2006 UAW-Ford 500

2006 UAW-Ford 500

The 2006 UAW-Ford 500 was a stock car race that took place on October 8, 2006. It was the 30th in the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the fourth in the ten-race, season-ending Chase for the nextel Cup. Brian Vickers of Hendrick Motorsports won the race; Kasey Kahne finished second, and Kurt Busch came in third.

About 2006 UAW-Ford 500 in brief

Summary 2006 UAW-Ford 500The 2006 UAW-Ford 500 was a stock car race that took place on October 8, 2006. It was the 30th in the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the fourth in the ten-race, season-ending Chase for the nextel Cup. Brian Vickers of Hendrick Motorsports won the race; Kasey Kahne finished second, and Kurt Busch came in third. David Gilliland, who had the pole position, was passed immediately by teammate Dale Jarrett. The race lead changed 63 times, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. leading for the most laps. Jeff Burton maintained his Drivers’ Championship points lead, although that lead decreased significantly because he had a flat tire during the final laps of the race. Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers’ Championship, 51 points ahead of Dodge and 52 ahead of Ford with six races remaining in the season. After the previous race at Talladega, the track’s condition was beginning to deteriorate. Cracks in the third and fourth turns were beginning to cause handling problems with the cars. A temporary storage unit was built outside the track to accommodate the asphalt needed for resurfacing the track. The entire track, including the skid pad and pit road, was resurfaced, with the work completed shortly before the race began.

The standard track is a four-turn, 2. 66-mile superspeedway. Its turns are banked 33 degrees, and its front stretch is banked at 16. 5 degrees. The back stretch also has a two-degree bank. Jeff Gordon, Jeff Gordon and Greg Biffle rounded out the top five positions, with Travis Kvapil, Chad Chaffin, Todd Bodine, Hermie Sadler, Kirk Shelmerdine and Kevin Lepage failing to qualify. Early practice speeds approached 200 miles per hour. NASCAR had mandated that the holes in the cars’ restrictor plates be reduced by 1 inch per inch, later conceding that the rule may have affected some teams more than others. According to Gilliland: “They threw a curve at us this morning with the restrictor plate and Doug Yates wasn’t worried at all. As far as I’m concerned the super-tune is up because the new asphalt remains better with the new speed.’’ The race was the 38th annual running of the event, it was held at Talladesga Superspeedway in TalladeGA, Alabama, before 160,000 spectators. Forty-nine cars were entered in the qualifier, although due to NASCAR’s qualifying procedure only forty-three could race.