FIVE LAPS: Pocono in the rear view
What stood out this weekend:
Lap 1: Kyle Busch is not perfect. Second Friday night at the Truck race at Texas, 20th (and three laps down) at the Buschwide race at Nashville on Saturday night, then dead last on Sunday at Pocono in his Cup car. His 43rd at Pocono dropped his lead over Jeff Burton in the Cup standings went from 142 to 21. Normally that would have been a big deal. But Shrub is in no danger of not making the Chase, and it doesn't matter where you are in the standings going into the Chase. Call it a wash.
For the record, Busch raced 788 of a possible 1,050.5 miles (75 percent). He has two wrecked Cup cars to show for it.
More after the jump ..
Lap 2: Joey Logano isn't the Second Coming, at least not yet. He followed up his sixth-place finish last week at Dover with a pole at Nashville. He led 60 laps, then he wrecked out and finished 31st. He needed to get that first wreck out of the way anyway, and he might as well do it when the Cupsters aren't there to point and laugh at him. (The Nationwiders raced at Nashville this weekend.) All hail your newest member of the I-Won-A-Race Club, Junior's boy Brad Keselowski. It's not Junior in the winner's circle, but it's the next best thing, I guess.
Lap 3: Beware Matt Kenseth. Guy dug himself a huge hole after going 38th-41st-38th at Phoenix, Dega and Richmond and fell from inside the top 12 (11th, to be precise) to 22nd, 204 points out of 12th. Since then, Kenseth has rattled off four top-seven finishes and is now up to 15th. He now sits 34 points out of 12th and is a good bet in my book for going 5-for-5 in Chase-Making. (Jimmie Johnson is the only other driver to have made the four previous Chases.)
So if Kenseth makes the Chase, and signs point to yes, he'll have to jump over teammate David Ragan (easy) and Ryan Newman (he drives a Doge, so that's easy, too). He'll also have to chase down a slumping Tony Stewart (who heats up during the summer), so-so Childress teammates Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick (very possible) and ... Jeff Gordon, who has been maddingly inconsistent over the past two months. (You know how many laps Four Time has led in the past eight races? Take his car number and add four. Ouch.)
Lap 4: Why I think Kyle Petty and Wally Dallenbach should call races all the time: This clip from the Bowyer-Montoya wreck.
Kyle (sarcastic): Rescue guys are hurrying over.
Wally: Uh, you guys can put that fire out aaaaany time.
Kyle: Yeah, don't worry about it.
Wally: Excuse me, Mr. Montoya, can I have your autograph?
(pause)
Kyle (ticked): I mean, get over here and put this thing out, people!
Montoya gets two thumbs up for controlling his car, finding a fire truck and hopping right out. Fire crew gets two thumbs down for being unconscious.
Lap 5: How do you say "loose" in European? Whatever it is, it looks like the F1 guys are finally getting the hang of the cars, which are running without traction control this season. (Warning: Odd Euro-music.) Then again, maybe not. You don't have to speak what I think is Russian to understand that most of the 3 minutes is a riff on what a dope Lewis Hamilton is.
Comments (2)
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I read an article recently about Hendrick drivers testing a lot more this year than in prior with the exception being Jeff.
I do believe this parenting gig has got him really distracted. Though being in the top 12 isn't shabby.
In the article Junior made the comment he's tested more so far this year than he did all of prior.
I watched that F1 race. After wrecking Rakkoinen (I butchered that name) at the stop light, Rakky got out of his car went up to Hamilton and pointed at the red light, enough said.
Just amazing the rpms that European and Japanese iron puts out. Was watching the rpm guage on one of the cars on the teley, over 18,000 revs. Incredible.
Toyota's F1 budget is somewhere in the range of 800 million dollars for two cars. Ferrari is getting close to that number.
NASCAR CUP is around 35-50 million for two cars and that's for the tier one teams.
Incredible difference in cost.
Posted on June 12, 2008 9:10 PM
It's about time. Congratulations to Dale on his win. Talk about getting the monkey of your back. People were really starting to doubt.
Posted on June 18, 2008 1:13 PM