Tony Stewart came from 11th to win the Chase race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, after rain removed qualifying and a multi-car wreck on lap 310 bunched the field.
Held on 29 October 2006 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, this Nextel Cup race was won by Tony Stewart from 11th on the grid. Jimmie Johnson finished second, 1.195 seconds behind, after a race with nine cautions and 24 lead changes, and it was Stewart's fourth win of the season.
The 2006 Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 was a NASCAR Nextel Cup race held on 29 October 2006 at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia. Tony Stewart won it from 11th on the grid, finishing 1.195 seconds ahead of Jimmie Johnson after a race of nine cautions and 24 lead changes. The event was the seventh of the ten-race Chase for the Nextel Cup, and it was run out with a series of late cautions.
What was at stake in the Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500?
The race was the thirty-third of thirty-six scheduled stock car races in 2006, and the seventh Chase event.
Matt Kenseth led the Drivers' Championship with 5,848 points. Kevin Harvick was thirty-six points behind in second, and Jimmie Johnson was a further five points back in third. Denny Hamlin and Jeff Burton were separated by a single point in fourth and fifth. Chevrolet had already been confirmed as the manufacturers' champion six races earlier, and Carl Edwards was the defending winner of the race.
Rain removed qualifying, nine cautions shuffled the order, and Stewart still found the lead on the final restart.
What was the track like?
Atlanta Motor Speedway is a 2.48 km (1.54 mile) four-turn quad-oval. Its turns are banked at 24 degrees, while the front stretch, where the finish line sits, and the back stretch are banked at 5 degrees. The banking differs sharply between the corners and the straights, which asks a lot of the car's balance.
Who was in the field for the race?
Champ Car driver A. J. Allmendinger made his Nextel Cup debut in the No. 83 Red Bull Racing car, replacing 1988 Winston Cup champion Bill Elliott. The change was made so that Allmendinger could familiarise himself with stock car racing ahead of the team's full-time debut at the 2007 Daytona 500. Elliott moved to R&J Racing and drove its No. 37 car.
David Ragan was not cleared by NASCAR to run at Atlanta, because he had little experience on one and a half mile tracks, and Roush Racing withdrew his entry.
Why was there no qualifying at Atlanta?
Constant heavy rain forced officials to cancel all of Friday's scheduled activity, including the qualifying session that afternoon. The starting order was therefore set by where each driver stood in the owners' championship. That gave Kenseth the pole and left Harvick alongside him on the front row.
The next eight starters, in order, were Johnson, Hamlin, Burton, Earnhardt, Martin, Kahne, Gordon and Kyle Busch. Four drivers failed to make the race because they were outside the top 35 in the owners' standings: Derrike Cope, Kirk Shelmerdine, Mike Skinner and Allmendinger. Kevin Lepage had withdrawn before qualifying for undisclosed reasons, but he was later restored to the entry list.
Kenseth said he was happy to start up front, and he suggested he would not have been there without the rain.
How did practice go before the race?
Practice was limited by the weather. The first session was moved to Saturday morning and ran for an hour, while the final session lasted 45 minutes. Carl Edwards was fastest in the first session with a lap of 29.516 seconds, and Kasey Kahne was quickest in the final session with 29.512 seconds, with Casey Mears second and Dale Earnhardt third.
Several teams had mechanical problems in practice. The engines in the cars of Robby Gordon and Ken Schrader failed, and their teams changed engines. Earnhardt spun on cold tyres after leaving pit road but avoided the wall, and the car of Kenny Wallace's replacement, Terry Cook, lost a window.
How did the race start and open up?
The race began at 3:08 p.m., after NBC's live coverage started at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. During the pace laps Robby Gordon and Ken Schrader moved to the back after changing engines, and Elliott did the same for a transmission change. Harvick accelerated faster than Kenseth off the line and got around the outside to lead the first lap. The first caution came on lap two, when Kyle Busch lost control in turn three, spun and clipped Brian Vickers' car.
Earnhardt climbed from sixth to third by lap three and took the lead on lap 10 after passing Harvick on the outside. Tony Stewart then overtook Harvick, Kenseth and Gordon over the next few laps, and he moved past Earnhardt for the lead on lap 24. Earnhardt slipped to fourth after Gordon and Harvick passed him on laps 25 and 30.
How did the lead change in the middle of the race?
The first round of green-flag stops began a few laps after lap 46, when Kahne pitted early to remove a coil spring and fix a vibration caused by a worn tyre. Stewart pitted on lap 55 for an air pressure adjustment, which gave the lead to Gordon. Gordon went ahead of Earnhardt on lap 109, and Earnhardt retook the lead on that same lap before Gordon claimed it on the outside five laps later.
A second caution for debris in turn two came on lap 82, and all of the leaders pitted under it. Gordon was later caught in a wall after an incident with Nemechek, which let Stewart pass him for the lead and pull away. A third caution followed on lap 170, when Gordon had a flat tyre in turn two and was hit from behind by Jamie McMurray, who had been blinded by sunlight glare.
Stewart kept the lead through the restarts, although Earnhardt took it from him on the following lap. Johnson then closed in and passed Stewart in traffic on lap 238. The fifth caution, on lap 243, came when Ryan Newman crashed into a wall on the backstretch and scattered debris across the track.
What happened in the closing laps?
The late stages were full of incidents. A sixth caution came on the lap after the restart, when Kahne steered across the track into Stremme, and both cars went heavily into the wall. Stewart passed Johnson about five laps later to reclaim the lead. The seventh caution followed a section of foam-rubber roll bar padding left on the backstretch.
The eighth caution came a few laps later, when the front right wheel bearing on Truex's car failed, and he hit the wall and left fluid on the track. The ninth and final caution, on lap 310, followed a multi-car accident in turn two. Wallace drove onto the apron and collided with Jeff Green, then Sterling Marlin braked hard and was hit by Mark Martin, who was in turn struck by Dale Jarrett, with Mears and Clint Bowyer also caught up.
Earnhardt led at the restart on lap 315, but Stewart got past him heading into turn four and stayed in front until the flag. Johnson finished second, and Earnhardt held off a late challenge from Kenseth to take third by 0.007 seconds.
What were the top finishing positions?
| Position | Driver | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tony Stewart | Won from 11th; led seven times for 146 laps |
| 2 | Jimmie Johnson | Second after a slow start and a strong late run |
| 3 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | Third, 0.007 seconds ahead of Kenseth |
| 4 | Matt Kenseth | Started from the pole; fourth at the finish |
| 5 | Greg Biffle | Fifth |
| 6 | Jeff Gordon | Sixth |
| 7 | Carl Edwards | Seventh |
| 8 | Denny Hamlin | Eighth, with a poor-handling car for much of the day |
What penalties and roll bar issues followed the race?
The roll bar padding that caused the seventh caution led to a dispute. Burton had cut a tyre earlier in the race and blamed the roll bar padding, and he asked NASCAR to stop cars on pit road and penalise any without a roll bar. Television footage appeared to show Robby Gordon throwing a roll bar out of his car, but NASCAR first called the evidence inconclusive. Series director John Darby said inspectors would search every car as it was loaded into its hauler to check for a missing roll bar.
After a further review and a re-inspection of Gordon's car, officials fined Gordon $15,000, docked him 50 points in the owners and drivers' championships, and fined his crew chief, Greg Erwin, $10,000. Both were placed on probation until 31 December 2006.
What did the result mean for the championship?
The win kept Kenseth in front of the Drivers' Championship with 6,008 points. Johnson's second place moved him to second with 5,982 points, and Hamlin moved up to third. Earnhardt progressed from sixth to fourth, level on points with Burton. Harvick dropped to sixth after a poor finish, and several drivers, including Gordon, Martin, Kahne and Kyle Busch, were mathematically ruled out of the title fight.
Stewart's win was his fourth of the season. He later said that not being in the Chase had helped ease the pressure on him.
What did the drivers say after the race?
Stewart said that being outside the Chase let him race without the pressure the contenders faced. Johnson said the team had been slow to start, but that its speed had finally shown up in the results. Earnhardt Jr. said he had not been ready for the pit stop under the eighth caution, when the field was swapping and carrying on around him.
Kahne admitted he was at fault for the crash with Stremme, and Hamlin said he could not get a grip on the track. Kenseth said it felt good to run with the leaders, given that other drivers' problems had put him in the points lead. Burton, meanwhile, called for stricter enforcement of the roll bar rule, because he felt the padding issue came up too often.
How was the race covered?
NBC televised the race live, starting at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The pre-race ceremony opened with an invocation from the track chaplain, Bill Brannon, and a performance of the national anthem by the band DecembeRadio. Television host Bill Dance led representatives from Bass Pro Shops in the call to start engines.