NASCAR: Jeff Gordon leads at halfway in Pocono

By Aug 3, 2014, 2:37 PM EDT
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With multiple pit strategies in play, Brickyard 400 winner Jeff Gordon currently holds the lead at the halfway mark of the GoBowling.com 400 at Pocono Raceway.

Moments after the green flag waved to start the race, Joey Logano took the lead from pole sitter Kyle Larson going into Turn 1. A short distance behind them, Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch appeared to make contact in Turn 2 while fighting for third place.

The impact sent Keselowski sideways before he made a great save to keep his No. 2 Team Penske Ford off the wall. He dropped back to 12th at the end of Lap 1, but the early loss in track position certainly beat the alternative.

On Lap 9, Jimmie Johnson suffered a right-rear tire failure going into Turn 1 and scraped the outside wall. A debris caution came out shortly afterwards, allowing the team to change the flat. However, Johnson fell one lap down and to dead last in the field – 43rd place.

Kurt Busch, giving up third position, then led a number of drivers to the pits under the caution that included his brother Kyle and Kyle’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Matt Kenseth.

Beyond Kurt Busch, most of the Top 10 stayed out for the restart at Lap 13 (Kurt himself took the restart in 21st). Logano held the point, but behind him, Kevin Harvick and Gordon jumped Larson and shuffled him back to fourth.

On Lap 16, Top-10 runner Danica Patrick started to have an apparent tire rub after glancing off the wall previously. Then on Lap 17, a tire failure caused Patrick to hit the wall in Turn 2, triggering the second yellow of the day.

While Patrick’s crew worked to fix her damaged car on pit road, the leaders again decided to stay out while Johnson returned to the lead lap by virtue of the free pass.

Logano powered past Harvick on the outside to keep the lead off the Lap 20 restart, while Larson dropped Gordon for third place.

On Lap 23, Kyle Busch slowed down dramatically from 17th position and after reaching his pit box, his crew popped the hood on his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. The car was then pushed to the garage with a terminal engine problem, ending Busch’s day.

Gordon moved past Harvick for second on Lap 27 and was homing in on Logano for the lead until Landon Cassill hit the wall for Caution No. 3 at Lap 29.

At this point, the leaders finally made their first appearances in the pits. Brian Vickers and Tony Stewart each took two tires and won the race off pit road ahead of Logano, Larson and Harvick (who all took four tires).

But after pitting under the first caution, Kurt Busch stayed out to assume the race lead. Busch would hold the point until Lap 45, when he went in for service and gave the lead to Gordon. Leading up to Busch’s second stop, Gordon had passed Logano, Kenseth and Martin Truex Jr. to move up to second.

By Lap 50, Gordon was holding a lead of roughly two seconds on Logano. But that edge was erased with another caution, this time for Joe Nemechek, who slapped the wall off Turn 3 after he was tapped on the inside by an oncoming Kasey Kahne.

Kahne aired his frustrations with Nemechek over his radio:

Nemechek also wasn’t thrilled with Kahne:

Another group of drivers including Johnson and Keselowski chose to pit under this yellow. Also pitting were the Richard Petty Motorsports duo of Marcos Ambrose and Aric Almirola, who each had problems – Ambrose parked his car sideways in his pit box, while Almirola had the hood go up on his car for an unspecified issue.

Gordon lined up on the outside for the restart at Lap 56 and quickly shot past Logano to retain his lead. Meanwhile, Clint Bowyer took advantage of the restart to make a move and crack the Top 5, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. got around Vickers at Lap 60 for third place.

Bowyer and Larson decided to pit under green at Lap 64. One lap later, the Top 3 – Gordon, Logano, and Earnhardt – chose to come in together.

Kurt Busch inherited the lead again, followed by Kahne, Johnson, Stewart and Kenseth. But as the multiple strategies continued to play out, Johnson, Kahne and Stewart all pitted shortly after Lap 70.

Busch and Kenseth, who last pitted on Lap 44, went to first and second place. But on Lap 74, Kenseth gave up second to pit, and on Lap 75, Busch abandoned the lead to do the same.

A.J. Allmendinger inherited P1 as the leader of a group of cars that pitted on the Nemechek caution. But after that group cycled through, Gordon returned to the top of the leaderboard.

Heart of Racing program aims to elevate new generation of women to star in sports cars

By Mar 29, 2023, 12:00 PM EDT
women sports cars
Mike Levitt/LAT Images/Heart of Racing
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(Editor’s note: This story on the Heart of Racing sports cars shootout for women is one in an occasional Motorsports Talk series focusing on women in racing during March, which is Women’s History Month.)

Heart of Racing driver and team manager Ian James says his daughter, Gabby, isn’t so interested in auto racing. But she is interested (as a New York-based journalist) in writing about the sport’s efforts and growth in gender equality

It’s a topic that also was brought up by James’ wife, Kim.

“They’re always saying, ‘Hey, you manage all these guys, and you help them, so why not a woman?’ ” Ian James told NBC Sports. “And I feel like there are a lot of women that haven’t had a fair crack at it in sports car racing.

“Our whole DNA at Heart of Racing is we give people opportunities in all types of situations where there’s been crew personnel or drivers. And I felt like we hadn’t really addressed the female driver situation. I felt like there was a void to give somebody a chance to really prove themselves.”

During the offseason, the team took a major step toward remedying that.

Hannah Grisham at the Heart of Racing shootout (Mike Levitt/LAT)

Heart of Racing held its first female driver shootout last November at the APEX Motor Club in Phoenix, Arizona, to select two women who will co-drive an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the SRO SprintX Championship.

The season will begin this weekend at Sonoma Raceway with Hannah Grisham and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt behind the wheel. The team also picked a third driver, 17-year-old Annie Rhule, for a 2023 testing program.

The Phoenix audition included 10 finalists who were selected from 130 applicants to the program, which has been fully underwritten by Heart of Racing’s sponsors.

“We didn’t want it to be someone who just comes from a socio-economic background that could afford to do it on their own course,” James said. “We can pick on pure talent. We’re committed to three years to do this and see if we can find the right person. I’m very hopeful.”

So is Grisham, a Southern California native who has been racing since she was 6 in go-karts and since has won championships in Mazda and Miata ladder series. She has several victories in the World Racing League GP2 (an amateur sports car endurance series). The last two years, Grisham has worked as a test driver for the Pirelli tire company (she lives near Pirelli’s U.S. headquarters in Rome, Georgia, and tests about 30 times a year).

Starting with the Sonoma during SprintX event weekends (which feature races Saturday and Sunday), she will split the Heart of Racing car with O’Meara-Hunt (a New Zealand native she got to know at the shootout).

“It’s huge; the biggest opportunity I’ve had in this sport,” Grisham, 23, told NBC Sports. “Now it’s up to me to perform how I know I can. But I’m super lucky to be with such an amazing team and have a good teammate. The Heart of Racing has a family vibe and energy to it that’s really amazing. It’s super exciting. It’s hard to put into words.”

Grisham is hopeful that a strong performance eventually could lead to a full-time ride with Heart of Racing. The team has full-time entries in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and won the GTD category of the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona with the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 piloted by James, Darren Turner, Roman DeAngelis and Marco Sorensen.

James said “there’s no guarantee” of placement in an IMSA entry for Grisham and O’Meara-Hunt, but “if they prove themselves, we’ll continue to help them throughout their career and our team. The GT3 program is an obvious home for that. If they get the opportunity and don’t quite make it, we’ll be looking for the next two. The next three years, we’ll cycle through drivers until we find the right one.”

Grisham described the two-day shootout as a friendly but intense environment. After a day of getting acclimated to their cars, drivers qualified on new tires the second day and then did two 25-minute stints to simulate a race.

Hannah Grisham reviews data with Heart of Racing sports car driver Gray Newell during the team’s shootout last November (Mike Levitt/LAT).

“Everyone was super nice,” she said. “Once everyone gets in the car, it’s a different level. A different switch gets turned on. Everyone was super nice; everyone was quick. I feel we had an adequate amount of seat time, which is definitely helpful.

“It’s always cool to meet more women in the sport because there’s not too many of us, even though there’s more and more. It’s always cool to meet really talented women, especially there were so many from all over the world.”

IMSA has celebrated female champions and race winners, notably Katherine Legge (who is running GTD full time this season with Sheena Monk for Gradient Racing). The field at Sebring and Daytona also included the Iron Dames Lamborghini (a female-dominated team).

The Heart of Racing’s female driver shootout drew interested candidates from around the world (Mike Levitt/LAT).

James believes “a breakout female driver will be competing with the best of them” in the next five years as gender barriers slowly recede in motorsports.

“It’s been a male-dominated sport,” James said. “It’s still a very minute number of women drivers compared to the guys. I’m sure back in the day there were physical hurdles about it that were judged. But now the cars are not very physical to drive, and it’s more about technique and mental strength and stuff like that, and there’s no reason a girl shouldn’t do just as well as a guy. What we’re just trying to achieve is that there isn’t an obvious barrier to saying ‘Hey, I can’t hire a guy or a girl.’ We just want to put girls in front of people and our own program that are legitimate choices going forward for people.”

“There’s been some really good female drivers, but a lot of them just haven’t been able to sustain it, and a lot of that comes from sponsorship. I think (with the shootout), there’s no pressure of raising money and worrying about crash damage. We’ve taken care of all that so they can really focus on the job at hand.”

Funding always has been a hurdle for Grisham, who caught the racing bug from her father, Tom, an off-road driver who raced the Baja 1000 several times.

“I don’t come from a lot of money by any means,” she said. “So since a young age, I’ve always had to find sponsorships and get people to help me, whether it was buying tires, paying for entry fees, paying for the shipment of a car to an actual race. Literally knocking on the doors of people or businesses in my town.

“So yeah, it’s definitely something I’ve always struggled with and held me back because the sport revolves so much around money. So again to get this opportunity is insane.”

Rianna O’Meara-Hunt was one of two women selected by the Heart of Racing to drive in the SRO SprintX Championship this year (Mike Levitt/LAT).

Grisham credits racing pioneer Lyn St. James (an Indy 500 veteran and sports car champion) as a role model who has helped propel her career. She was hooked by the sights, smells and sounds of racing but also its competitive fire.

“There’s a zone you get in, that subconscious state of mind when you’re driving. It’s like addictive almost. I love it. Also I’m just a very competitive person as I think most race car drivers are.

“For sure I want to stay with the Heart of Racing. Obviously, I’m still getting to know everyone, but it’s a super family vibe. That’s how I grew up in the sport with just my dad and I wrenching on the cars. That’s what I love about this sport is all the amazing people you meet. And I think this is one of the most promising teams in this country. For sure, I want to learn as much as I can from them and hopefully continue. I feel so lucky and grateful to be one of those chosen.”