Penske Takes Parker Kligerman to Prom

From an ARCA Press Release

Following his sixth-place finish in Saturday's Pocono 200, Rookie of the Year Contender Parker Kligerman traveled from Long Pond, Pennsylvania, to his hometown of Westport, Conn., to attend his Senior Prom. Kligerman, a Penske Development driver for Cunningham Motorsports, has spent his senior year of high school juggling school work and fulltime ARCA RE/MAX Series competition in hopes of landing a fulltime career in motor sports.

"It's kinda a hectic schedule," said Kligerman. "I go to Staples High School. It's the public school in my hometown of West Port, Connecticut. I have a lot of support from my principal. The day that I walked into school Freshman year I said 'You know I want to be a racecar driver and I'm going to have to travel a lot.' I didn't know exactly how far I was going to go but at the time I was racing open wheel cars on the West Coast. He said as long as you keep your grades up, it's a cool endeavor, we like it. My parents said, 'well it keeps you focused so we'll support it as much as we can as long as you keep your grades up'.

"My parents, actually [were the harder sell than my principal in convincing that I should be a racecar driver]. You would think that it would have been the principal but he thought it was awesome right away."

In seven ARCA RE/MAX Series starts in 2009, Kligerman has finished outside of the top-10 on just one occasion. He earned his first Series win at Toledo Speedway on May 17.

More ARCA Newsbreakers

Trucks: Benson's ride shut down

Johnny Benson Jr. will be without a ride for the moment since Red Horse Racing has been forced to shut down the No. 1 team.

"It hasn't been for a lack of effort," owner Tom DeLoach said. "We had several people working on finding a sponsor for the No. 1 and Johnny Benson. I've been working on it myself. We gave it our best shot, and we tried as long as we could, but nothing materialized."

Our View: How tough is the economy when the defending champion of a major race sanction can't secure sponsorship? It is hard to visualize a scenario in which Benson would be a good value with any team that picks him up; most of the strong teams are already set.

More Camping World Truck Series Newsbreakers

LifeLock 400 roster posted

The roster for the NASCAR Cup LifeLock 400 has been posted and only 44 drivers are listed. In addition to the regular cast of characters Tony Raines in the No. 37, Bill Elliott and Max Papis will attempt to make the show.

Our View: This is good news for most of the "go-or-go-home" drivers. Our best guess is that Raines will be the odd man out.

LifeLock 400 roster

Pocono 500 Results

Now the questions will end. Tony Stewart kept getting closer and closer with six top-fives in his previous eight attempts and during that time, he's been strong enough to win on several occasions. This week, it took a combination of speed and strategy to beat Carl Edwards to the line.

Edwards had the dominant car for most of the afternoon, but he was forced to pedal the throttle and conserve fuel as well, which made for some drama late in the Pocono 500. Still, it could have been worse, because the second most dominant driver Jimmie Johnson ran out of gas in turn two and had to coast to the finish line in seventh.

The majority of the other top-10 finishers climbed that high on the back of their own pit strategy, and fantasy owners with good instincts were rewarded. Owners who did this by the numbers suffered early after one of the favorites Denny Hamlin broke a fuel pump on the opening lap. Even with his 38th-place finish Sunday, the flat track master has an average finish of 10.71 on this track.

Results with average finish

Finish	Start	Driver	Laps	Laps Led	Status	Avg Fin
1	1	Tony Stewart	200	39	Running	12.43
2	11	Carl Edwards	200	103	Running	12.89
3	13	David Reutimann	200		Running	26.20
4	2	Jeff Gordon	200	9	Running	10.09
5	5	Ryan Newman	200	1	Running	13.33
6	20	Marcos Ambrose	200		Running	6.00
7	3	Jimmie Johnson	200	31	Running	9.60
8	15	Juan Montoya	200		Running	24.40
9	10	Jeff Burton	200		Running	16.29
10	26	Sam Hornish Jr	200		Running	26.00
11	9	Greg Biffle	200	4	Running	17.77
12	16	Clint Bowyer	200		Running	19.57
13	22	Jamie McMurray	200	1	Running	20.69
14	21	Casey Mears	200	1	Running	20.38
15	14	Kasey Kahne	200		Running	16.45
16	8	Matt Kenseth	200	6	Running	14.26
17	32	Michael Waltrip	200		Running	21.48
18	19	Martin Truex Jr	200		Running	15.57
19	12	Mark Martin	200	1	Running	10.84
20	25	Reed Sorenson	200		Running	28.86
21	17	Brian Vickers	200		Running	15.09
22	6	Kyle Busch	200		Running	22.00
23	23	Joey Logano	200		Running	23.00
24	24	Kevin Harvick	200		Running	15.82
25	27	Elliott Sadler	200	2	Running	20.90
26	31	David Ragan	200		Running	22.80
27	18	Dale Earnhardt Jr	200		Running	16.84
28	28	Bobby Labonte	200		Running	18.00
29	33	Paul Menard	200		Running	30.00
30	30	A J Allmendinger	199		Running	25.00
31	34	Robby Gordon	199		Running	27.94
32	37	Scott Speed	199		Running	32.00
33	42	Regan Smith	198		Running	28.67
34	29	David Stremme	198		Running	27.40
35	35	John Andretti	198		Running	28.52
36	43	Dexter Bean	196		Running	36.00
37	4	Kurt Busch	182	2	Running	16.94
38	7	Denny Hamlin	178		Running	10.71
39	36	Sterling Marlin	56		Quit	17.87
40	41	Dave Blaney	37		Quit	23.53
41	39	Joe Nemechek	36		Quit	25.21
42	38	David Gilliland	34		Quit	33.00
43	40	Patrick Carpentier	32		Quit	37.50

Two-mile tracks, top-10 laps

Despite the somewhat derisive description "cookie-cutter" tracks for the similarly-configured, 1.5-mile courses, no two tracks on the circuit are closer in terms of layout than Michigan International Speedway and Auto Club Speedway—but you won't hear too many people complaining about the competition this week. That is because the two-milers offer some of the best side-by-side racing on the schedule.

On these tracks, the conventional wisdom says to load up on Roush-Fenway drivers and they have the numbers to back that up. During the last five years at Michigan and Auto Club combined, the three top drivers for the Cat in the Hat dominate the top five among laps spent inside the top 10, but they are not without opposition.

Jimmie Johnson has actually spent the most time among the leaders on this track type during the last five years. With 1,273 laps among the top 10 at Michigan and another 1,970 in California, he has been spent 73 percent of his time at the head of the field. Unfortunately, bad luck and misfortune has caused him to finish outside the top 15 eight times in the last 24 races on these two tracks and nearly all of those disappointments came at Michigan.

Carl Edwards has spent considerably less time in the top 10, but he's made the most of his opportunities. With 1,260 top-10 laps at Michigan and 1,725 at California, he's competed with the leaders for 69 percent of his possible laps and all but two of his 19 races in that span have ended in top-10 finishes.

Matt Kenseth has actually spent more time among the top 10 during the last five years than Edwards, but that is because he has five more races to his credit. In 24 starts on the two-mile tracks since the beginning of 2003, Kenseth has spent 67 percent of his laps battling for a top-10 finish and he's sealed the deal 83 percent of the time with 20 top-10 finishes in 24 starts.

Another Hendrick Motorsports driver Jeff Gordon and another Roushketeer Greg Biffle are locked in a virtual tie for fourth and fifth on the grid. Gordon has 2,534 laps in the top 10 out of a possible 4,440 during the last five years; Biffle has 2,509, which equates to 57 percent of the time. However, Biffle may be the better value this week because his top-10 laps at Michigan (1,267) are superior to Gordon's (1,081).

Top-10 laps on two-mile tracks

Driver	Michigan	California	Total	%
Jimmie Johnson	1,273	1,970	3,243	73%
Matt Kenseth	1,260	1,725	2,985	67%
Carl Edwards	1,261	1,475	2,736	69%
Jeff Gordon	1,081	1,453	2,534	57%
Greg Biffle	1,267	1,242	2,509	57%
Kyle Busch	844	1,532	2,376	59%
Kurt Busch	1,040	1,220	2,260	51%
Tony Stewart	986	1,204	2,190	49%
Kasey Kahne	604	1,452	2,056	46%
Mark Martin	630	1,234	1,864	47%
Brian Vickers	811	865	1,676	38%
Dale Earnhardt Jr	920	538	1,458	33%
Kevin Harvick	381	869	1,250	28%
Denny Hamlin	488	748	1,236	43%
Jeff Burton	289	883	1,172	26%
Jamie McMurray	368	770	1,138	26%
Ryan Newman	500	621	1,121	25%
Elliott Sadler	640	390	1,030	23%
Joe Nemechek	442	367	809	18%
Clint Bowyer	235	507	742	26%
Martin Truex Jr	256	469	725	25%
Casey Mears	485	235	720	16%
Michael Waltrip	406	152	558	13%
Sterling Marlin	254	221	475	17%
Bobby Labonte	255	137	392	9%
David Ragan	195	159	354	17%
David Reutimann	34	270	304	15%
Robby Gordon	99	130	229	5%
Reed Sorenson	131	67	198	7%
Juan Montoya	2	179	181	9%
A J Allmendinger	23	157	180	13%
Dave Blaney	105	72	177	4%
Paul Menard	28	27	55	2%
Bill Elliott	17	30	47	2%
Sam Hornish Jr	37	0	37	3%
David Gilliland	0	35	35	1%
Tony Raines	19	2	21	1%
David Stremme	5	10	15	1%
John Andretti	1	11	12	1%
Mike Skinner	3	0	3	0%
Joey Logano		0	0	0%
Marcos Ambrose	0	0	0	0%
Scott Speed		0	0	0%