The Grapevine….

Hearing that Denny Hamlin will miss at least the next 4 races after a hard crash into the inside retaining wall at California’s Fontana Speedway. The speculation from insiders at JGR is that former Sprint Cup Series driver Elliot Sadler will take over driving duties for Deny Hamlin in Deny’s #11 Fed Ex Toyota.

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Is it Too Obvious…..

There are a number of teams Marcos Ambrose could drive for but Richard Petty Motorsports(RPM) keeps floating to the top. Marcos has already annouced that he won’t be back in the JTG toyota #47 next season which JTG has already announced that Bobby Labonte will pilot the #47 next season. Those announcements are very telling because a driver doesn’t give up his ride unless he’s already got another solid deal done. Although there are many teams that would love to have Marcos they’re B and C teams. So Marcos wouldn’t give up his ride with a good B team(JTG) where he’s comfortable and in the middle of building a solid program to go start over with another B team. So that says he’s got a solid deal with a A team. The list of (A) teams  gets a little shorter and really there’s only one team with an empty seat. The only empty seat is at RPM Motorsports but there are a few (A) teams that with a sponsor could add another team. So that RPM naturally comes to the top if we’re making bets. But the media has been duped before, now there are 2 top owners that would love to go to 4 teams. That would be Gibbs and Childress. I don’t think Childress could pull it off without the media finding out because too many crew members at Childress have close ties to the media. Gibbs could pull it off without anyone knowing they’ve been successful in the past about keeping things quiet.  Most likely Marcos will be at RPM because it’s so obvious but maybe too obvious but RPM hasn’t made any other attempts to contact other drivers. Lastly RPM runs Fords, Ford was instrumental in bringing Marcos to the Cup series. So I’m going to keep my eyes and ears focused on Gibbs with my finger on the pulse at RPM.

What do you think about……

the Kyle and Deny show ? I’m bias because I’m a KB fan, but I think most of you will agree, I don’t think Deny should have held up Kyle especially with that type of block. It’s a little different kind of block when you see a guy gaining on you and you purposely run his line to get in his way and the when he goes up or down to change lines you do the same. Deny’s block looked like he had his hands full and didn’t see Kyle coming and threw the block at the last second thus pinching Kyle against the wall which ultimately was the beginning of the end for Kyle. It’s one thing to block when you can compete against the car your blocking but when the car comes up on you and is a truly faster car whether your the leader or not you don’t hold the up the guy unless you see checkers. In my opinion Kyle truly had a better car, Deny had no business holding Kyle up. Deny in my opinion cost Kyle the win($1,000,000).

Again I bias I’m not a fan of Deny at all, and I am a Kyle Busch fan. But with that said I think my opinion is dead on. Just because I’m a fan of someone doesn’t mean I won’t throw them under the bus if needed. I call them as I see’em.

Otherwise a great All Star Race.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Take a Guess…..

Who do you think will be in EGR’s #1 Bass Pro Shops Chevy next season ? The seat of #1 Chevy that’s been piloted by Martin Truex jr. for the past 7 or 8 years is up for grabs and an announcement could be coming this week on who will replace Truex.  A few names have circulated the garage area the past few months and the conversation always end with Jamie McMurray getting the nod, which coincidently is where McMurray started his Cup career subbing for the injured Sterling Marlin.

My personal opinion is it won’t be Mac daddy(Jamie McMurray) in the drivers seat, I hope I don’t ruin his chances because I’m always wrong but I think Bobby Labonte will be the pilot of the EGR #1 Chevy. He seems like a better fit past champion, team leader, huge fan base, and a bit of an outdoorsmen which is something Bass Pro Shops wants. That might be the key because Bass Pro contract ends at the end of the 2010 and they have an eye on sponsoring #39 Ryan Newman who is an outdoorsmen and would be a great fit for Bass Pro unlike McMurray who is not an outdoorsmen, so if EGR does go with McMurray then it pretty much sends Bass Pro to the #39 if EGR goes with Labonte they have a chance of re-signing Bass Pro at the end of 2010. Really it all depends on how confident EGR is about sponsorship in 2011, Bass Pro has only purchased 23 races in 2010 so EGR will have to find a Primary sponsor for the #1 for the remaining 13 races, they have a slew of associate sponsors maybe they can convert one of them to the primary spot.

My Lowes Picks

Tonight’s (Saturday Oct 17th) Sprint Cup Race at

Lowe’s Motor Speedway,  Charlotte, N.C.

The NASCAR Banking 500,  Presented by Bank of America

 

The Green Flag drops at approx. 7:41 pm EST

 

1.  Mark Martin

2. Tony Stewart

3. Jimmie Johnson

4. Brian Vickers

5. Ryan Newman

 

6th thru 10th

Jeff Gordon

David Gilliland

Brad Keselowski

Kyle Busch

Kasey Kahne

Logano’s Dad

I’m not sure why I missed this one, I forgot all about it but I would still be interested in hearing other opinions. During last Saturdays Nationwide race Greg Biffle ran Joey Logano up the track forcing Logano to scrape the wall. Biffle was paying Logano back for an earlier incident where Logano slid up the track pinching Biffle. It was racing crappola. I don’t think Logano pinched Biffle intentionally but I know Biffle pinched Logano on purpose. But either way nothing serious just racing crappola that goes on between drivers every race sometimes we know about it sometimes we don’t. 

Anyway after the race Logano’s dad was running down pit road on his way to Victory Lane when he saw Biffles car coming down pit road so he veered in front of Biffles car and gave him a sarcastic thumbs up letting Biffle know he wasn’t happy with his ontrack behavior. It was really nothing he didn’t jump out in front of a speeding car, there was nothing unsafe about it, there was no other confrontation it was really nothing a non-incident. But when NASCAR saw it they thought differently, NASCAR takes a very dim view of family members interacting with team member negatively in other words, family members can’t screw with anyone when they are holding Hot Pass so NASCAR yanked his NASCAR Credentials but they did issue him a one day pass so he could attend the next days Cup Race. NASCAR was to decide what type of sanctions to put on Loganos dad this week. What’s your thought on family members interacting with competitors and the punishments they should get when they cross the line??

NASCAR’s Race Weekend Report

California Race Results…Top 10

1)  #48 Jimmie Johnson
2)  #24 Jeff Gordon
3)  #42 Juan Pablo Montoya
4)   #5 Mark Martin
5)  #14 Tony Stewart
6)  #99 Carl Edwards
7)   #6 David Ragan
8)   #2 Kurt Busch
9)  #33 Clint Bowyer   
10) #29 Kevin Harvick

 

Chase Points after California

1) #48-Jimmie Johnson [5 wins], 5728, finished 1st
2) #5-Mark Martin [5 wins], 5716, -12, 4th
3) #42-Juan Montoya 5670, -58, 3rd
4) #14-Tony Stewart [4 wins], 5644 -84, 5th
5) #24-Jeff Gordon [1 win], 5623 -105, 2nd
6) #2-Kurt Busch [1 win], 5607, -121, 8th
7) #16-Greg Biffle 5540, -188, 20th
8) #99-Carl Edwards 5536, -192, 6th
9) #11-Denny Hamlin [2 wins], 5509, -219, 37th
10) #39-Ryan Newman 5505, -223, 15th
11) #9-Kasey Kahne [2 wins], 5422, -306, 34th
12) #83-Brian Vickers [1 win], 5377, -351,2 9th

For the Entire Results and Points California Results and Driver Standings

 

 

#5 and #48 taken back to the R & D Center AGAIN

NASCAR takes the #48 and the #5 cars back to their R & D Center in Concord N.C. for the third consecutive week for closer inspection. The winning car and the engines of the top two finishing cars always are taken to the R&D Center. But Martin finished seventh last week at Kansas and Johnson was ninth, but both cars again were taken the R&D Center. Both cars were cleared after inspections in Concord. Martin finished fourth Sunday, but NASCAR officials again elected to take the #5 Chevy back to the R&D Center for additional tests.

 

Kyle Feeling ill

Kyle Busch was sick this past weekend and elected to be replaced after starting the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races. He started both of the races this weekends races to be able to keep the points earned by his cars. After starting the Nationwide race he was replaced by Deny Hamlin who ended up finishing the day by kissing the wall. Sunday Kyle was replaced by start and park driver David Gilliland but not before Kyle had drove his M & M Toyota from the back of the field to about 20th position pitting on lap 61 to make the switch, Gilland who will be driving a fourth Gibbs car for an undetermined amount of races starting this weekend didn’t do to bad Sunday, without running any practice laps Gilliland managed to bring home a top 25 finishing 24th.

 

RPM Ford Program to start

Richard Petty Motorsports has had a Ford in its possession ready to race since after New Hampshire. Most likely AJ Allmendinger will be driving a Fusion at Lowe’s Motor Speedway next weekend or the week after that. Once the #44 car flips over to Ford, it will remain a Fusion the rest of the season. In addition to Allmendinger, Elliott Sadler is expected to drive a Roush-prepared Ford with a Yates engine at Talladega. Whether or not RPM’s proposed merger with Yates Racing goes through, team owner George Gillett has said his team will run Ford’s next season.

 

Restricting the Restrictor Plate

NASCAR will reduce the size of the restrictor plate and allow teams an optional change as a way to slow the cars and try to keep them from getting airborne at Talladega. Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby said Friday at Auto Club Speedway that the restrictor plate will be reduced 1/64 of an inch. The new size will be 59/64 of an inch. Darby estimates it will shave 12 horsepower off the engines. Teams also have been given an option on side wickers, something they hadn’t been allowed to use before at Talladega. Darby said that teams “will be able to add the same little side wicker to the end plate (on the rear wing) much like they do at the downforce tracks. If you look at all the cars in the garage right now on that end plate, all the way out on the back edge they’ve got a little half by half piece of aluminum. That’s eight inches long. It helps in yaw or when the cars are turned. It kind of settles the back of the car down a little bit.

 

Latest on Danica:

Danica’s a hot commodity with team onwers right now. It’s become increasingly more difficult for car owners to find good commited sponsor these days. What Danica lacks in talent is made up for by her marketability. What makes her even more attractive is she already has a relationship with godaddy.com as well as other motorsports sponsors, which in some respects (I hate to say) makes her good for NASCAR because some IRL sponsors may follow her which will be good for the team and teammates because more relationships are built. One thing we talked about last week was Danica’s paycheck they’re were false rumors saying she wanted 1 million per race that turned out to be poppycock, insiders say she’ll make somewhere between $20,000 and $40,000 per race.

 

Ford’s New Engine

Ford will delay the debut of its new Sprint Cup engine, Doug Hervey, who oversees Ford’s North American racing operations, said Saturday. The engine was scheduled to have debuted next week at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Instead, Ford will debut the restrictor-plate version of the engine at Talladega in three weeks. As for the non-restrictor-plate engine, it likely will debut at Texas or Homestead. I wonder if this will have an effect on RPM’s date to switch to a Ford which was slated for A.J. Almemdinger to run a Ford at Lowes.

No Excuse

Update: Juan Pablo Montoya response to the issue of walking off NASCAR Set before finishing all the interviews,

See Earlier Post titled-  Juan Pablo “I don’t work Past Five” Montoya

Video of incident- Montoya’s interview (Judge for yourself)

 

Question posed to Montoya:
EXPLAIN EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED LAST THURSDAY WITH THE TV HOOKUP TO CALIFORNIA AND HAS THAT ALL BEEN SETTLED NOW?

 

Montoya’s Reply:
“Yeah, it was simple. It was a deal we did with NASCAR from four to five and I told them this was the last interview and it was five minutes until five o’clock and I finished the interview and they plugged somebody else without telling them I was done and that was it. NASCAR made an honest mistake and it was a misunderstanding. That was it.”

Question to Montoya:
DO YOU THINK THE VIDEO THING KIND OF PORTRAYED YOU WRONG BECAUSE YOU’RE VERY GOOD TO THE MEDIA HERE AND THE VIDEOS WERE SENT AROUND THE WORLD OF YOU, DOES THAT BOTHER YOU?

 

Montoya’s Reply:
“Not really. It really doesn’t. NASCAR knows what happened. I know what happened. The team knows what happened. I don’t care. If they like me good, if they don’t. I can’t help that everybody here likes me, can I? Come on. Like they say crap happens I guess.”      (From General Motors PR Dept)

 

Comments From Blogpile:

My take is he a has a terrible attitude, big deal another interview, if he had been doing interviews for the last 2 or 3 hours I could understand but he said they had a deal to do interviews from 4 to 5, ONE hour and you can’t do another interview for the FANS. His warped thinking has warped my thinking I used to not care about drivers coming from other series’ to jump on the NASCAR bandwagon and get some of the NASCAR money but now no way stay in your current series NASCAR doesn’t need you. Drivers from other series don’t have appreciation on how and who made NASCAR what it is today ,“THE FANS” did it, what made NASCAR successful was the way drivers appreciate the fans, the drivers are humble, appreciative they care about what the fans think. Why do you think in a decade where auto racing viewership was on the rise NASCAR benefited and other racing series’ went under, it’s simple the drivers and their relationship with the fans. But Montoya attitude will ruin the NASCAR it will spread like cancer as driver migrate to NASCAR from the other failing series.  I know mistakes are made, I could understand if Montoya would have come out and said I just didn’t feel I could do another interview but to say “I don’t care” what people think; that just seems cold to me and even though many NASCAR drivers wouldn’t care they would have a little bit better way to say it.

NASCAR just doesn’t need drivers from other series’ there’s a huge stock car driver pool of driver that are humble and appreciative.

View the video and read his comments and judge for yourself.

Roll up your Sleeves Brian and Mike

A bad economy could be the best thing for NASCAR. The price to win or just to run up-front has gotten way out of control. If it wasn’t for a bad economy NASCAR would have ended up like other sports where deep pockets win. It was really refreshing to see good ole’ boy start up teams in the Daytona 500. Its just ridiculous to think to bring a team to ONE race it cost $300,000-$500,000 and thats not including driver and crew chief salaries. Thats just crazy, because it doesn’t make the racing one bit better, the racing is exactly the same. If the cars are all the same and all follow the same rules it doesn’t really matter if they run at 180 mph or 140 mph. It seems to me if NASCAR wants to protect the sport they need to slow everything down, impose rules that make it impossible for deep pockets to have the ability to buy there way into the chase. Bring the racing back to the track. How long did NASCAR think it would go on ? For NASCAR to continue to survive it must be affordable for sponsors. Is it better to have 20 teams with big corporate sponsors that can afford to pay 20 to 30 million a year on just one NASCAR team or is it better to have 50 teams that only need 3 to 5 million a year to sponsor a car for the season ? Me , I say give me the 50 teams. NASCAR may be heading in the right direction this past season they have done things in the Camping World Truck Series that will cut cost for team owners. NASCAR holds all the cards, if they just slowed the cars down 20 mph exspensive technology would no longer be needed. In the Sprint Cup series this NASCAR has severly limited testing, I believe the only testing allowed is Goodyear tire tests so what do teams do (?) they go out and buy a 10 million dollar shaker rig(a platform the car is placed on to simulate different tracks). So now NASCAR needs to hand out shocks and springs at every track then teams wouldn’t get any benefit from purchasing a shaker rig. Sponsors drive NASCAR so Brian France and Mike Helton better start limiting what a team needs to go race, because if sponsors can’t afford to be there teams won’t be able to make payrolls and there won’t be a need for the top 35.

In Shock and Dis-appointment………

SHOCK !!……………

WOW, I can’t beleive Kyle went out like that. Does he have a chance ?? I really thought that if Kyle didn’t win the chase it would have been because he was driving to aggressive and crashed in a few chase races to get the DNF’s that knock him out of contention. I would have never guessed that equipment failures would be the cause. I would have bet money that equiptment won’t be the problem. He ran 26 races with very little or no equiptment failures then the first two chase races and it’s over, maybe. Is it karma, bad luck, or both.  Can he pull out of this, I haven’t check yet but is it mathematically possible for him to bounce back ?? I sure hope so, he and his team preformed better than any other driver/team for the first 26 races. I think they deserve it.

DIS-APPOINTMENT !!………

I am really dis-appointed in Red Bull decision to release A.J. Almendinger for Scott Speed. It’s going to be another 2 years now before the no.# 84 Toyota will be competitive. I believe its going to take Scott Speed the same season and a half it took A.J. to get comfortable, is Red Bull going to change again because they don’t understand they’re competing against team that have been around for 10 + years and it takes years to gain the respect and knowledge it takes just to be a weekly top 10 team. Drivers respected A.J. he was starting to come into his own veteran status. It looks like Ganassi is going to be the beneficary of Red Bull’s hard knocks. Red Bull made a mistake and I can’t believe Jay Frye was part of that decision, I know the big wheels in Austraila don’t have a clue but I really thought Jaye knew better.