Patrick has 'humbling' runs at Dover

Danica Patrick continued her steep learning curve in NASCAR taking a top 10 finish in the Pro Series East race and 35th in the Nationwide Series event at Dover this weekend.

The IndyCar star competed on Friday afternoon in the Pro race, starting 13th, leading the race for a few laps and finishing sixth after contact when she restarted from the front of the field dropped her down the order.

Patrick took the 155-lap race as a warm up for Saturday's Nationwide event, as both series use similar cars, although the Pro is a level down the NASCAR ranks.

She was happy following her first race of the weekend, although conditions inside the car were not ideal as she ran without the proper ventilation that she's used to in her Nationwide car.

"I know I learned a lot for [the Nationwide] race and that was the point," Patrick said after Friday's event. "I learned a lot, especially about restarts. I learned about closing rates.

"I learned how to set people up here and I learned about the timing of everything. I didn't have a back blower and the helmet blower seemed to be blowing hot air. I was pretty star-star-star hot."

In the Nationwide event Patrick didn't fare as well, struggling with a poor qualifying despite running well in practice. From 42nd on the grid she was unable to make much progress while fighting handling issues, dropping a lap down on the leaders as soon as lap 17.

On lap 70 of 200, and while running two laps down already, the right front tyre on her Chevrolet gave up and Patrick hit the wall hard, forcing her to drive to the garage for lengthy repairs. Though she came back on track nearly 100 laps later to finish 35th in her seventh Nationwide race.

Patrick admitted that she still has to learn more lessons on how to set up her car for a race before being able to move up to the next level. She says the fact that her apprenticeship is taking place in the public eye doesn't make things any easier.

"I don't know what I need out of the car to be good in the race," said Patrick. "I know what I need for one lap to feel good, but that doesn't mean it's going to be good for 70 or 80 laps. So, even on that last run out there which was 30 or so laps, we freed [the car] up and went out there and started feeling a little loose, and it kind of settled in and I was pushing by the end.

"How loose does it have to be when you start to have a good end? I don't know if that contributed to the right front blowing out in the first run or not, but it got to the point that there was so much push, it was shattering. I know now from experience that when you have a vibration and when the car doesn't want to turn it's probably losing pressure and you should back it on down.

"Lessons learned, and they're not fun lessons because everybody is watching so it makes it even harder but we'll get this car to the front by the end of the year. We'll figure it out."

Even before her weekend started, Patrick had already admitted how humbling her NASCAR transition has been as she has had to learn to cope with bellow-par results while she figures out the nuances of stock car racing.

"Mostly it's just been emotional because I've had to deal with not having as good results as I would have liked," said Patrick. "IndyCar has been a bit of a tough season. I've had probably some of my best races I've ever had, but I've also had some mediocre ones.

"NASCAR has been a humbling experience itself. For me, it's been more emotional than anything. I enjoy being busy, I like it. I'm lucky to be busy. Not every driver gets to be busy, and it's all for good reason. It's part of what I signed up for and I'm enjoying it."

Patrick will return to the Nationwide Series next month at Fontana, which will be the first venue she has competed at for a second time this year.

NASCAR penalises Bowyer and RCR

Clint Bowyer's title chances have taken a major blow after NASCAR penalised him for irregularities found on his winning car from Sunday's race at Loudon.

The Richard Childress driver has been docked 150 points in the standings, after his #33 Chevrolet failed to pass a detailed inspection at NASCAR's Research and Development facility in Concord, North Carolina, where the car was taken following the initial post-race inspection at the track.

Officials found discrepancies in the "car body location specifications in reference to the certified chassis", citing that these "did not meet NASCAR-approved specifications." The NASCAR rulebook states how the bodywork must be placed in reference to the chassis and in the rear of Bowyer's car measurements were found not to comply.

Last week after the final race of the regular season at Richmond, Bowyer's team had already been warned about issues that arose during inspection of the car he ran at the event where he secured his place in the championship play-off. Officials found the Richmond car, which was selected randomly for inspection at the track, was too close to the mandated tolerances.

"Details regarding the #33 car surround the car from a post-race inspection after the Richmond race," said NASCAR's vice president of competition Robin Pemberton.

"We reinforced the fact that they had come exceedingly close to the measurements that we allow for post-race [inspection]. The #33 car that was raced in New Hampshire was brought back to the R&D centre after the race and that car did not meet specifications, as a result these penalties have been issued."

The points penalty has dropped Bowyer from second place in the Chase down to 12th and last among the title contenders, placing him exactly where he was before taking his first win of the season last Sunday, although with a larger gap to leader Denny Hamlin.

While Richard Childress was also docked 150 points in the owners' standings, crew chief Shane Wilson and car chief Chad Haney have been suspended for the next six races, Wilson additionally being fined $150.000.

There was no word from NASCAR regarding the cars run at Loudon by Bowyer's team-mates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton, which both passed inspection following Sunday's Chase opener.

Scott Miller, current director of competition at RCR and former crew chief for Bowyer's team-mate Burton, is expected to replace Wilson in his role while he serves his suspension.

The team has announced that it will appeal against the penalties.

Ekstrom expects NASCAR return soon

Two-time DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom expects to return to the NASCAR Sprint Cup series soon after making his oval debut at Richmond last weekend with Red Bull Racing Team.

The Swede had a respectable run on Saturday night at the 0.75-mile Richmond International Raceway, finishing 31st but running close to a top-20 position in the first half of the race, eventually crossing the finish line ahead of series' regulars Greg Biffle and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

While others trying the transition from different series into NASCAR have taken a more gradual approach in the past, the Red Bull driver ventured into racing on a short oval track at Cup level for his second stock car outing, but still managed to have a trouble-free run.

The 32-year-old said his experience last Saturday went beyond what he anticipated and made him earn more respect for the series. Although he has returned to Europe to drive again for Audi in the DTM, Ekstrom expects to be back in the Sprint Cup soon.

"I have to say for the first race on an oval, I was expecting it to be long and hard, but didn't expect it to be so action packed," Ekstrom said. "As soon as I started after the first restart, it was wild. That is nothing like what I have even come close to.

"I respect these guys even more who are doing this all the time -- the way you have to drive, stay focused on every single lap, hit your marks all the time, and tune the car up. [Saturday's race] is something to build on. I had a great experience and great support from the team. I am really appreciative of this chance.

"A big thanks to Red Bull and hopefully I will be back in NASCAR again soon."

Reed Sorenson will return behind the wheel of the #83 Red Bull Toyota next weekend at Loudon, but with only four races left in the DTM schedule, which finishes in late November at Shanghai, Ekstrom is expected to drive again for the team this season.

Furious Bowyer insists penalty unjust

Clint Bowyer insists his team did not cheat to claim victory in the Chase opener last week at Loudon as he made a furious statement in front of the media on Friday at Dover International Speedway.

The Richard Childress driver has dropped from second to 12th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series play-off after the car he drove to victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last Sunday was deemed illegal during a detailed inspection done by NASCAR this week.

Speaking for the first time since his penalties were issued, the former Nationwide Series champion claimed he "wouldn't cheat to win a race in this sport," as he lamented his win being tarnished by the controversy.

Although he led 177 of the race's 300 laps at Loudon last Sunday, Bowyer claimed victory by succeeding at stretching his fuel mileage enough following his final pitstop, while others such as Tony Stewart were unable to do so despite running the same fuel strategy.

Bowyer reiterated that his team had been warned before Loudon after the car he raced at Richmond a week earlier was found to be too close to the tolerances of the height of the quarter-panels on the rear end.

After that, he said RCR took notice of NASCAR's warning and made sure the issue was corrected on the car it would race in the Chase opener, which officials advised would be checked in detail at their R&D facility following the event.

"Who in the right mind, knowing that they're going to take that car, wouldn't have made triple sure that that thing was right before it went to the racetrack?" said Bowyer.

"I could've hit the wall doing a burnout and I could've done a lot of things that other drivers and other teams have done in the post-race celebration this year. We didn't want to push that in NASCAR's face.

"We appreciated them warning us on the fact that we tried to fix the situation. They told us about it Wednesday [before Loudon]. Wednesday the car leaves, so we had about two hours to jump on that car and make sure that that thing was right."

Bowyer questioned the process that NASCAR undertook to measure his Loudon winning car this week at its facility. He believes the magnitude of his penalty is being set as an example by the ruling body to rival teams that may be pushing the limits of the technical regulations.

He is adamant that once the rumours started about his car being outside the tolerances, NASCAR was pushed to penalise him.

"How can a car pass pre and post-race inspection and three days latter get such a huge fine?" said Bowyer. "They take the car apart, completely apart, to measure this thing and in my opinion that's not how the car that was raced on the racetrack.

"Once the rumours started it wasn't long before the penalty. I think NASCAR has a lot of problems with a lot of cars on the racetrack being out of the box and I think they needed to set an example with something.

"I think the penalty doesn't fit the crime. 60 thousandths of an inch folks! Grab a quarter out of your pocket and that's 65 thousandths of an inch thick. Less than the thickness of that quarter right there resulted in a 150-point fine. Before or after this, grab that and ask yourselves if that was a performance-enhancing thing right there!"

Bowyer insists that his car being pushed by a service truck following the race may have well caused it to drop outside NASCAR's box. His #33 Chevrolet ran out of fuel after a celebratory burnout and had to be towed to Victory Lane for the post-race celebrations.

The RCR driver reminded the press that his car passed the post-race inspection and claimed that while officials did not find anything irregular, Jimmie Johnson's and Denny Hamlin machines needed to go through the height-sticks twice at Loudon before being passed.

"Is it possible that a two-tonne wrecker [truck] can bend the quarter panel 60 thousandths of an inch? You have to ask yourselves that," said Bowyer. "I got hit during the race, turned around a couple of times; racing is tough.

"If this thing was knocked out half of an inch you could see something being made, but if it passed the height sticks [in the post-race inspection], the very height sticks that the #48 [Johnson] and the #11 [Hamlin] did not pass, then miraculously enough when that same crew pushed it back around after 20 it passed. That's pretty amazing.

"My dad owns a towing business, has done since I was born in 1979. I know a little something about wreckers. About 15 years ago they took their front bumpers off for this very reason.

"I remember back when people used to come on a snow storm [and say] 'please push me out of the snowbank'. You pushed them out and two days later they showed up with the bodyshop bill in their hand, wanting you to to pay for the damage you did to the back of their car. This could happen."

Richard Childress Racing is hoping to get the penalties handed to Bowyer and his team overturned through an appeal process, which has deferred the suspensions and fines imposed for now.

Q and A with Mattias Ekstrom

Two-time DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom is making his oval debut this weekend at Richmond International Raceway in what will be just his second outing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series.

While others before him have taken their first steps in stock car racing at lower levels, including Juan Pablo Montoya, the 32-year-old Swede has taken the bull by the horns and will race Saturday at the 0.75-mile oval in the final race before the Chase for the Cup kicks off.

AUTOSPORT spoke to the two-time winner of the Race of Champions ahead of his second NASCAR race.

Q. Why are you going straight into the Sprint Cup and not trying at a lower level before, like others have done in the past?

Mattias Ekstrom: I think it doesn't really matter wherever you start, if you start in Cup or Nationwide. Sure, if you start lower you have less competition but there's good guys at every level in any NASCAR series. I mean, look at Kyle Busch, he's driving in all of them and besides, Red Bull only has a team in Cup. I had to do this with Red Bull because I've been an athlete for them for many years and that's about how it was.

Q. So you think it's easier to make the transition from DTM to NASCAR than from an open-wheel car?

ME: For me I think it's easier to adapt to NASCAR because I've been used to touring cars. Open-wheel cars have never been my cup of tea and I've never been good at it, so for sure I'm better off trying to do this than maybe going to IndyCars, that's for sure.

Q. What moved you to do this for a second time?

ME: What I like the most is the racing. You have many competitive cars and many competitive teams and DTM is also competitive but you have only 20 cars and then you have to drive with a lot of respect for your team-mates. Here there's 43 cars and you've got to be good because if not, you're going to be way down. The competition is what really attracts me and I really enjoy that.

Q. Are you seriously considering a future in NASCAR? Are more races in the cards this year?

ME: I came here and did the race at Sonoma and said afterwards that I'd like to do an oval. What happens in the future nobody knows, but one thing is for sure, I will try to collect all the experience I can this weekend and I will do the best job I can and then we will see what happens. At the moment I have a contract with Audi which I'm happy for and I really enjoy the DTM and there are some races to go this year, but I decided I wanted to try this.

Q. You've spent some time with Montoya in your NASCAR visits. Is he trying to sell you into making the move full time?

ME: I don't call him Juan, but Sean. I liked his style when he was doing F1 and I've spent some time with him. He's a nice guy and very competitive. He's been giving me all the info, what I should think of, all the pros and cons. I appreciate all the help I got from him because without that I would be struggling a lot more. I also got some help from Jimmie Johnson and you need to have some friends in this world when you come as a rookie in order to survive. I think what is really important is to do this with a lot of passion.

Q. With four races remaining in the DTM and ranking fifth in points, what's your outlook on the rest of the season?

ME: The championship is out of my hands now and I can't win it by my own performance, it would have to be the others doing something bad. I'm going there to enjoy every race, to try to win more races and what happens with the championship I can't really control anyway. We will see.

Ekstrom to make oval debut

Two-time DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom will make his oval debut in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series next weekend at Richmond, Red Bull Racing Team has announced.

The Swede will pilot the #83 Red Bull Toyota for a second time this year, having made his NASCAR debut in June. Ekstrom drove in the first road course event of the season at Infineon Raceway, where he finished 21st after starting 38th, leading the race for seven laps.

After racing in the DTM last weekend at Brands Hatch, the 32-year-old tested for Red Bull on an oval for the first time on Tuesday at the North Wilkesboro Speedway, a 0.625 oval in North Carolina, where he successfully completed his preparation to compete next Saturday in the final race of the regular season at the 0.75-mile Richmond International Raceway.

"To do a race on an oval is something different - it's a lot of laps and a lot of cars," said Ekstrom. "Racing in Richmond will be one of the biggest tasks of my life so far, but I feel I am ready for the challenge."

Ekstrom replaces Reed Sorenson, who has driven the #83 car for eighth of the past nine races. Brian Vickers started his fourth year at the wheel of the leading Red Bull entry but he has been sidelined from racing since May after being diagnosed with blood clots. Casey Mears, Boris Said and Ekstrom, have also driven the car this year.

"Mattias did a great job in Sonoma, and continues to impress at the oval track testing sessions," said Red Bull Racing Team's Jay Frye. "He has earned this opportunity, showing continued improvement every time he is behind the wheel."

Ekstrom is expected to be back behind the wheel of his DTM Audi A4 next week, when the series competes at Oschersleben. With four events remaining, he ranks fifth in the DTM standings.

Hamlin maintains Chase lead

Denny Hamlin remained in the lead of the Sprint Cup series playoff following a strong second-place finish on Sunday's Chase opener at Loudon.

The 29-year-old, who led the standings for the first time in his career heading into the start of the title battle this weekend, drove a great race of recovery after being turned around more than halfway through the race by title contender Carl Edwards.

The Roush Fenway racer made contact with Hamlin's Toyota, sending him into a spin on lap 213 of 300, but the Joe Gibbs racer managed to avoid hitting the wall, while being lucky of not getting collected by other cars, as he was running in the top-five at the time.

"I was really glad we just didn't get plowed by the entire field," said Hamlin. "Obviously we spun in front the entire field at that point. First thing I asked is how many cars is on the lead lap because I wanted to see how bad our day was going to be

"When we restarted 22nd, I immediately set a goal and said, let's finish top 15 and a few things happen and it was like, crap, let's get a top eight and then top 6, holy cow, we can win this thing. It was one of those days, our car, we just made a heck of a charge at the end."

Hamlin was able to recover from the incident and he quickly made progress while running on a safer fuel strategy than some ahead of him. As the lap-count faded he started to put the pressure on, closing on the leaders who were trying to save enough to make it to the end.

With ten laps remaining he was able to get up to third place, as he continued to shorten the gap to leaders Tony Stewart and Clint Bowyer. In the end, the tank of the Stewart-Haas Chevy of his former Gibbs' teammate ran empty, allowing Bowyer to take the win ahead of Hamlin's #11 Toyota.

"The 33 [Bowyer] had a really good car today, the 1 [McMurray], the 14 [Stewart]," said Bowyer. "Those three cars I felt like were the best cars all day. We never really got to show where our car was at. As soon as we got to the Top 3, is when we got spun.

"We clawed and scratched our way to the front all day to get in position with 80 to go to go for a win. Luckily, it's a double-edged sword, it made us come in [the pits], we had to get fuel and it gave us the fuel for the end. Typically, our Toyota gets really good gas mileage, so I knew we were going to be fine on fuel right there at the end.

"Top 6 was where I wanted to leave this day, and so first mission accomplished."

Following Sunday's race Hamlin edges Sunday's winner Bowyer by 35 points in the Chase standing.