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2007 Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400

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2007 Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400
Race details
Race 10 of 36 in the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series season
Richmond International Speedway
Richmond International Speedway
Date May 6, 2007 (2007-May-06)
Official name Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400
Location Richmond International Raceway, Richmond, Virginia
Course Permanent racing facility
0.75 mi (1.207 km)
Distance 400 laps, 300 mi (482.803 km)
Average speed 91.27 miles per hour (146.88 km/h)
Pole position
Driver Hendrick Motorsports
Time 21.386
Most laps led
Driver Jeff Gordon Hendrick Motorsports
Laps 114
Winner
No. 48 Jimmie Johnson Hendrick Motorsports
Television in the United States
Network Fox Broadcasting Company
Announcers Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds

The 2007 Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400 was the tenth race of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup campaign, scheduled to be run on Saturday, May 5, 2007 at Richmond International Raceway in Henrico County, Virginia, just outside the city of Richmond, Virginia's state capital. Rain postponed the race to the following afternoon. This race was the second night race of the season and the fourth to use the Car of Tomorrow template.

Naming of the Race

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In late 2006, Crown Royal decided to hold a nationwide contest to see who could write a one paragraph essay with a "Crown Worthy" moment, defined as an event so special that it deserves to be toasted with said sponsor's drink. The winner of the contest was Jim Stewart of Houma, Louisiana, who had the race named in his honor, and this contest was so popular that the "Your Name Here" 400 contest continued in 2008.

End of a streak

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Dale Jarrett, driving the #44 Toyota Camry, failed to qualify for this race, marking the first time in 424 races that he failed to make a Cup Series event, last missing the field in October 1994 at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Jarrett was hamstrung by a new rule installed in 2007 that limits past Cup champions to a total of six past champion provisionals, having used all of them through the spring race at Talladega. In addition, Jarrett drives for Michael Waltrip Racing, which have had problems since Waltrip's #55 team had been penalized severely during the qualifying for the 2007 Daytona 500. Toyotas as a whole have not fared well in their maiden season through this point in the year compared to Dodge, Chevrolet and Ford. Only once has a Toyota driver finished in the top 10 of any race (Brian Vickers at the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway).

The Race

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Jimmie Johnson was the race winner. It was his fourth win of the year, leading all drivers, and his 27th of his career. This was another dominating performance for Hendrick Motorsports, with Kyle Busch finishing second and Jeff Gordon coming in fourth.

As stated in the opening paragraph, the Jim Stewart 400 was run on Sunday afternoon, May 6 after the scheduled May 5 date was rained out. On that night, the cars ran 12 laps under green-yellow flags before the rain got heavier. The storm never relented, the race was postponed, and those laps were wiped out. The resumption covered all 400 laps.

Race notes

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  • The race, the first major professional sports event in the Commonwealth of Virginia since the Virginia Tech massacre, was dedicated to the victims of the shootings. Most drivers wore caps with the college's athletic logo, the Fox Sports broadcasters wore pins with the VT logo, and NASCAR announced a contribution of $160,000 to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. After the race, Johnson drove around the track carrying one of the VT hats; Darian Grubb, the crew chief for the #25 team, was car chief for Johnson during his 2006 championship season and crew chief for his Daytona 500 and UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 wins because of Chad Knaus' ejection and suspension, is a graduate of the college.
  • It was the first daytime race at Richmond since May 2002, which was also due to a postponement.
  • The Fox-owned station in Detroit, WJBK, showed the start of the rescheduled race live, but cut off the broadcast at 2:30 p.m. US EDT to honor an earlier commitment to show the Tigers' Major League Baseball game in Kansas City (produced by Fox Sports Net Detroit). The rest of the Jim Stewart 400 showed locally in a late-night time slot.[1] Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, local affiliate KVVU joined the race coverage 10 minutes in, but the green flag had not yet dropped at that point. On the other hand, viewers in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex were spared from this dilemma as the telecast of the Texas Rangers - Toronto Blue Jays game, produced by FSN Southwest, was moved from Fox-owned affiliate KDFW to corporate sibling (and My Network affiliate) KDFI allowing Fox 4 to carry the race. Because of a switching error, Columbia, SC affiliate WACH joined the race late, at 1:15 PM, just before the start. The station had been committed to airing a movie, and received angry phone calls demanding the race be joined, which took place just before the green flag waved.

Race results

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(*) denotes Rookie of the Year candidate.

Fin St Driver Car # Make Points Bonus Laps Winnings
1 4 Jimmie Johnson 48 Chevrolet 190 5 400 $244,286
2 34 Kyle Busch 5 Chevrolet 175 5 400 $171,225
3 6 Denny Hamlin 11 Chevrolet 170 5 400 $150,125
4 1 Jeff Gordon 24 Chevrolet 170 10 400 $185,811
5 33 Kurt Busch 2 Dodge 160 5 400 $139,858
6 30 Ryan Newman 12 Dodge 155 5 400 $123,950
7 27 Kevin Harvick 29 Chevrolet 151 5 400 $132,886
8 22 Tony Stewart 20 Chevrolet 147 5 400 $127,236
9 20 Clint Bowyer 7 Chevrolet 138 400 $87,975
10 28 Matt Kenseth 17 Ford 139 5 400 $126,466
11 10 Dave Blaney 22 Toyota 135 5 400 $104,183
12 2 Carl Edwards 99 Ford 127 400 $83,575
13 7 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 8 Chevrolet 124 400 $116,358
14 23 J. J. Yeley 18 Chevrolet 121 400 $101,008
15 18 Bobby Labonte 43 Dodge 118 400 $110,911
16 43 Paul Menard * 15 Chevrolet 115 400 $69,100
17 9 Mark Martin 1 Chevrolet 117 5 400 $95,683
18 15 Casey Mears 25 Chevrolet 109 400 $78,550
19 32 Greg Biffle 16 Ford 106 400 $84,625
20 29 David Ragan * 6 Ford 103 400 $108,875
21 37 Reed Sorenson 41 Dodge 100 400 $92,083
22 19 Tony Raines 96 Chevrolet 102 5 399 $80,200
23 36 Sterling Marlin 14 Chevrolet 94 399 $82,008
24 12 Jeff Green 66 Chevrolet 91 399 $86,697
25 35 Kyle Petty 45 Dodge 88 399 $69,400
26 16 Juan Montoya * 42 Dodge 85 399 $103,250
27 40 Elliott Sadler 19 Dodge 82 398 $86,770
28 8 Martin Truex Jr. 1 Chevrolet 79 398 $94,645
29 14 David Reutimann * 0 Toyota 76 398 $67,675
30 3 Scott Riggs 10 Dodge 73 397 $73,200
31 31 Johnny Benson 146 Toyota 70 397 $64,875
32 13 A. J. Allmendinger * 84 Toyota 67 396 $64,750
33 38 Joe Nemechek 13 Chevrolet 64 393 $64,625
34 42 Robby Gordon 7 Ford 61 378 $65,450
35 24 Ward Burton 4 Chevrolet 58 370 $65,375
36 17 Johnny Sauter 70 Chevrolet 55 370 $64,225
37 11 Ricky Rudd 88 Ford 52 369 $95,133
38 21 David Stremme 40 Dodge 49 362 $63,975
39 26 Kenny Wallace 78 Chevrolet 46 331 $63,850
40 5 Kasey Kahne 9 Dodge 43 314 $110,916
41 25 Jamie McMurray 26 Ford 40 301 $71,580
42 41 David Gilliland 38 Ford 37 275 $90,669
43 39 Jeff Burton 31 Chevrolet 34 139 $103,599

Notes and references

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Previous race:
2007 Aaron's 499
Nextel Cup Series
2007 season
Next race:
2007 Dodge Avenger 500