Associated Press
The NASCAR notebook …
BROOKLYN, Mich. — Jack Roush drew a few laughs after his team’s NASCAR Nationwide victory, when he was asked his view of the fine handed down to fellow owner Richard Childress.
Childress was fined $150,000 earlier this month for an altercation with Kyle Busch at Kansas Speedway. Childress was upset that Busch bumped into Joey Coulter on the cool-down lap after a race.
“It was pretty high,” Roush said about the fine. “I guess that pretty much puts the nail in the coffin of, ‘Have at it, guys.’ Maybe that was a boy and a man. I am not sure. Maybe that is different than the boys having at it.”
Carl Edwards, Saturday’s winning driver, needled Roush for providing such a sound bite, but his owner made it clear whose side he was on.
“Kyle has been pretty rough on my cars over a period of time and for Richard to stand up for himself was OK,” Roush said.
Of course, that doesn’t mean he’d have done the same thing.
“I have some plates in my face right now and some serious injuries I am dealt with,” Roush said. “I think my fighting days are over.”
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SMOOTHING IT OVER: Michigan International Speedway is planning to repave its two-mile trioval during the offseason. Not every driver was thrilled with the news.
“I never like to see them paved,” Ryan Newman said. “I love them when they’re old and they have character. It’s going to be another work in progress for Goodyear to bring in and build a tire for a new race track of this shape and of this caliber.”
Officials say the 43-year-old track’s fourth repaving should mean better grip on track and the elimination of a series of bumps on the surface. The $7 million project will begin after the Sprint Cup race in August.
MIS was last repaved in 1995, and Busch offered an example for track officials to follow.
“Homestead, I feel like they did the best when they repaved it,” he said. “You could go right to the race track and you could run the bottom, you could move to the middle, you could go to the top. Hopefully they can take a little bit of information from Homestead and do that here.”
Not everyone was concerned about the new surface.
“I’m good with the repaving. I just hope they promise to build us new garages,” Tony Stewart said. “This is one of the biggest tracks we go to and Martinsville is the smallest track, but Martinsville has the best garages at a half-mile track.”
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NICE RIDE: Tony Stewart was still beaming about his ride in Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren-Mercedes, but the former IndyCar series champion said he’s certain Formula 1 isn’t for him.
“I think I can do 100 percent of what I can do, but it’s still not 100 percent of what the car can do,” Stewart said.
Stewart and Hamilton traded cars for a series of laps at Watkins Glen recently. Stewart, who moved to NASCAR over a decade ago, said braking a car about a ton lighter than his everyday ride was the most challenging part of the test.
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NEW LOOK: Martin Truex Jr.’s No. 56 Toyota will carry a different paint scheme when the Sprint Cup visits Kentucky on July 9. Owner Michael Waltrip says the car will sport the livery brother Darrell carried when he won his first career race in 1975. Darrell Waltrip is one of five members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s third class, which was announced earlier in the week.
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DRIVE THAT CARR: Former Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr served as the grand marshal at Michigan International Speedway.
The recent College Football Hall of Fame selection did the honors at Sunday’s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
Track President Roger Curtis says Carr “is a household name in Michigan, and there are a lot of NCAA football fans in the NASCAR garage” who will be excited to meet him.
Carr was a part of a University of Michigan team attending Sunday’s race to promote Wolverines for Life, an effort to encourage blood, organ and tissue donations.