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Whereupon Bickford said he hung up the phone, because it was a package deal.
Bickford knew Gordon and Evernham already had great chemistry and would be successful together. He didn’t want Gordon to have to start over with a new crew chief.
Roush called back and said there must have been a problem with the phone and Bickford said, no, he had hung up on Roush deliberately.
Upon hearing that, Roush went on to explain that if he was making the expensive and potentially risky investment in a promising, but unproven young talent, he had to have the comfort level of hiring the crew chief himself. That was the way Roush always worked in the past and the way he was going to work in the future.

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Past Sprint Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski and last year’s race winner Matt Kenseth were in the thick of contention coming down the stretch. The abbreviated laps created plenty of traffic and little margin for error as a result, culminating in an excellent finish.

Per NASCAR Stats, Logano has joined elite company with some of the most accomplished drivers by winning his third race of the year:

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On the final restart with six laps to go, Blaney jumped from the bottom lane to clear Busch as the two led the field into Turn 1.

Coming to the white flag, Busch was on Blaney’s bumper but couldn’t catch him as the Team Penske driver took the checkered flag to score his first NASCAR Nationwide Series win of the season and the second of his career.

Busch appeared headed for a dominant win before he slowed to take off on the last restart and the field pushed into his back bumper and lifted his back tires off the ground.

“The leader’s at the biggest disadvantage, I think,” an obviously frustrated Busch said. “Everybody always tries to hold back to the inside and they try to time a run so that when the leader goes, they have momentum on the leader. I’m trying to maintain regular speed and those guys are falling back, falling back. Then I try to fall back and they fall back more. Now you’re underneath pit-road speed, so you try to maintain it and they got a run on your inside. The 22 (Blaney) was five miles per hour faster than me by the first double yellow (restart) stripe. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to go, but everybody behind me is trying to go because they’re following the 22. I’m trying to wait for him so I can go by the single red (restart) mark on the wall.

“It’s stupid,” Busch said of the restart rules. “NASCAR doesn’t police it. So everybody keeps jacking around on it, and one these days I’m going to lock all four (tires) down and stack the whole field up.”

Blaney said he was trying to maintain second and was surprised to get such a good restart on Busch. Watching how Busch had handled the restarts earlier in the race, Blaney expected the driver of the No. 54 Toyota would hang back before taking off for the restart.

“You’re always watching the leader and how he restarts,” Blaney said. “Kyle was obviously the dominant car, and it looked like he was going to be the restarter late in the race, so I was paying attention to him. He does that a lot. He likes to go fairly late. I learned that in the trucks stuff and racing against him in other Nationwide races, that he goes really late. I was kind of prepared for that and my spotter Joey Meier did a great job conferring with that he was going to go late, so that really did prepare me for that a little better.”

Chase Elliott was able to overcome an early brush with the wall to finish the night third, followed by Ty Dillon and Regan Smith.

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And who are those “other drivers”?

Jeff Gordon (43), Greg Biffle (44), Matt Kenseth (42) and Jeff Burton (47). Only a few years younger are Jimmie Johnson (38), Kevin Harvick (38) and, yes, even Dale Earnhardt Jr. (39).

Most of these drivers entered the NASCAR ranks while in their late teens or early 20s and have enjoyed 15 to 20 year careers in the sport.

Five years from now, how many of them will still be behind the wheel?

Gordon has already admitted that he’s plagued with back problems that could signal an end to his driving career. Burton has stepped back from a full-time driving career and into the broadcast booth with NBC Sports, though he’s returned to the track as the substitute driver for the still-absent Stewart. Biffle and Kenseth recently signed new deals with their current teams, but for how long will they continue to race?

As for the rest, ask them how much longer they’ll be racing, and you’ll likely get something like “until they pry my fingers off the steering wheel.”

The time is coming when these drivers and others will have to make way for the youth movement that is exploding within the ranks of NASCAR.

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Breaking the previous track record, Harvick’s speed of 131.362 miles per hour narrowly edged Jeff Gordon to capture the pole for Saturday night’s Sprint Cup race. Gordon, the fast qualifier a week ago, was No. 1 in the first round of qualifying and was on the provisional pole for much of Friday’s second session. But when Harvick went ahead of him on the scoring chart, Gordon was unable to counter.

“Kevin put up a great lap,” Gordon said. “I thought I had a really good lap that first run out, I came on the radio and I said ‘That is all I got.’ When you go do that and the car is well balanced and you get a good lap, you know that it’s up to somebody else to just take a little more risk and maybe get it, and Kevin did.”

The pole is Harvick’s fifth of the season and, in a race where track position is critical, gives him a decided advantage.

“Track position is definitely as important as it is anywhere here with the current groove and where you are running,” Harvick said. “I felt good about our car during practice and just have to stay in there all night and do the best we can.”

Rounding out the top five were Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch and Joey Logano. Edwards won the Bristol spring race from the 12th starting position.

Rookie Kyle Larson was considered one of the favorites to win the pole, having posted fast times in both practices earlier in the day. But Larson got loose and spun off of Turn 4 in the opening session, brushing the outside wall and then contacting the pit road wall. He will start 40th Saturday.

“I just got loose through the corner and thought I could save it, and probably should have just bailed,” Larson said. “… I definitely was over the edge. It’s frustrating because we had a really, really good Chevy in practice with definitely top-five speeds. Now I don’t know what we have.”

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NASCAR president Mike Helton — a stern authority figure similar to your high school principal — accepted the challenge and got doused by drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Danica Patrick, Jimmie Johnson, Greg Biffle and Jamie McMurray on Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The best part of this might be when Earnhardt waits til the end, then gets up close for a nice, slow pour.

It was petty sweet to get a free shot at authority, and the drivers clearly enjoyed it.

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Posting the seventh-fastest pole speed (206.558 mph) in NASCAR history, Jeff Gordon was the No. 1 qualifier for Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400. The pole was the 76th of Gordon’s career, who also took top honors in qualifying a week ago at Watkins Glen International.

Thirty two of 43 qualifiers time broke the previous Michigan track set by Kevin Harvick in June.

“This is exciting,” Gordon said. “To be running this good and have cars that are this great; back-to-back poles from Watkins Glen to Michigan, we’re having a lot of fun right now.”

Sharing the front row with Gordon is Joey Logano, who qualified second. Carl Edwards, Brian Vickers and Brad Keselowski will start third through fifth, respectively. Rounding out the top 10 were Harvick, Paul Menard, Austin Dillon, Jamie McMurray and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

“It is fast,” Edwards said. “That is the simplest way to describe it. It is fast. I wish you guys could ride in that car with me. That is screamin’.”

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rack records have been falling left and right all season. According to NASCAR.com, this is the 17th time in 2014 alone that a driver has broken a track’s previous best for fastest lap. Gordon is the second driver to break a track record at the Michigan International Speedway, per USA Today’s Nate Ryan:

Gordon was a man of few words after qualifying.

“That thing stuck so well,” he said about his car, per Ryan. “That makes it fun.”

Gordon now has 76 poles to his credit throughout his illustrious career, including two in 2014.

Heading into Sunday, he sits fourth in the points standings. His two wins all but assure him a place in the final Chase for the Sprint Cup. With a trip to Victory Lane, Gordon would almost certainly vault to first in the standings, so he won’t be taking it easy simply because he’s qualified for the Chase.

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Here’s the exact wording that will go into the rule book:

During an Event, if a racecar is involved in an on-track incident and/or is stopped on or near the racing surface and unable to continue to make forward progress, unless extenuating emergency conditions exist with the racecar (i.e. fire, smoke in cockpit, etc.) the driver should take the following steps:

Shut off electrical power and, if driver is uninjured, lower window net
Do not loosen, disconnect or remove any driver personal safety equipment until directed to do so by safety personnel or a NASCAR/Track Official
After being directed to exit the racecar, the driver should proceed to either the ambulance, other vehicle, or as otherwise directed by safety personnel or a NASCAR/Track Official
At no time should a driver or crew member(s) approach any portion of the racing surface or apron
At no time should a driver or crew member(s) approach another moving vehicle
All vehicles not involved in the incident or that are able to continue afterwards should slow down to a cautious speed as outlined in Section 10-4 (Yellow Flag), use extreme care as they approach an incident scene, and follow any directions given by safety personnel or NASCAR/Track Officials. Cars in line behind the safety car should not weave or otherwise stray from the line in the vicinity of the incident.

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He remembers a race at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee early in his career when he was involved in a crash and got out of his car to confront the driver who made him wreck.

“I guess that’s my one time of letting emotion get to me,” Johnson said.

For fans, it was harmless fun. But Nascar is not going to tolerate that kind of risk anymore.

As investigators in Ontario County, N.Y., continued to search for answers in the death of the driver Kevin Ward Jr. during a sprint car race last Saturday, Nascar took steps to prevent such a death from occurring in one of its races.

Robin Pemberton, Nascar’s vice president for competition, announced Friday that drivers would now be required to remain in their racecars after accidents until safety workers arrived, unless they were at risk from fire or smoke.

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