Duck Commander 500

Duck Commander 500
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Venue Texas Motor Speedway
Corporate sponsor Duck Commander
First race 1997
Distance 501 miles (806.281 km)
Laps 334
Previous names Interstate Batteries 500 (1997)
Texas 500 (1998)
Primestar 500 (1999)
DirecTV 500 (2000)
Harrah's 500 (2001)
Samsung / RadioShack 500 (2002–2006)
Samsung 500 (2007–2009)
Samsung Mobile 500 (2010–2012)
NRA 500 (2013)

The Duck Commander 500 is a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race held at Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Even though it is advertised as a "500 mile" race, because TMS is a track that is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) in length, the actual race distance is 501 miles (806.3 km).

Race history

The first two runnings of the race were controversial, crash-strewn affairs, with universal criticism that the track's design was one groove; Kenny Wallace argued, "They're so busy building condos they don't have time to fix the racetrack."

There were 10 different winners in the first ten races, the longest such streak for any NASCAR track in the Sprint Cup Series. This list includes Texas Native Terry Labonte, who won in 1999, and Dale Earnhardt Jr winning his first race in 2000. Jeff Burton, the winner of the inaugural race, broke that streak by getting his second Texas win in a last lap pass in 2007. In 2011, the race became a Saturday night event, whereas before it was always a Sunday afternoon race. This was done since the night race at Phoenix was moved to February and became a day race. The 2011 race was run on April 9, 2011 and was the first scheduled night race of the season, and in Texas Motor Speedway history for the Cup Series.

In 2013, NASCAR became involved in controversy when the National Rifle Association (NRA) began to sponsor the race; although race sponsorships are negotiated with the track owner, not NASCAR itself, the sanctioning organization has final approval and did not object to the sponsorship.[1][2][3][4] Both NASCAR's acceptance of this sponsorship, and its timing, has been controversial, and offensive to gun control activists.[5][6][7][8] Because of the sponsorship, Senator Chris Murphy asked Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns Fox Sports, which was scheduled to air the race, to not broadcast it.[9] Fox broadcast the race as scheduled, not least because failure to do so would have been a breach of the network's contract with NASCAR. However, Fox only used the official sponsored name once per hour (the minimum mandated by NASCAR) and otherwise referred to it generically (in this case as the "Texas 500"), the network's usual practice when a race's title sponsor does not buy ads during the race broadcast; the NRA reportedly did not seek to purchase any such ads.[1]

In 2014, the race returned to being a Sunday afternoon race because of the NCAA Men's basketball Final Four games being held at AT&T Stadium in nearby Arlington, so that the race occurs on a day in between tournament games.[10] On February 6, 2014, Duck Commander, the business that is the subject of the TV show Duck Dynasty, bought the naming rights for the race.[11] The race returned to its Saturday night date in 2015.[12]

Grandfather clause

Samsung sponsored the race from 2002–2012, while RadioShack was previously a co-sponsor. The joint sponsorship was grandfathered in 2003 by NASCAR's grandfather clause when Nextel became a NASCAR sponsor, as they banned rival wireless sponsorships (Nextel used Motorola exclusively); the ban was lifted after the 2005 merger of Sprint and Nextel because Sprint is sold at RadioShack, and Sprint offers Samsung products.

Past winners

Year Date Driver Team Manufacturer Race Distance Race Time Average Speed
(mph)
Report
Laps Miles (km)
1997 April 6 Jeff Burton Roush Racing Ford 334 501 (806.281) 4:00:16 125.111 Report
1998 April 5 Mark Martin Roush Racing (2) Ford 334 501 (806.281) 3:39:47 136.771 Report
1999 March 28 Terry Labonte Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 334 501 (806.281) 3:28:21 144.276 Report
2000 April 2 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Chevrolet 334 501 (806.281) 3:49:12 131.152 Report
2001 April 1 Dale Jarrett Robert Yates Racing Ford 334 501 (806.281) 3:31:59 141.804 Report
2002 April 8* Matt Kenseth Roush Racing (3) Ford 334 501 (806.281) 3:31:01 142.453 Report
2003 March 30 Ryan Newman Penske Racing Dodge 334 501 (806.281) 3:43:28 134.517 Report
2004 April 4 Elliott Sadler Robert Yates Racing (2) Ford 334 501 (806.281) 3:36:30 138.845 Report
2005 April 17 Greg Biffle Roush Racing (4) Ford 334 501 (806.281) 3:51:08 130.055 Report
2006 April 9 Kasey Kahne Evernham Motorsports Dodge 334 501 (806.281) 3:37:55 137.943 Report
2007 April 15 Jeff Burton (2) Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 334 501 (806.281) 3:39:41 143.359 Report
2008 April 6 Carl Edwards Roush Fenway Racing (5) Ford 339* 508.5 (818.351) 3:30:41 144.814 Report
2009 April 5 Jeff Gordon Hendrick Motorsports (2) Chevrolet 334 501 (806.281) 3:25:22 146.372 Report
2010 April 19* Denny Hamlin Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota 334 501 (806.281) 3:25:34 146.230 Report
2011* April 9 Matt Kenseth (2) Roush Fenway Racing (6) Ford 334 501 (806.281) 3:21:26 149.231 Report
2012 April 14 Greg Biffle (2) Roush Fenway Racing (7) Ford 334 501 (806.281) 3:07:12 160.577 Report
2013 April 13 Kyle Busch Joe Gibbs Racing (2) Toyota 334 501 (806.281) 3:27:40 144.751 Report
2014 April 7*[13] Joey Logano Team Penske (2) Ford 340* 510 (820.765) 3:39:02 134.191 Report
2015 April 11 Jimmie Johnson Hendrick Motorsports (3) Chevrolet 334 501 (806.281) 3:33:57 140.5 Report

Multiple winners (drivers)

# Wins Driver Years Won
2 Jeff Burton 1997, 2007
Matt Kenseth 2002, 2011
Greg Biffle 2005, 2012

Multiple winners (teams)

# Wins Team Years Won
7 Roush Fenway Racing 1997, 1998, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2012
3 Hendrick Motorsports 1999, 2009, 2015
2 Robert Yates Racing 2001, 2004
Joe Gibbs Racing 2010, 2013
Team Penske 2003, 2014

Manufacturer wins

# Wins Manufacturer Years Won
10 Ford 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2014
5 Chevrolet 1999, 2000, 2007, 2009, 2015
2 Dodge 2003, 2006
Toyota 2010, 2013

Television broadcasters

Year Network Lap-by-lap Color commentator(s)
1997 CBS Ken Squier Ned Jarrett
Buddy Baker
1998 Mike Joy
1999
2000
2001 Fox Darrell Waltrip
Larry McReynolds
2002 Fox/FX
2003 Fox
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016 Darrell Waltrip
Jeff Gordon

Notes

References

  1. 1 2 Ryan, Nate (2013-03-04). "National Rifle Association sponsors NASCAR Sprint Cup race". Usatoday.com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
  2. Short Bus (2013-03-08). "NASCAR NRA 500". Daily Kos. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
  3. ASSOCIATED PRESS (2013-03-05). "NRA Nascar sponsorship: Texas race will be known as NRA 500 - Associated Press". Politico.Com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
  4. "NRA to be title sponsor for NASCAR Cup race in Texas". Fox News. March 5, 2013. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
  5. Zach Bowman RSS feed Google+. "Conn. Senator Murphy urges NASCAR to reconsider NRA race sponsorship [w/poll]". Autoblog.com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
  6. politicalnews.me - Free Press Release Distribution Center. "New MURPHY URGES NASCAR TO REVERSE DECISION TO NAME NEW RACE NRA 500". Politicalnews.me. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
  7. Populi, Vox. "Vox Populi: 'Now that the NRA is sponsoring a NASCAR race, I'm glad I stopped following NASCAR years ago.'". savannahnow.com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
  8. Terkel, Amanda (April 8, 2013). "NRA 500 NASCAR Race Will Be Free From Gun Group Propaganda, Says Organizer". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
  9. Gendreau, LeAnne; Schulz, Sam (2013-04-11). "Conn. Senator to Rupert Murdoch: Don't Air NRA-500 Race". KNTV. Retrieved 2013-04-11.
  10. "Texas Motor Speedway alters race schedule with NCAA Final Four in Dallas"
  11. Owens, Jeff (February 6, 2014). "Duck Dynasty stars to sponsor NASCAR race at Texas". Sporting News. Retrieved February 6, 2014.
  12. "NASCAR reveals 2015 schedules for national series". NASCAR. August 26, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
  13. Hawkins, Stephen (April 6, 2014). "Rain postpones NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway". Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved April 6, 2014.

External links

Previous race:
STP 500
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Duck Commander 500
Next race:
Food City 500
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