Times are a Changin….

I’ve always directed my support to the underdog, the guy that didn’t have a chance. I think in part because the reward is so great when they pull off the win and there is very little dis-appointment when they don’t run well. Believe it or not there was a time when Jimmie Johnson didn’t win, that’s when I was a Jimmie Johnson fan. Once Jimmie started to win I moved on. It’s not that I just pick a loser, I pick a driver or team that is capable of winning but just hasn’t got it together enough to put one in the win column.  I can’t stand to see the same group of guys fighting for the win every week. I love a close finish, I know this is going to sound crazy but I would rather see a close finish with my driver losing than my driver winning by 5 car lengths. What I love about racing is the “race”, the battle, the bumping and banging.

This season is starting to take shape and it looks like NASCAR’s efforts over the last couple of years to level the playing field is starting to pay off. At least judging by the point standings it is. Judging by the point standings it looks like it’s going to be an awesome season, we’ll see some first time winners, we’ll see some guys who haven’t won in a while, and the fans will get to witness some great finishes.

1. TONY STEWART 113

2. KURT BUSCH 113

3. CARL EDWARDS 106 

4. JUAN PABLO MONTOYA 106

5. RYAN NEWMAN 103 

6. PAUL MENARD 96 

7. MARTIN TRUEX JR. 95 

8. DENNY HAMLIN 95 

9. A J ALLMENDINGER 94 

10. DALE EARNHARDT JR. 91

Just take a look at the points, look at Menard, Truex ,Allmendinger and even Earnhardt these guys are getting it done. Now I smart enough to know this doesn’t  mean they’ll finish the season in these positions. But it may be an indication that the playing field is becoming more level and that these drivers and teams have stepped up their game.

So for me it looks like it’s going to be a great season. Publically I’m behind Allmendinger but just between you and me I’d love to see Menard and Vickers in Victory Lane this season.

I’m not sure if it’s time to eat my words yet, because as some of you may know I’ve been very critical of the decisions NASCAR has made over the last couple of years but it would appear the steps they have taken has leveled the playing field a little.

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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.

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.

The Chase for the Cup Contenders are Set

               2008 Chase Contenders

1) #18-Kyle Busch 5080 [8 wins x 10 bonus pts]
2) #99-Carl Edwards 5050 [6 wins, 5 wins x 10 pts = 50pts*]
3) #48-Jimmie Johnson 5040 [4 wins]
4) #88-Dale Earnhardt Jr. 5010 [1 win, 2nd, 3rd, 3-4ths]
5) #07-Clint Bowyer 5010 [1 win, 2nd, 3rd, 4th]
6) #11-Denny Hamlin 5010 [1 win, 7-3rds]
7) #31-Jeff Burton 5010 [1 win, 1-3rd]
8) #20-Tony Stewart 5000 [3-2nds]
9) #16-Greg Biffle 5000 [2-2nds]
10) #24-Jeff Gordon 5000 [1-2nd, 3-3rds]
11) #29-Kevin Harvick 5000 [1-2nd, 1-3rd]
12) #17-Matt Kenseth 5000 [2-3rds]

* lost the bonus for win at Las Vegas due to penalty
• To start the Chase, all 12 drivers have their point totals reset to 5,000.
• After the reset, Chase drivers get 10 bonus points for each victory thus far this season.
• Those new totals produce the Chase seedings.
• For drivers starting the Chase with identical point totals, their seedings are determined by the traditional tiebreaker of best finishes beyond race victories.
Courtesy Jayski’s

 

Who do you think will win the Championship ?? 

Post your Choice. Document it Now…. 

Carl’s Mistake……Kyle’s Motivation……

 

    The August night race at Bristol is one of my favorite races of the year. I’m not sure from a fan standpoint if the racing is better or worse since the new pavement. In the past it was a 1 and a half groove race track now its pretty much a 2 racing groove track, in the past to get around someone you had to move them out of the way and that was the cause of alot of fights now with the new pavement and 2 racing grooves you can race around them.

   So I was thinking as we near the end of the race “is this going to finish without somebody getting pissed off” just about the time I thought that with 30 laps to go Carl Edwards didn’t use the 2nd groove to get around race leader Kyle Busch he moved him out of the way just like the olds days(last year).

   In my opinion Carl made a huge mistake, it wasn’t when he moved Kyle out of the way it was on the cool down lap when Kyle came along side Carl and bumped him and Carl retaliated by spinning Kyle out. Don’t get me wrong I think Carl was right in his actions and I would have probably done the same thing it just wasn’t smart. The reason I think it was a huge mistake is Kyle is motivated when he’s been poked with a stick, when he’s poked he usually feels like he’s got something to prove and he usually does prove it. He runs best when he thinks he’s getting the raw end of the deal or when he’s mad.

   Just a couple races until the start of the Chase for the Cup and Carl lit the fuse hanging out of Kyles butt so now Kyle is going to show Carl that 2nd is just the first loser.

Yea Right !!!

A Statement From Joe Gibbs Owner of Joe Gibbs Racing

  First, we want to apologize to NASCAR, all of our partners, all of our families at JGR, and all of our fans for the unfortunate incident that took place this past weekend in Michigan with our two Nationwide teams. A poor decision was made by some key members of our organization, and 100 percent of the blame rests with us.

   “In 17 years we have never had any representative of Joe Gibbs Racing knowingly act outside of NASCAR’s rules, and that is something we consider essential to how we operate on a daily basis. What we have determined is that these individuals involved used extremely poor judgment in attempting to alter the results of NASCAR’s dyno test following Saturday’s Nationwide Series race in Michigan. Although in no way was anything done that might have altered the race outcome, these JGR employees attempted to circumvent the NASCAR rule book and that is unacceptable.

    “We take full responsibility and accept the penalties NASCAR has levied against us today. We had come to the conclusion that we would add to any NASCAR imposed penalties with the minimum being suspension for the remainder of the season for those involved, including our two Nationwide Series crew chiefs. There will also be an additional monetary fine beyond the amount announced by NASCAR earlier today, which will be the responsibility of those involved.

   “We are, however, disappointed that NASCAR chose to place our drivers on probation, as they had no knowledge or involvement of this incident.

   “On behalf of everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing, we apologize again for this most unfortunate situation.”(Joe Gibbs Racing PR)(8-20-2008)

The Garage Area Comment:

I think we all expected better from Joe Gibbs and Joe Gibbs Racing but one of his first comments in his statement was a crock….Gibbs said “In 17 years we have never had any representative of Joe Gibbs Racing knowingly act outside of NASCAR’s rules” there is no way he can make that claim and be truthful. We know teams skirt the rules thats no secret so his comment just makes him look like a liar.    One of the last comments in his statement was…. “We are, however, disappointed that NASCAR chose to place our drivers on probation, as they had no knowledge or involvement of this incident.
It is my understanding that the NASCAR officials took control of the cars when the drivers exited them, so the drivers were the last JGR employees to have access to the gas pedals thats why they were part of the penalty, the six NASCAR officials that impounded the cars did in fact state the drivers were the last to have access to the cars. You don’t have to be a crime scene specialist to figure it out. Most drivers take the heat shields off their shoes before exiting the car, so while doing that you could easily slip a magnet under the pedal without creating suspicion, another blatant lie by Gibbs.
  The smartest thing Gibbs could have done is just say…We’re sorry, I’m sorry, we accept NASCAR’s penaltys we too will investigate and JGR will also penalize those involved. Again I apologize.  Thats it, don’t say anything more. Walk away.

The whole thing was really an ignorant move. Most owners, crew chiefs, and drivers will tell you when luck is on your side and your running as well as the Gibbs teams were you don’t cheat because your being watched, everybody in the garage area is watching you to find out what your doing and half the people in the garage area  think your cheating anyway when your racking up the wins the way Gibbs is. If you do get caught then you’ll really be scrutinized.