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2007 Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400

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2007 Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400

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)

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 to have served as the second night race of the season and the fourth to use the Car of Tomorrow template.

Contents

Naming of the Race

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

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

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 results

(*) denotes Rookie of the Year candidate.

References

2007 Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400 Wikipedia