THIS WEEK’S RACES

■ SPRINTCUP: KOBALT400 Site: Las Vegas Time: 2 p.m. Sunday, Fox Track: LasVegas MotorSpeedway(oval,1.5 miles) Last year: Matt Kenseth won in his third start for Joe Gibbs Racing. ■ NATIONWIDE: BOYD GAMING 300 Site: Las Vegas Time: 3 p.m. Saturday, ESPN2 Track: LasVegas MotorSpeedway(oval,1.5 miles) Last year: Sam Hornish Jr. held off Kyle Busch on two late restarts. good friends going back to 2001,” Crafton said in a team release. “We’ve raced together, and I actually spotted for him early in his career. For him to have the confidence in me to get the job done if he has to head back home — that’s awesome.”

Stewart-Haas drivers:

While Kevin Harvick was dominating the Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday en route to victory, his Stewart-Haas Racing teammates had disappointing days.

Kurt Busch blew an engine in his No. 41 Chevrolet and finished 39th, and Danica Patrick was involved in a wreck and finished 36th.

“That’s two weeks in a row we’ve had good cars and nothing to show for it,” Patrick told reporters at Phoenix. “I’m starting to think if we didn’t have bad luck, we’d have no luck at all.”

Patrick also crashed at Daytona International Speedway, finishing 40th, and is 39th in the points standings. Busch is 30th.

Team co-owner Tony Stewart, still on the mend from a broken leg, finished 16th at Phoenix and is 20th in the standings heading into this weekend’s race at Las Vegas.

Milestone weekend:

Two veteran Sprint Cup drivers will make milestone starts this weekend at Las Vegas. Martin Truex Jr. will make his 300th start, and Ryan Newman will make the 1,000th Cup start for a car numbered 31.

Newman will drive the No. 31 for Richard Childress Racing, which he joined in the offseason. That number has been around the series since its first race, at Charlotte in 1949, where Sterling Long drove his No. 31 Hudson to a seventh-place finish.

Although some of the sport’s all-time greats, including champions Joe Weatherly and Cale Yarborough, were among the 98 drivers that used the No. 31, it didn’t make it to Victory Lane until 2001 when Robby Gordon drove it to victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Since then it has won six more times, two with Gordon and four with Jeff Burton.

Wednesday’s Games