shops didn’t think it was a fit with McMurray. That’s apparently been resolved—potentially by McMurray’s win three weeks ago at Talladega.
NO DANICA DEAL … YET?: Rick Hendrick says he has no deal to bring IndyCar superstar Danica Patrick to NASCAR, and there’s no certainty she’ll even be driving stock cars next season.
“I just think that they are not even close to making a decision on whether to even do it this year or next year,” Hendrick said of Patrick and her representatives at IMG.
“You never know until it’s done. You never know until it’s signed. And anybody can change their mind. When you get down to the nitty gritty of any deal, it’s always complicated. There can always be someone who comes back and says ‘I can’t do it because of this.’ So until it’s done, it’s not done. And that’s the honest truth.”
Patrick is reportedly in the final stages of a contract that would partner her on a limited Nationwide Series schedule with JR Motorsports, the team owned by both Hendrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Hendrick called the reports “premature” and insisted nothing is imminent.
“I think everything is an option, and it’s just too early to really comment on it,” he said. “I can’t give you anything concrete, because there isn’t anything concrete right now. Nothing is imminent until it’s signed. Too many things can happen.”
PRE-RACE ACCIDENT: A van carrying crew members for Dale Earnhardt Jr. was involved in an accident outside Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday morning.
No one was injured, although some of the crewmen did go to the infield medical center for evaluation.
“All I know is they were stopped and they got run into,” team owner Rick Hendrick said. “They were pulling into the track and got hit. That’s all I know. They were just stopped, from what I was told, and somebody hit them. They are all OK.”
USE CAUTION: Mark Martin used the question-and-answer period of the pre-race driver meeting to ask the competitors to be careful entering pit road.
Martin raised his hand when race director David Hoots opened the floor for questions, but instead made a statement.
“In green-flag pit stops, everybody needs to be conscious of not going into the corner and washing up into the second lane and then turning down pit road,” Martin said. “Some of the worst wrecks I’ve been in have been like that and last week was close a couple times. All you’ve got to do is go in the corner and stay on the white line. And of course, waving (to signal to the drivers behind you), too.”
Hoots told Martin he’d made a “very valid point.”
