Denny Hamlin used a late pit stop for tires to foil the strategy of fellow NASCAR Sprint Cup stars Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards, racing by them in his Toyota to win the NASCAR Nationwide Series Lipton Tea 250 at Richmond International Raceway in Virginia.
Scott Fowler writes in The Charlotte Observer that the Nascar's "let them be boys" strategy will hold until somebody is killed, maimed or wrecks Dale Earnhardt Jr.
There were no major injuries, fortunately, but, on the other hand, the professional stunt driver Tanner Foust flamed out early, and I heard the winning strategy employed by Scott Speed, a Nascar alumnus, described as "patient".
The endurance competition is as much a Nascar race as it is a horse marathon: a winning strategy often plays out in the rest period between the race's six loops, when riders cool and relax their horses so they can pass a range of medical tests and advance to the next stage as quickly as possible.
Imagine Joe Gibbs, the Hall of Fame coach turned Nascar team owner, relaying football plays on one radio channel and racing strategy on another.
"It's a little bit like Nascar, a little of what you see in cycling with all the strategy," he said.
He's a good storyteller because he's a good listener — curious, amiable and game for anything, whether it's a visit with a Nascar champion to an 800-gallon illicit still in Pennsylvania or a strategy session with the defense lawyer in a bootlegging trial in Virginia.
His strategy seemed foolproof, but sometimes in the dicey world of the Nascar Winston Cup series, even the most calculated hunches backfire like a jalopy.
LOUDON, N.H., Sept. 15 — Jeff Gordon had built such a commanding lead in the Nascar Nextel Cup standings six weeks ago that he announced he was changing his strategy.
Myriad issues have confronted Nascar this season, including annual concerns about attendance and ratings, and handwringing about race strategies.
"It would be bad for the sport if there was clear evidence that a race was somehow manipulated, and Nascar's very sensitive to this and always has been," said Ramsey Poston, the president of the communications firm Tuckahoe Strategies and a former Nascar executive.
