Chevy Wins at Dover

            Jimmie Johnson has essentially owned the Dover Motor Speedway in recent years, winning four of the last nine races at the Monster Mile.  It looked like Jimmie was going to have a chance at winning his fifth race in the past four years, but a late race penalty would cost him at his chance to win.

            Jimmie started the race in the 24^th spot.  He was fighting an ill handling race car and would

eventually fall a lap down to Kyle Busch.  Johnson would eventually get his lap back and begin a charge to the front.  He was able to work his way up to 6^th when arguably the strongest car of the day, Matt Kenseth blew his engine and brought out the caution.  Johnson took the lead when the green flag dropped again.  At that point, the five-time champion began to run away from the rest of the pack, and a win seemed inevitable.

            At that point, Denny Hamlin blew a right front tire and brought out the caution.  Juan Pablo-Montoya took two tires on his pit stop, which would put him in the lead at the restart.  Johnson would restart 2^nd.  At the restart, Montoya delayed the start, but Johnson didn’t. Johnson flew by Montoya and broke the rule saying he couldn’t pass the leader on the restart.  Johnson tried to give the position back to Montoya, but after a half a lap, he just kept on racing.  NASCAR black flagged him and made him go through a drive thru penalty.

            This put Montoya in the lead with laps beginning to wind down. However, he was battling a loose race car which slowed him down.  Tony Stewart in the number 14 Chevrolet passed him with less than four laps to go. Stewart would go on to win the 48^th race of his career with Montoya finishing 2^nd.

            This was another good weekend for Chevy.  At Dover the top three drove a Chevy.  Finishing in 4^th was the first Toyota, Kyle Busch.  The first Ford was Brad Keselowski finishing right behind Kyle.

Matthew Colan

Handy Chevrolet

NHL playoffs reaching their climax

            The NHL playoffs are now down to the final round before the Stanley Cup finals. Of the four teams that remain in the playoffs, all four of them have won a Stanley Cup in the past four years.  Those teams are the Chicago Blackhawks, LA Kings, Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Boston Bruins.  The Hawks will be taking on the Kings in the Western Conference finals.  The Penguins and Bruins face off in the Eastern Conference finals.  Chicago just pulled off nothing short of a miracle run being down 3 games to 1 heading in to game 5. 

The Blackhawks brought it all the way to game 7, and ended up winning in Overtime.  In the round previous to the one just played, Chicago took care of the Minnesota Wild without much of a problem.

            The LA Kings went 6 games against the St. Louis Blues in the first round and a full 7 against the San Jose Sharks.  The Penguins played the New York Islanders in the first round of the playoffs.  Pittsburgh and New York were tied up at 2 games apiece before the Pens took care of the next two games and went on to face the Ottawa Senators.  Pittsburgh won that series in five games.  Boston in the first round of the NHL playoffs had a tough time against the Toronto Maple Leafs but ended up victorious in 7 games.  They took care of the New York Rangers in 5 in the next round.

            So there are now 4 teams left, only two will move on.  Will it be Chicago defeating defending Stanley Cup champion LA Kings? Or will the Kings take down the Blackhawks.  Will Pittsburgh be able to fend off the Bruins, or will Boston pull off the upset and head back to the Stanley Cup?

Matthew Colan

Handy Chevrolet

Throwback Thursday

            The Stingray became synonymous with the Chevrolet Corvette when it entered production in 1963.  This was a car that Car and Driver described as, “At long last America has a formidable weapon to challenge Europe’s fastest grand touring cars on their home ground.”  The Stingray Corvette stayed in production until 1968 when the next year the C3 was debuted.  Since then, the Stingray nameplate on the Corvette has laid dormant until the all new C7 Corvette debuted at the Detroit auto show. At the reveal, it was announced that they were bringing back the Stingray with the new Corvette.

            The base engine in the 1963 Corvette produced only 250 horsepower.  On May 28^th, Chevrolet released some of the performance numbers for the 2014 Corvette. The base engine in the new Stingray makes heart pumping 455 horsepower. This makes the new Corvette the most powerful base model ever. Back in the 1960s, such options like power steering, air conditioning, and electric window cranks were an option. All of these features will be standard equipment in the new 2014 Stingray.  Such engine features like direct fuel injection and active fuel management weren’t a thought in 1963 with the first generation Stingray.  The new Corvette will have both features in their small block V-8. Direct fuel injection means that the fuel is directly injected into the combustion chamber of each cylinder, which makes the engine more fuel efficient since there is now a more precise amount of fuel being injected into each cylinder.  Active fuel management means that when the driver isn’t demanding a huge amount of power from the engine, it will deactivate four cylinders to be more fuel efficient. When power is required again, the engine will reactivate those cylinders and bring the 455 horsepower V-8 to life.

            Now the question has to be asked, which Corvette do you think is the best ever? The original Stingray, built from 1963-1967 that many consider the best Corvette ever, or the brand new 7^th generation Corvette Stingray beginning production this year.

Matthew Colan

Handy Chevrolet

Indianapolis 500 Milk Preference

        This past weekend the 97^th Indy 500 was held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. With

over 68 lead changes, a new record, it is considered to be one of the most competitive Indy 500’s in the colorful history of the race. The victor, Tony Kanaan, continued the tradition of drinking milk choosing 2 percent in his first Indy 500 win of his career. The milk tradition dates all the way back to 1936 when Victor Louis Meyer drank buttermilk after a victory because his mother had told him it was good for hot days. The tradition has been broken 1

time in the race history; in 1993 Emmerson Fitzpaldi chose orange juice over the beloved Indy milk. Every driver is asked a Milk preference before the race, this year 2 percent was the overall favorite among drivers with 16 choosing it as there choice. If you were a driver what would be your celebratory milk choice?

Colt Smelstor

handycars.com

St. Albans, VT 05478

Chevrolet Takes Two out of Three Memorial Day Races

            Memorial Day weekend is a weekend all race fans look forward to.  That is because three big races occur on the same day.  The day of races starts off in Europe with the Grand Prix at Monaco. Then at noontime begins the greatest spectacle in racing, the Indianapolis 500.  In the evening, the longest race in NASCAR starts, the Coca-Cola 600.  Chevrolet got victories in the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 taking two out of the three Memorial Day races. There were no Chevy entries in the Grand Prix, so naturally a win in that race wouldn’t occur.

            The grand prix at Monaco would go to Mercedes driver, Nico Rosburg.  Rosburg got the pole position to start the race and would go on to lead all 78 laps and score a victory for Mercedes.  Sebastian Vettel of team Red Bull would finish second, almost four seconds behind Rosburg.  Mark Webber finished third six seconds behind the leader.  Lewis Hamilton and Adrian Sutil would round out the top five.

            The 97^th annual Indianapolis 500 began with Ed Carpenter on the pole.  This race smashed previous records of the race.  There were 68 total lead changes, breaking the previous record of 34 set in 2012. 14 different drivers would go on to lead the race, which broke the record set in 1993 with 12 different leaders. This year also had the most cars finishing the race than any other previous Indy 500.  27 cars were running at the finish, breaking the record of 26 that was set all the way back in 1911. This was also the fastest Indianapolis 500 ever run with an average speed of 187.433mph.

            The winner of the 500 would go to Chevy driver Tony Kanaan.  This was TK’s 12^th try and winning the biggest Indy car race of the year and he finally was able to do so.  Rookie Carlos Munoz finished 2^nd, followed by Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti and Justin Wilson to finish up the top 5. Chevrolets took seven of the top 10 spots at Indianapolis.

            Once the Indianapolis 500 was over, it was time to get ready for the Coca-Cola 600, the longest NASCAR race of the year.  Denny Hamlin, in the number 11 Toyota was the pole sitter for the race, who would later go on to finish 4^th.  The first half of the race was run mostly under green with Matt Kenseth becoming the guy to beat.  After a miscommunication with his team and pitting early, the caution came out and that set him back in the pack.  This would prove costly as a Jimmie Johnson spin would get Matt hit from the back, and that would end his hopes at winning the 600.

            Cautions continued to wave for subsequent wrecks and debris.  The most spectacular would probably be when Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Aric Almirola went three wide, down the front stretch.  Mark went a little low and touched the right rear of Almirola’s car sending him towards Jeff Gordon and causing a six car wreck. 

            After that, the race went under green for awhile with Kasey Kahne in the number five Chevy taking the lead by a large margin.  However a debris caution would come out with 14 laps to go.  Everybody elected to pit except Kahne.  This would be Kasey’s downfall as Kevin Harvick on fresh tires passed him on the restart and would continue on to win the race. Kasey Kahne finished second and Kurt Busch finished third.  The first Toyota was Denny Hamlin finishing fourth.  Joey Logano was the first Ford in the finishing order at fifth.

            It was a great weekend for race fans and for Chevrolet.  Now we have to wait another year until the next set of Memorial Day races.

Matthew Colan

Handy Chevrolet