POWER TOPS FIELD IN QUALIFYING FOR INDYCAR SEASON FINALE
IndyCar: Team Penske swept the front row for tonight’s MAVTV 500 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., but the bonus point for earning pole position was inadvertently taken from championship contender Helio Castroneves by teammate Will Power, who was trying to prevent Scott Dixon from getting it.
Castroneves enters the IZOD IndyCar Series finale 25 points behind Dixon. He was leading Friday’s qualifying with a 2-lap average of 219.677 mph when Power knocked him out of the top spot with a 2-lap average of 220.775 mph to win his third pole of the season and bump Castroneves.
A.J. Allmendinger, brought in by team owner Roger Penske to aid Castroneves’ title bid, qualified third.
Meanwhile, Dixon had the ninth-fastest qualifying average. But both Castroneves and Dixon changed engines before qualifying, and each will incur a 10-position penalty on the starting grid. Power will keep his engine and the pole position.
Four other cars also will change engines and incur the 10-position penalties.
Power said he was trying to make it more difficult for Dixon, who qualified after Power, to take the pole and its bonus point from Castroneves.
“Obviously it would’ve been nice for Helio to get the point, but Scott didn’t,” Power said. “That kind of still keeps it alive.”
The final race of the season on a superspeedway will feature a three-wide start. NASCAR Sprint Cup: At Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, the capital of Junior Nation, there are times when Dale Earnhardt Jr. swears he can hear the fans over the roar of the engines.
“Most of the time you can’t, but you can definitely see it,” Earnhardt said Friday. “After lap after lap of going by and seeing them sitting down, when you come by and they are standing up, it’s obvious. You see the arms in the air and all that stuff.”
Of course, the only times the Talladega grandstands erupt that way are when Earnhardt is leading the field. And that hasn’t happened very much lately.
In Earnhardt’s five Talladega wins, he never led fewer than 34 laps. But since his last win in 2004 — where he was infamously fined for cursing during a victory-lane interview — Earnhardt has led more than 34 laps just twice in 17 races.
He also has just four top-10 finishes in that span, which at one time soured him on Talladega racing.
But now, after NASCAR largely eliminated the tandem drafting and has seemingly restored pack racing, Earnhardt appears to have a better outlook.
“I feel like we haven’t got the job done and this is a place where I feel like I should know what I’m doing and should be able to go out there and get a great result every time,” he said. “It hasn’t been going great here, as great as I want it to go here lately. We have torn up a lot of cars and been frustrated most times when we leave here. I still come back as confident and excited about the opportunities as ever.” NASCAR trucks: Jeb Burton won the pole for the Fred’s 250 at Talladega Superspeedway. Burton turned in the top speed of 176.182 mph.
It was Burton’s his sixth pole of the season.