FONTANA, Calif. — A group of Michael Waltrip Racing team members had a little more excitement than they would have liked on the flight from North Carolina to Southern California for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
A two-engine Bombardier CRJ-200 with 44 team members and a crew of four made an emergency landing Thursday in Las Vegas after one of its engines developed a problem.
Ty Norris, vice president and general manager of MWR, said the plane left from Statesville, N.C., made a fuel stop in Salinas, Kan., and was flying at about 38,000 feet when the left engine lost oil pressure and the pilots shut it down.
“For those of us on the airplane, we didn’t even know what was going on until they told us,” Norris said. “I’ve been hearing a lot of things about what it must have been like on the plane. Honestly, when we descended into Las Vegas, the plane operated flawlessly on one engine and we landed with absolutely zero incident.
“The only thing that was different about the landing was the safety trucks and fire trucks waiting for us at the Las Vegas airport.”
Norris said the whole thing sounds more dramatic than it really was.
“Obviously, it’s always a concern when you have a dual-engine plane that only flies on one,” he said. “But the pilots were flawless. Not to discount the fact that it’s a scary situation, but the way the pilots handled it, we landed without incident got on a bus and got here last night.”
The four-hour bus trip was without incident.
None of the teams drivers were on the plane because all of them had flown out earlier in the week to take part in a meeting at Toyota Racing Development’s headquarters in Torrance.
GETTING GOING: The Cup season officially began last week at Daytona, but Carl Edwards figures this weekend’s Auto Club 500 is going to answer a lot more questions.
“I think the season really starts here,” said Edwards, the media pick as the preseason favorite to dethrone three-time reigning champion Jimmie Johnson.
“Daytona is such a huge event and it’s a different type of racing than we’re going to race the rest of the season, and it kind of stands alone, literally and figuratively. I really feel like this is where you’re going to see how strong your pit crew is, how good your relationship is with your crew chief, and if the engineering you’ve been working on works.
“And the things that work here are going to apply at a lot of race tracks,” last year’s series runner-up added. “So, yeah, everyone’s playing close attention. We’re racing now. We’re going to be doing the same thing week after week for 34 or 35 more weeks.”
CHAMPION’S REWARD: After all the excitement of winning the Daytona 500 and making a promotional trip to New York and San Francisco, Matt Kenseth knew exactly what he wanted to do next.
“Just sleep,” he said Friday, grinning. “Just try to eat good and sleep.
“Actually, I didn’t get that great of sleep last night, but I’ve been getting caught up a little bit. I was fairly tired on Monday and I got a lot of sleep, actually Monday night, and was more tired Tuesday, and then got not that much sleep Tuesday night, a lot Wednesday night, a lot Thursday night and feel like I’m almost back to normal.”
Kenseth said finally getting back in his No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford Friday was like a big wake-up call.
“Getting back to the normal weekend schedule, like we do every weekend, with normal three-day weekends, getting on the track and doing all of that will probably get me more prepared for (racing again) than anything else.”
ROYAL TOUCH: Kasey Kahne says one of the best parts about the merger last month of Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Enterprises into Richard Petty Motorsports is getting to spend time with NASCAR’s longtime King.
“You see The King all day,” Kahne said. “Whether he’s a part of your team or not, the guy walks. He’s always around. I’ll run into him five times today and he won’t be looking for me once.
“I ran into him when I got here this morning. We just crossed paths walking and we sat there and talked for about 10 minutes. Usually, when I run into him, it’s because we’re walking the same path at the same time. He’s on the run always.”
Kahne said Petty is more than just an icon of the stock car sport.
“He’s just a cool guy that’s done a ton in this sport,” he said. “It gives everybody a good attitude.”
SPARK PLUGS: Kyle Busch, doing his usual triple this weekend — racing in Cup, Nationwide and trucks — captured his third career Camping World Truck Series pole Friday. His lap of 174.161 mph easily beat defending champion Johnny Benson’s 172.683. … Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon lead all active drivers with three wins each on Auto Club Speedway’s 2-mile oval, while Matt Kenseth leads in top-10s with 10 in 14 starts. … Johnson has the best average finish among the Cup drivers at 5.917.
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