|| *Comments on the 2001 Protection One 400:* View the most recent comment <#48> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. Heather posted: 02.08.2005 - 6:25 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Jeff Gordon wins the inaugural race at Kansas :) 2. Darrell posted: 04.01.2006 - 2:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) 13 cautions in this race, which is more than the track will ever see in the rest of its races combined. 3. Miller4Prez6 posted: 05.07.2006 - 2:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) Rusty was the car to beat, but ended up 4th 4. Jesse posted: 08.20.2006 - 4:41 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Rusty dominated until he was penalized by nascar for jumping the restart (while he was leading the race). 5. mike posted: 10.30.2006 - 3:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) rusty was penalized for speeding on pit road, he sped up and passed another car while exiting the pits, too bad to, he got back in traffic and the car aeropushed 6. myself posted: 02.21.2007 - 4:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (3) Last race for "The Squeal" in the #12. Had had a pretty decent tenure there. 7. biffle16 posted: 03.17.2007 - 3:49 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) What, in the name of everything holy, is a "squeal"? 8. myself posted: 03.19.2007 - 4:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (4) "The Squeal," at the time, was the driver of the 12 car. He later drove the 19 car, & now pilots the 36 car (that, as of this moment, has yet to qualify for a race). 9. smartliberal posted: 03.24.2007 - 3:52 pm Rate this comment: (5) (3) If you just said Jeremy Mayfield maybe more people would listen to you 10. Andy S posted: 06.09.2007 - 5:02 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Note that Robby Gordon replaced Mike Skinner in the RCR Lowe's 31. As I recall, Mike had a disagreement with one of his teammates a race or two previous and sassed Richard Childress in the pit area. Ooops. 11. RaceFanX posted: 11.28.2007 - 3:25 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Andy Houston's last Cup race 12. Anonymous posted: 12.14.2007 - 12:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jason Leffler's only Cup pole 13. myself posted: 02.29.2008 - 9:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (2) What was the reason for the fallout between The Squeal & the 12 team, anyway? 14. samfan08 posted: 03.09.2008 - 10:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dale Jarrett says that to this day he doesn't remember this race because of the hit he took. 15. Rad83 posted: 07.29.2008 - 4:12 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Mayfield's #12 was orignally the #37 ride owned by Michael Kranefuss. Penske and Kranefuss merged the 2 teams just before the 1998 season. At the end of the 2000 season, Penske bought out Kranefuss. You see, Mayfield and Penske never truly liked each other, and after the buyout plus the bad luck of Mayfield things detieriated to the point where Jeremy and Roger mutually parted ways. WEll, I hope that explains that. 16. Darrell posted: 09.13.2008 - 4:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) "myself" must be an Evernham supporter. 17. Kevin posted: 11.24.2008 - 12:13 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Ryan Newman came close to winning prior to an 'official' rookie year 18. Rob posted: 01.27.2009 - 10:24 pm Rate this comment: (3) (0) This cup race saw another debut that has been forgotten and in this case that is a good thing. I am talking about the Victory Lane Gate. Basicially NASCAR was having problems with winners cars failing inspection because the driver got on the roof which alledgedly caused the car to drop below minimum height. NASCAR's solution rather than just telling the drivers to stay off the roof was a thing made out of PVC pipe that two officials would hold over the driver side door which would not allow drivers on top of their car. It lasted three races and in those three races it became the butt of many jokes. 19. Art D posted: 06.26.2009 - 11:43 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) 58th career win for J. Gordon 20. Evan posted: 03.11.2011 - 4:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The hit Jarrett took in this race, kind of affected him career-wise, in 2002 he'd win just 2 races and then in 2003 he would win one and 2004 he won the Shootout and did not have a another victory until '05 but Robert Yates was a downtrodden program by '05 and '06 which may have contributed to the downturn in performance. I also thought the team got rid of Mike Skinner because of his injuries, I did not know he got an attitude with Childress and another teammate. Also, the reason he calls Mayfield a squeal was because he whined himself out of a ride at Penske then at Evernham he was to be the top driver until Kasey kahne came along and his team never got to where it wanted to be, Mayfield has always struggled with being second fiddle to other drivers, thats why he's the squeal, That's my theory, whats yours? 21. Schroeder51 posted: 03.25.2011 - 10:50 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Ward Burton threw a water bottle at Jerry Nadeau's car after Nadeau turned him and took out Todd Bodine as well. 22. Cooper posted: 06.02.2011 - 12:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sterling Marlin and the #40 team ran a special Red, White and Blue paint scheme. It was blue at the front with silver stars, with the back of the car being white and red. On the rear quarter panel it read "Proud to be American". 23. Schroeder51 posted: 06.07.2011 - 7:10 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) They didn't even make it through Turn 1 before Casey Atwood lost it underneath Stacy Compton and spun and collected John Andretti. 24. RaceFanX posted: 04.11.2012 - 9:54 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Sponsors: #10 Johnny Benson, Jr.- Valvoline MaxLife #88 Dale Jarrett- UPS We Want to Race the Truck #40 Sterling Marlin- Proud to be an American (Coors Light took their name off the car for this race) #36 Ken Schrader- Pedigree Dale Jarrett ran a solid UPS brown Ford in this race with a lot of flames painted on. It was a sharp-looking car but given how this race ended for him its not surprising he didn't run those colors again in 2002 or ever. 25. Will posted: 10.29.2012 - 1:24 am Rate this comment: (3) (1) Mayfield was definitely unhappy with where he was at with Penske at the time. I recall him mentioning that they brought a short track car to Kansas and had no idea why. They predictably ran terribly. Mayfield did admit a couple years later that he was immature while with Penske and was also part of the reason why he didn't get along with Rusty. As for the Evernham deal, Jeremy should be rightfully displeased with what happened there. After Bill retired, Jeremy should have been the top dog. He ran better than Kasey in 2004 and 2005, making the Chase both years while Kasey missed out (don't take this the wrong way, Kasey is a good driver). So how does Evernham treat Jeremy? By taking all of his cars and crew and giving them to Kasey. Riggs joined on the team as the third driver and was given Kahne's car and crew. That left Jeremy with the R&D crap. Naturally, he ran poorly in '06, all the while Evernham was running around with Erin (whatever happened to her anyway?) not giving two craps about Jeremy's team. He never got a chance with another upper tier ride after that. /rant 26. kidracer posted: 05.25.2013 - 11:05 am Rate this comment: (0) (2) Dosent look like that the Squeal will be back in a car again. 27. Anonymous posted: 09.11.2013 - 8:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) Erin Crocker's career imploded after it came out what she was doing with her car owner. 28. RaceFanX posted: 09.11.2013 - 8:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Derrike Cope's only start of 2001. It was a rough year as he attempted a few races in his own #37 car and didn't make any of them and would attempt two more races in the CLR #57 and DNQ for both of those as well. 29. Evan posted: 04.06.2014 - 8:55 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) * I can't believe anyone has not mentioned this one yet, the last race win for Jeff Gordon in 2001 and the final race win for Jeff while married to Brooke Gordon, they divorced in 2002 which really seemed to mess with Jeff's performance that year, all the while trying to get JJ's team up to speed. Jeff didn't win until the fall at the 2002 Sharpie 500. * I have a diecast of the Proud to Be an American car Sterling Marlin ran in this race, at the time I thought it ran at Dover but it ran at Kansas instead, interestingly both Jarrett and Marlin's paint schemes came out in Winner's Circle diecast form. 30. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 06.20.2014 - 4:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Owner Update #27 Jack Birmingham 31. Evan posted: 07.28.2014 - 4:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Race Sponsor 2001 Protection 400 presented by Sprint Sprint was co-sponsor of this race. Saw it on the run-up to the race. I watched the race and remembered seeing come up on the screen. 32. kidracer posted: 10.05.2014 - 12:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Casey Atwood has an average finish of 42.5 in the races he attempted here and a total of 5 laps of 534 while Jeff Gordon had an average finish of 1 in the two years. 33. 88&4Fan posted: 07.07.2015 - 6:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) Does anyone know why Mayfield was fired from Penske? He wasn't that bad and it was well before the meth issues. 34. nascarman posted: 07.07.2015 - 6:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Mayfield wasn't happy with the way the 12 car was running. He asked Penske to be released at the end of the year but they decided it would be best to split now so they could both get set up for 2002 quicker. The plan was that Mayfield would drive a third Evernham car sponsored by McDonalds in 2002 but McDonalds pulled out of NASCAR so Atwood was sent off to the #7 car next year. Mayfield also talked with Richard Childress about driving the #31 car in 2002 but Cingular wanted Robby Gordon instead. 35. Anthony posted: 02.06.2016 - 1:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Some hard hits in this race 36. Windows Millennium Edition posted: 03.14.2016 - 10:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Withdrew: WD|Morgan Shepherd|89|Racing for Jesus|Morgan Shepherd|Ford 37. RaceFanX posted: 08.23.2016 - 6:25 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Dale Jarrett's hard wreck in this race left him with a serious concussion although he kept racing. Jarrett has since said the after effects of that wreck affected his decision making for nine to 10 years afterward, including the rest of his driving career. He never was quite the same driver afterward. 38. BlackChevy14 posted: 11.30.2016 - 1:01 pm Rate this comment: (3) (0) Correction on the Skinner teammate run-in/pit road "sass" of Childress comment above, you're thinking of Jeff Green in May of 2003 at Richmond. Same colored cars (blue and yellow with red trim), same owner, easy mistake to make, but as far as I know Skinner was let go to go ahead and have knee surgery to repair the knee he injured in the inaugural Chicagoland race earlier that year while - as with Mayfield and Penske - giving the 31 team a head-start with Gordon. 39. Goernie28 posted: 04.21.2017 - 3:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I just listened to the MRN broadcast of this race. Mayfield said his team brought a short track car to a superspeedway race. He was very critical of the decision during his radio interview. From what I recall, that's one thing Roger Penske doesn't tolerate well. That may have sped the decision to part ways after this race. 40. Josh posted: 05.31.2018 - 6:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Johnny Benson, Jr. was running second at the time of his engine failure. 41. Greg1&9Fan posted: 08.20.2018 - 12:36 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Rusty just wasn't meant to win these 1.5 mile races later in his career. 42. Chris posted: 09.05.2018 - 9:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) To #29 post - Evan As you mentioned Jeff and Gordon was going through a divorce; but IMO that didn't play with his head. The divorce was pretty bitter and she even got a Judge to force him to show his winnings and many other things relevant to NASCAR that NASCAR didn't want released to the public. As far as Gordon's performance; since the divorce was in progress; much of the monitary amount was looked ta based on his CURRENT winnings; so he just laid down and didn't race as hard to keep his winnings lower; thus greatly reducing his settlement 43. Kevin Colley posted: 09.05.2018 - 10:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) So you are saying that Gordon sandbagged intentionally in 2002 in order to keep his ex-wife from earning more money on the divorce settlement?! Wow. What a take. It's certainly logical, but I've never heard that before. 44. Wil posted: 09.06.2018 - 2:24 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Na that's garbage. The more he made in winnings, the more his wife would get sure, but also the more he'd make for himself. There are other reasons why that's a garbage take but it's not worth my time. 45. Anonymous posted: 09.06.2018 - 8:05 am Rate this comment: (2) (0) That's like those people who think earning less money is better because you pay less in taxes. 46. Foote posted: 03.28.2020 - 11:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was the inaugural Cup race at Kansas. Before soft walls were invented, this race track was DANGEROUS. Dale Jarrett had a brutal driver's side crash that left him with a severe concussion. He said that after he had no memory of any details of the race, or even getting to the track. Jarrett missed no races, and his next finishes were 6th and 2nd. Likewise, after Greg Biffle was knocked unconscious at Nazareth in 2002, his next 10 finishes were 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 2, 8, 1, 2, 1. Sometimes concussions destroy careers, and sometimes they bizarrely lead to better performance. 47. SweetRich21/43 posted: 07.31.2020 - 4:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The commentators were Allen Bestwick, Benny Parsons and Wally Dallenbach. The pit road reporters were Bill Weber, Matt Yocum, Marty Snider and Dave Burns. 48. Onion posted: 09.23.2020 - 6:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) John Andretti had some less than flattering comments for Atwood after causing the turn 1 crash. JOHN ANDRETTI. When someone as nice as that guy tells you off, you know you messed up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: