Hmiel undergoes successful surgery

Former NASCAR racer Shane Hmiel is recovering from surgery to heal injuries in his neck and back after his sprint car accident on Saturday night.

Hmiel was treated at Indianapolis' Methodist Hospital after he suffered a serious crash during qualifying for the Sumar Classic 100 USAC Silver Crown event at the Terre Haute Action Track near Indianapolis.

The 30-year-old, son of Earnhardt Ganassi Racing director of competition Steve Hmiel, has been trying to rebuild his driving career for the past few years after being banned from NASCAR due to repeatedly failing substance abuse tests.

Despite initial fears of head injuries due to the nature of Saturday's accident, a scan revealed there was no permanent damage to his brain, having crashed head-on against the barrier and damaging the roll bar structure of his car.

"To hear the doctors say they don't think there's going to be any paralysis with a broken neck and broken back, we just went through that a month and a half ago with a close friend, and with Shane we didn't want to see that happen again," said Sunday's Sprint Cup race winner Tony Stewart at Fontana, following his victory.

"That's why we mentioned it in victory lane. Definitely our thoughts are with him right now for sure."

On Sunday night a first surgery was performed to treat his neck injuries and proved successful, Hmiel reacting to stimulation and already moving his extremities. On Monday he underwent a more critical second procedure on his back, exams revealing spinal cord injuries, but according to his mother Lisa the surgery "exceeded expectations".

Further updates on Hmiel's condition can be found on the Shane Hmiel - Road to Recovery Facebook page, where his family has been posting news since Sunday.

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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.

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Hamlin aims to rebound at Fontana

Denny Hamlin is targeting victory at Fontana this weekend as he vows to stay in close contention for the NASCAR Sprint Cup title, having lost the Chase lead last week.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver held the lead of the standings entering the championship play-off and remained in front until last weekend at Kansas, where Jimmie Johnson's second place and Hamlin's 12th, vaulted the reigning champion ahead and to the top of the Chase.

Hamlin has been setting targets for finishing positions for the past three weeks but believes Fontana offers him a first chance of winning during the play-off and cutting down the eight-point gap to Johnson in the championship.

Despite poor results on his last two visits to Fontana, Hamlin has led laps in both outings having started from pole and fought for victory a year ago before crashing during a restart and blowing his title hopes.

"I don't think this is a race track where I feel like I don't want to lose a certain amount of points," said Hamlin. "I want to go out there and close back in on the lead. We feel like we can come to California and win. We've been in contention to win a couple of these races here. I come here to finish number one, nowhere else."

Out of the six tracks remaining this year, Hamlin has won at two of them, Martinsville and Texas. He believes he has already passed his worst tracks and is optimistic about coming races, where he expects to show his team's strength and contend for more victories.

"I think all of these tracks from here on out are good race tracks for us," said Hamlin. "There's really no weak spot, I feel like, in our programme for the next four to six weeks. I think that we made it past the big hurdles for us and we only lost 18 points to Jimmie over the last three races and now it's time to go out there and show why we are in this position."

Hamlin says it is still too early to start thinking about bonus points and team work, and reckons only in a couple of weeks will they know where they really are in terms of their championship hopes.

"I really don't watch Chase points right at this point," Hamlin said. "If we're, once we get down to three races to go, where we need five points then we're going to be calling on our team-mate if he's in front of us or things like that. We're not really going to chase those points until we really see where we stack up and that's going to be five or six races in."

Hamlin is currently enjoying his best shot at the Sprint Cup title and ties Chase leader Johnson for number of wins during the season with six apiece.

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Stewart laments losing Loudon win

Tony Stewart lamented losing a likely win in the Chase opener at Loudon this weekend as he ran out of fuel right before taking the white flag.

The two-time Sprint Cup series champion took the lead early into Sunday's race and despite dropping in the order following his first pitstop, he was able to get back to the front and eventually lead the race again in the deciding stages.

After staying on the track when many pitted during the sixth of eight caution periods, Stewart briefly lost the lead to Earnhardt Ganassi's Jamie McMurray, re-passing him with 52 laps remaining, then pulling away while try to save enough fuel to make it to the finish.

But despite being on the same pit sequence as eventual winner Clint Bowyer, his car ran out of fuel on the penultimate lap at the exit of turn four, just a few seconds after Bowyer's RCR teammate Jeff Burton, also on the same strategy, suffered a similar blow.

"I'm not happy, that's for sure, but we went down swinging," said Stewart. "It's hard to lose one that way but at the same time it was fun racing Clint like that. He was definitely the fastest car and congratulations to those guys.

"It's a tough way to start the Chase but I'm proud of my guys. Darian [Grubb, crew chief] kept swinging at it all day and finally on that last set of tires we got it halfway decent."

Stewart said that had he known he was so marginal on his fuel mileage he would have accepted finishing second behind Bowyer, but unfortunately the numbers didn't meet the targets on his team's calculations, ending around a mile short of scoring his second win of the year.

"I would have settled for second," accepted Stewart. "If you knew exactly how much gas you have it would be different, but you never know. It's part of the sport, always has been. It's what makes it exciting when you never know until the last lap what's going to happen

"...[Clint Bowyer] had a great car all day. He did a good job of saving fuel and I didn't do a good job."

A victory on Sunday would have placed Stewart up in second place in the Chase standings, but his 24th place finish meant he dropped five places in the playoff down to eleventh, only ahead of Roush Fenway's Matt Kenseth.

But despite a 124-point deficit to leader Denny Hamlin, Stewart says it's still too early in the playoff to give up on his title hopes.

"There is so much that can happen in nine races," said Stewart. "I promise you this: This team is not going to give up. We'll do the best we can and give it our best shot."

Sunday's result has been Stewart's worst for a Chase opener since he missed the playoff in 2006.

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Harvick: Title fight down to top five

Chase contender Kevin Harvick believes the battle for this year's NASCAR Sprint Cup title has narrowed down to the top five in the championship standings, heading into the fifth race of the play-off.

The Richard Childress racer currently ranks third in the Chase, trailing leader Jimmie Johnson by 54 points, second-placed Denny Hamlin by 18, while former champions Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart follow him in the top five.

Behind them Penske's Kurt Busch, who was involved in an incident late during last weekend's race at Fontana, is already 140 points adrift of Johnson, which according to Harvick is probably a big enough gap to already consider him a championship outsider.

Harvick continues to pin his title hopes on the consistency that earned him the lead in the points for most of this year's regular season.

"I think you look from fifth forward," said Harvick when asked who in his mind was still in the Chase. "I think that is it really unless somebody just goes on a tear, this is just kind of where it is at right now.

"Consistency has been our strong point, so there is no reason not to lean on that. If it is not good enough in the end, it's not good enough. But those are the things that we lean on to be the strong point and get the good finishes and just wear them down. That is really what our strong point is."

Busch, however, does not feel he is out of the Chase, although he admitted that for him to revive his title bid, he needs to count on the leaders hitting some sort of trouble in the coming six races.

"Anything can happen at any given moment," Busch said. "Whether it's an engine failure, another competitor running into someone on the track, points can swap so fast that anything can happen and it's anyone's game. There's no reason to panic. There's no reason to do anything out of the ordinary.

"If you're running around fifth or sixth in points and you win, you can't expect to vault into second place anymore, you have to work your way around those guys. But if the leader has problems then it opens the door for everybody."

Busch's sibling Kyle, who had a costly clash with David Reutimann at Kansas and then retired with an engine failure last week at Fontana, has already given up on this year's title as he now ranks seventh in the championship, 187 points behind Johnson.

"Realistically, you're not going to beat seven, eight guys - however many are in front of me, 187 points, the rest of the year, unless they all have trouble at least once or twice," said the younger of the Busch brothers. "The realisticness of that is why I said our championship hopes and dreams are lost.

"If I go out there and win the last six races and Jimmie Johnson finishes in the top 10 even in all those races, I won't beat him. There's not enough points there that I'm going to make up on him. It's going to be hard to do and it is very frustrating to that point, but that's racing sometimes I guess."

For the past two years Johnson has never surrendered the Chase lead once he has taken it, claiming consecutive titles in the process. This year he could make history as the first to win five Sprint Cup championships in a row.

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Hmiel 'critical' after sprint car crash

Former NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Shane Hmiel has been placed in intensive care after he was critically injured in an accident during qualifying for a USAC Silver Crown race at Terre Haute, in Indiana on Saturday.

According to reports from USAC officials, Hmiel crashed during a qualifying run for the Sumar Classic 100 at the Terre Haute Action Track dirt oval in Indiana, 77 miles west of Indianapolis.

His car made contact with the barrier after rolling several times, suffering damage in the roll cage area.

Hmiel, son of Earnahard Ganassi Racing's Director of Competition Steve Hmiel, was transferred to the Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis with head injuries and is listed in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

The 30-year-old, who received a life-ban from NASCAR in 2006 after failing three separate substance abuse tests, was airlifted to Indianapolis Methodist Hospital where he was listed in critical condition with head injuries, according to USAC.

"We are very concerned about Shane and offer our resources and our support to his family during this time of healing," said USAC President/CEO Kevin Miller.

Hmiel has been rebuilding his career in sprint cars over the last three years following his sobriety and was voted USAC's most improved driver last season. He currently lies third in the Silver Crown standings behind Bud Kaeding and Levi Jones.

Shane is the son of Steve Hmiel, who is director of competition at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing.

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Patrick makes progress in Nationwide

Danica Patrick looked set for her best finish in the NASCAR Nationwide Series until an incident with 10 laps to go put her out of the race on Saturday at Fontana.

On her second visit to Auto Club Speedway, where she raced in the second-tier series last February, the IndyCar star showed good improvement from qualifying where she managed 14th on the grid, her best starting position for a NASCAR event thus far.

Early in the race she was able to stay within the top 20, although before the first third of the distance was completed she had already dropped a lap down. However during the third caution period of the race and while running 18th, she was able to get back on the lead lap through the 'free-pass' rule that allows the first driver a lap down to be waved around by the pace car.

While she was battling to get closer to a top 10 spot with nine laps to go, she squeezed rookie James Buescher at the exit of Turn 2 and he retaliated, clipping the right rear of Patrick's car, sending it into a spin and against the wall.

Her car was massively damaged in the impact and she would eventually drive into the garage to retire from her eighth Nationwide Series outing. Despite being only classified 30th, Patrick took a lot of positives from this weekend's experience.

"There was a lot of positives really," said Patrick. "We had a decent car to start and we were able to sort of hold our ground. We lost a few spots but kind of started to settle in and we made some adjustments that helped the car turn a little bit better.

"The frustrating part is that I feel I had a really good car for those last few restarts and just pushing hard and using all the road I kind of got into the car that ended up turning me the lap before. I didn't mean to. That next time I got pretty close but I was giving him room. I came off [the corner] and gave him room and looking at the replay it looks like maybe it was avoidable."

Patrick said being at Fontana for the second time definitely made a difference in terms of knowing how to set up the car and get a good consistent balance throughout the race. She lamented that there will not be a second visit to another track this year as her coming NASCAR outings will be at ovals which will be new to her in a stock car. Her next race will be in a week's time at Charlotte.

"I was really happy that the car was good on the long run," said Patrick. "It was good at the beginning, settling in the middle and then I came on at the end. I've been really confused as to what it's going to take to be good from the beginning to the end and I think that we're getting closer, I really do.

"[Crew chief] Tony [Eury Jr] did a good job setting the car up today, made good changes, he set the car up for the start so that I had confidence and then we freed it up. A lot of things went really well today so I'm very pleased for that."

"We're having a lot of confidence going into Charlotte I think. It does make a difference to come back [to a track] for a second time. It's a bummer that there won't be any others."

Kyle Busch claimed a record 12th victory in Saturday's Nationwide Series event, where Kevin Harvick looked dominant but lost a possible win due to delayed pitstops in the closing stages.

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