Chevy’s 20th Victory Is Bittersweet
By Alba Colon
GM Racing program manager, NASCAR Nextel Cup Series
I was glad to see Jimmie Johnson celebrate his win at Martinsville this weekend. While it was Chevrolet’s 20th win this season and fifth win in the six Chase races, the victory was bittersweet for Jimmie and his Lowe’s Monte Carlo SS team.
Sunday marked the two-year anniversary of the plane crash that killed 10 individuals from Hendrick Motorsports who had been en route to Martinsville. Jimmie won this same race on that fateful. I was happy that Jimmie and his team were able to celebrate and deliver a very special win to Mr. Hendrick, his family and the entire Hendrick Motorsports organization.
That sad note aside, six races are complete and we are about to embark on four very stressful weeks! As the Chase championship battle heats up with drivers constantly trading places in the points, this down-to-the-wire championship will be a bit nerve-racking for us.
We saw this weekend that it only took one engine failure for Jeff Burton to go from first place to fifth in points. Even though we relinquished the points lead to Matt Kenseth (Ford), the big picture still looks very good for Chevrolet. With Atlanta approaching this weekend, Jimmie and the Gibbs drivers run very well there. Hopefully Gibbs’ knowledge and success at Atlanta can transfer to Denny Hamlin, who is also performing very well right now. But just as in Charlotte, Kasey Kahne (Dodge) is good at Atlanta and now only 99 points outside of first, so we expect that he will be a strong contender there as well.
As I’ve said before, this championship is still anybody’s game and we are approaching tracks where Chevrolet is strong. Chevrolet has been very successful at two of the remaining tracks in the Chase (Atlanta and Phoenix) and we look forward to gaining ground at those places to position ourselves for Chevy’s 23rd driver’s title.
- Posted in Cars & Trucks
Bill Boulus
Good job Alba,
I find your articles to be very interesting and informative.
Keep up the good work.
Bill
Jim
Just when did this Bob Lutz , GM Fastlane forum change from new products and developments to an “all racing, all the time” format?
Jim
Sundown
Alba:
ZZZZzzzzzz……..More boring racing?
Bill Betts
Sundown-
The FastLane blog is a forum for many GM executives to talk about a wide range of product-related topics, not just Bob Lutz. In that spirit, the blog is running Alba’s special weekly NASCAR Nextel Cup series because it highlights Chevrolet’s racing efforts. Racing historically has resulted improvements in safety, reliability and performance enjoyed by all the
owners of Chevy products. With this series FastLane is trying something a little different, knowing that readers will let us know what they think.
-Bill Betts, Web Services Manager, GM Communications
BRE
Alba -
As I have said in the past and will continue to say - Keep up the good work and GO CHEVY.
Jeff Cain
I have to agree with other comments listed here - why use this site to promote racing efforts, especially NASCAR? Why not create another site, or use the FYI Blog for this stuff?
If you must use this forum to promote racing, at least tie it in to how that effort promotes “safety, reliability and performance” within the Chevy product portfolio. To my knowledge, all NASCAR serves to promote is brand exposure, American-style fuel consumption (aka. gas guzzling), and perhaps a bought of dizziness.
News on the Corvette team? Excellent! Tell me more! News about anything related to NASCAR? Umm…no thanks.
leo
Alba, Bill, just to let you guys know - I appreciate the GM racing updates.
jamie
Hey guys!
What’s this I hear about IMPALA replacing the MONTE CARLO on the track???
What is the reason behind this move? I know that Impala ruled in the 60’s before the Monte Carlo ever existed, but why change now?
I also understand that some Chevy teams will still be running with the Monte Carlo.
Perhaps you can explain what is going on here and just what you are trying to accomplish. Huh?
Karl
I like the idea of using the blog as a place for racing news, but:
1. Tie it to real showroom product. Cobalts in the Grand Am Cup, or Showroom Stock B Solstices are much closer to production GM cars (as is the Corvette mentioned above) than NASCAR shells and headlight/grille stickers with crate engines and generic frames. No one here is fooled into thinking the “Monte Carlo” in NASCAR is in any way related to the Front-Wheel-Drive W-body platform Monte Carlo being sold in dealerships.
2. Make it less like a PR Newswire article. Solicit comments from us.
noel park
Smoke Rules! Way to go Tony, a true racer.
When the Monte Carlo goes away fom the showrooms (after 2007?), you can’t race the repli-racer any more.
Anyway, when “The Car of Tomorrow” arrives, they will all look so much like that it will matter even less than it does now, if that’s possible.
I mean, if you can race a Camry, why not an “Impala”? M
motorman
noel park you got it! the MC does not compete with the camry for sales.
fernando de la torre
No entiendo para que hacen esto es una pérdida de tiempo.