Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 13, 2019)
B4 SPORTS East Oregonian Saturday, April 13, 2019 Hamlin hoping for some hometown advantage By HANK KURZ JR. Associated Press RICHMOND, Va. — Denny Hamlin would love to think he has an advantage when it comes to racing at Richmond Raceway. The Joe Gibbs Racing star has won three times on the 0.75-mile, D-shaped oval and has been coming to the track for much of his life, even long before the Vir- ginia native became a driver in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. “I don’t know if there’s any advantage for sure, but I certainly feel like I know what I need out of the car to be successful here,” Hamlin said Friday. “Certainly this is kind of our wheelhouse for tracks you could say.” The Daytona 500 winner has plenty of reason to feel good heading into the week- end. He’s already won twice this year, but his last vic- tory at Richmond came in the fall of 2016. Teammate Kyle Busch swept both races last season, has already won three times this season and is trying to follow up a vic- tory last weekend at Bristol. Hamlin hopes familiar- ity can keep his solid start going. “I’ve always loved com- ing to this race track. It is home. It’s one that I’ve been to many, many times when I wasn’t racing,” he said. “It is certainly the home track for me but it’s just excit- ing because I know that I could very well have a great weekend ahead of us, really focus a lot of my efforts on how can we go out there and dominate the race, not just win, but dominate. Really, that’s been the focus for the last fi ve days.” Teammate Martin Truex Jr. has been close to win- ning with second-place fi n- ishes at Atlanta and Phoe- AP Photo/Ng Han Guan Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany prepares for the fi rst practice session of the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit in Shang- hai on Friday. AP Photo/Steve Helber Fans watch the team of Joey Logano as they work on the car in the garage at Richmond Inter- national Raceway in Richmond, Va., on Friday. nix, and said Busch is on the kind of role that makes him seem invincible. Besides his success in the Cup series, Busch has started four races in the Truck series and won them all, and won three of four Xfi nity races. “You look at a couple of races like last week. He even said he wasn’t going to win the race and the next thing you know he’s leading. They stay out and he’s leading and he drives off into the sun- set,” Truex said. “This sport is kind of cyclical. There’s a lot of highs and lows, but once you get on a roll — I’ve been on teams where you just get on a roll and you can’t do anything wrong. Then there’s other times like for us this year, it doesn’t seem like you can do anything right. It’s just the way it goes sometimes and you just have to work through it all and keep pushing to try to fi nd more speed all the time.” Busch admits that luck has been on his side at times this season, as well as momentum. If he can keep it going on Saturday night, he’d join three Hall of Fam- ers — David Pearson (three, 1965-66), Richard Petty (seven, 1970-1973) and Bobby Allison (three, 1982- 83) — as the only drivers to win three consecutive races on the track. Such achievements, he said, are not his focus, but nonetheless special. “If we can win three in a row here at Richmond and match names like that — the Godfathers of our sport that built our sport to what it is today — would be pretty cool,” he said. So would keeping the momentum going. Busch has fi nished in the top 10 in each of his last 10 races. “There’s no question there’s momentum. Abso- lutely,” he said. “You can go through the whole begin- ning stretch of the season — we’ve had a really good stretch to the beginning of this season and unfortu- nately we’re coming up to one of my most favorite race tracks in the world, Talla- dega, in a couple weeks, that can certainly end that momentum at any particu- lar moment and knock you down off your pedestal or whatever you want to call it. “Then you have to fi g- ure out how to rebound and get back. I think that’s where our strength is and we’ve had some moments in some of these races that we’ve kind of been knocked off that we’ve been able to rebound and come back up through. Just treat it like anything else and focus for- ward,” he said. Jarrett Andretti to fulfi ll father’s wish to race at Indy By JENNA FRYER AP Auto Racing Writer LONG BEACH, Calif. — Jarrett Andretti will fulfi ll his father’s wish to see him race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway when he becomes the seventh Andretti to race at the venerable track in his Indy Lights debut next month. Andretti is a third-gener- ation racer from one of the most famous racing fami- lies in the world. His father, John, is Mario Andretti’s nephew and Aldo Ander- etti’s son. John Andretti and Michael Andretti are fi rst cousins, and Jarrett Andretti will race at Indy for Andretti Autosport. He will be the third Andretti entry in the Free- dom 100, scheduled for “Carb Day,” two days before the Indianapolis 500 on May 26. It is traditionally one of the most exciting events at the historic speedway. “It’s very important for me, personally; me and John are very, very close, we’ve been close our whole lives, growing up together,” said team owner Michael Andretti, who is Jarret’s godfather. “To help bring one of his dreams come true is very satisfying. He’s always had a dream to see his son drive for Indy and I am glad we are making it a reality this year,” Jarrett Andretti, at 26, is the youngest current racer in the family dynasty. He has won championships in karts, a USAC midget series and was an Indiana Sprint Car Series champion. His father announced last month that his Stage 4 colon cancer had returned. The former NASCAR and IndyCar driver was fi rst diagnosed in April 2017 and launched an awareness cam- paign urging colonoscopies. Jarrett Andretti said his father has remained heav- ily involved in his racing — Michael Andretti joked John is at the team shop more than the team owner — and traveled with him to sprint car races last weekend. “He’s doing pretty well right now ... he’s up until 3 in the morning and I can’t get him to stop,” Jarrett Andretti said. “He’s obvi- ously going to go through chemo again and treatment, but I’ve never seen him let it affect him. We built our sprint car team together, hand in hand, and just us going to races together and him working on the car and me racing them. He lived with me in the summers for four or fi ve months and we did everything together.” Bottas, Vettel lead Chinese GP practice sessions By STEPHEN WADE Associated Press SHANGHAI — Mer- cedes driver Valtteri Bot- tas and Ferrari rival Sebas- tian Vettel led Friday’s practice sessions ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix. Off the track, Formula One prepared to celebrate its 1,000th race on Sun- day. The fi rst F1 race took place in 1950 at Silver- stone, a converted World War II airfi eld in southern England. It was won by Giuseppe Farina driving an Alfa Romeo. Vettel was quickest in the morning session, and Bottas was slightly faster in the afternoon with Vet- tel right behind. The after- noon session was quicker overall with Bottas clock- ing 1 minute, 33.330 sec- onds on the track located about 25 miles from down- town Shanghai. Vettel was timed in 1:33.357 in the after- noon, followed by Red Bull driver Max Verstap- pen (1:33.551) and Lewis Hamilton (1:34.037) in his Mercedes. Bottas and Hamilton have each won one of the fi rst two races this sea- son. Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull dominate and are expected to do the same in qualifying on Saturday and in Sunday’s race. Shanghai is far from Formula One’s most tradi- tion-steeped venues. That honor would go Monaco, Monza, Spa or Silver- stone. But the Chinese cir- cuit will do the honors on Sunday. “We’ve said many times that one of the great- est parts of Formula One is its rich history,” Formula One CEO Chase Carey said. “And nothing accen- tuates that rich history more than celebrating our 1,000th race.” Liberty Media took over Formula One two years ago for $4.6 billion, taking control of a sport long run by British bil- lionaire Bernie Ecclestone. Liberty is in the middle of negotiating a new, diffi cult contract with its 10 teams that would go into effect with the 2021 season. It would include redis- tributing prize money, which now favors big teams like Ferrari, Mer- cedes and Red Bull. Carey tipped his hat to China, which is a likely target for as second race as Formula One looks to expand in Asia. It is sched- uled to add a new race next year in Hanoi, Vietnam. “It’s great to be able to celebrate here in Shang- hai because Shanghai is in many ways one of the most exciting parts of the future,” Carey said. “An incredible opportunity to marry our rich history with our exciting future.” Damon Hill, the 1996 F1 champion, drove into the circuit on Friday in a 1968 Lotus, which his father Graham Hill drove in winning the Monaco Grand Prix in 1968. The elder Hill won the season title twice — in 1962 and 1968. “I calculate that we have won 3.7% of the 1,000 races,” Damon Hill said. “The Hill family. There’s a history, there’s a tradition and it’s just great.” Thank you to the following businesses for supporting Newspapers in Education Their generous support of the East Oregonian NIE program helps provide copies of the newspaper and unlimited access to EastOregonian.com and the e-Edition to schools throughout Umatilla, Morrow and Gilliam counties. 505 SW 16th St. Pendleton, OR CHI St. Anthony Hospital 541-276-5121 SAHPendleton.org 2081 St. Anthony Way Pendleton, OR 97801 1415 Southgate Pendleton, OR 541-276-0880 | RAClub.us 541-612-8575 KirbyNagelhout.com 301 S. Main St., Pendleton, OR 541-278-6800 • OldWestFCU.org Blue Mountain Village Apartments 541-276-1260 BLUECC.EDU 2411 NW Carden Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 2700 SW Goodwin Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 541-240-9161 robertalanpm.com 127 SW Emigrant Ave. #1 Pendleton, OR 97801 Dean's Pendleton Athletic 541-429-4310 249 S. Main St. Pendleton, OR 97801 541-276-6988 Facebook.com/ DeansPendletonAthletic For more information on the NIE Program, visit EastOregonian.com/eo/nie. To make a donation, call 800-522-0255.
