Sooo, I was wrong!!
Roush Fenway today announced that Crown Royal will be the primary sponsor of Matt Kenseth and the 17 team for 18 races next season. Of course, that still leaves 18 races, so look for Irwin, USG and some other to step up.
I guess the only bad news is that I will have to buy a new hat, diecast, lanyard . . .
No More DeWalt
Well, I guess I’m gonna have to buy a new hat for next season. Last week Roush-Fenway announced that long time sponsor DeWalt tools is not renewing their sponsorship with Matt Kenseth’s number 17 Ford. As long as I can remember, the 17 car had DeWalt on it, so this will be weird, but isn’t necessarily bad for Roush, as they need to get down to four teams anyway.
So this is how I see it shaking out at Roush. Jamie McMurray, as long speculated, is the odd man out. He will be moving on, but still not sure where. I wouldn’t be surprised he ends up in the 1 car at Earnhardt-Gannasi. That ride is available since New Jersey’s own Martin Truex is moving over to MWR to drive the 56 Napa car (which is really the 55 ride that Michael Waltrip is currently in). This leaves four teams at Roush, with 4 sets of sponsors: Aflac on Carl Edwards 99, 3M on Greg Biffle’s 16, UPS on the 6 car driven by David Ragan and lastly, Crown Royal/Irwin Industrial Tools on McMurray’s 26 car. Plus they have a huge list of other sponsors as well. You can see it here.
I’m not sure that Kenseth really fits the Crown Royal image, so I’m not sure they will just move that sponsorship. Instead, I can see UPS Moving to the 17 car, while Ragan is shifted the Crown Royal Sponsorship. Of course, Irwin would be a good fit with Kenseth, so there are a lot of permeations this could take. I’m sure the Cat in the Hat will figure it out. I just hope they do a better job figuring out their cars!
NASCAR Thoughts
So, I totally spaced on writing on the Pocono and Dover races. So instead, I thought I would share some of my thoughts on what has happened over the past couple of weeks.
First of all, the hot topic continues to be “Rowdy” Busch smashing the guitar in Victory Lane, Nashville. Now, I am a self described Busch fan, but I have to admit that when I saw what he was about to do, I thought to myself “He’s not gonna . . .” And I still can’t believe that he did!!! But while people have been focusing on the actual guitar smashing act, I want to comment on his motive, sharing the trophy with his team. When a driver wins a race, he or his owner or crew chief 
gets the trophy, not the members of his team. We are always hearing that NASCAR racing is a team sport, so truthfully, I applaud Kyle’s motive. I think it’s great that he is all about his team. From everything I’ve read, his team loves working for him and I think it shows the way his team reacts to him whenever he wins and they way they celebrate a win. So kudos to Kyle for the thought, I’m just not so sure about the execution.
As for Tony Stewart’s win, it was only a matter of time. A lot of hard core fans will be critical of a “fuel milage” win, but we always see a couple of those every year. And Larry McReynolds made an important observation during the race. Tony Stewart and crew chief Darrian Grubb could have played it safe, got gas and gone for the guaranteed points. But instead they rolled the dice because they really didn’t have anything to loose. Tony, leading the points, is pretty much guaranteed of making it into the chase. But going into the chase first in points with no wins means that Tony would be behind anyone with a race win. So by going for it, the now get 10 extra points when 
starting the Chase.
By the way, Ryan Newman will win soon. He’s been running too well. And to have the kind of finish he did at Pocono after having to pit several times to fix a spark plug problem shows how strong both teams at Stewart Haas are.
Finally, it was really cool watching the race from Pocono after having just driven that track. When the commentators kept repeating how hard the tunnel turn is, I kept saying to myself “Yes, it really is that hard.” I always had a lot of respect for race car drivers, but that has grown. As successful as my own experience was, it’s a lot different being in a somewhat controlled environment with only three cars on the track from 43 cars doing their own thing.
NASCAR Prediction Update
We have now reached the half way point of NASCAR’s “regular” season. The bad part is that that means that we have concluded the Fox broadcast portion of the season. They are by far the best of the broadcast teams and the most enjoyable. Of course, they’ve also been at it for 9 years, but the trio of Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds and old DW, Darryl Waltrip were great right out of the box.
Since we are at the midway point, I thought I would look at my preseason predictions and see how I’m doing thus far. Here we go:
1) Jimmy Johnson will have another good regular season and great chase, however, will just fall short of his fourth straight championship. This is no way a slight to JJ. Winning one championship, let alone three is amazing, but the odds of winning a fourth straight are astronomical. That said, he will come in second too . . .
This one is hard to tell since the Chase is it’s own Animal, but JJ is having another great season. JJ is having another great season with wins at Martinsville and last weekend at Dover where he was the dominate car. He also has six top 5 and 8 top 10’s and currently stands third in the points. However, if you ask me, the driver to beat when it comes Chase time will not be JJ. More on that later.
2) A Roush-Fenway driver not named Carl. I predict that Greg Biffle will win the championship by winning the race at Homestead. Why the Biff? He has the same shop behind him that Carl does, but unlike Carl, Biff has won championships (One each in Truck and Nationwide series), he knows how to win in the Chase (back to back chase wins) and most importantly, he knows how to keep his car clean and get the most out of a bad day.
Not looking good here, although The Biff is in Chase contention. Despite winning the first two races, all of Roush-Fenway has been struggling this season for no reason I can fathom. I still expect Biffle and teammates Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth to make the chase, but they have a lot of catching up to do if they expect to be serious title contenders.
3) The Dodge teams will continue to lag behind the other manufacturers. As a result, I really believe this will be Dodge’s last year in the sports, at least for a while (and it pains me to say this).
This has been true so far, with Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne being the only two Dodges running in the top 20. Time will only tell how accurate this is now that RPM has started running the new Dodge engine.
4) Tony Stewart will become the most successful Owner/Driver since Alan Kulwicki. He will qualify for the chase, and teammate Ryan Newman will be on the Chase bubble.
This is also true, as Tony leads the points heading into Pocono, the first Owner-Driver to do so since Kulwicki. He has a non-points win in the All-Star race, six top-5’s, nine top-10’s and an average finish of 9.6. Historically, he’s never done this well this early, so look for this trend to continue throughout the season into the Chase. I really think Tony needs to be considered the front runner for the title.
I was off on Newman though. He will easily make the Chase and will also contend for the title.
5) David Ragan, Jamie McMurray, Brian Vickers and Casey Mears will all win races this season, and one of them will make the chase.
Of this group, only Vickers has shown any promise this year. McMurray has had some good runs but rotten luck. Ragan has been very disappointing, although his UPS commercials have been great while Mears and all of Richard Childress Racing have been having a disasterous season. The one driver not on this list, but who should have been included is David Reutimann. “The Franchise” has a win in the Coke 600 (a win is win folks!) and currently sits just 31 points out of the Chase. He is a serious contender to make the chase.
6) A small, one car team will surprise a lot of people and run in the top 20 all year.
Nope, not even close here!
7) Robbie Gordon will win one of the road races this season.
We’ll find out when the cicuit head to Sonoma in a couple of weeks.
8) Here’s an easy one: both Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth will win at least one race this season.
Like I said, easy. Kenseth won the first two races of the season, the Daytona 500 and the following week in Fontana. Gordon won his Gatorade Duel and at Texas, one of the few tracks he never won on previously. A note on Gordon. I’ve always been a critic of his because, well, I didn’t like the way he spun out Rusty Wallace to win some races, but whether you like him or not, he’s one hell of a race car driver and a great champion. I really hope his back can heal and that he is not forced out from behind the wheel anytime soon. Like Kyle Busch, Gordon is great for the sport and you hate to see any great Champion forced to leave because of injury.
GBU: The Autism Speaks 400 from Dover
The Good: A tremendous race from start to finish. The final 10 laps were amazing, first watching Tony Stewart catch Greg Biffle, and the Jimmie Johnson catch them both to take the win. Tremendous racing. Also, Dover’s new pit road debuted to what can only be called a tremendous success. Dover is basically my home track, and it’s great to see all of the improvements they have made to the facility of the past few years. If you get a chance to see one race a year, go to Dover and site between turns 3 and 4. You can see everything!
The Bad: The continuing struggles of Richard Childress racing. Even though they had three cars in the top 20 (Clint Bowyer finished 11th, Jeff Burton 16th and Kevin Harvick 17th), this has been one of RCR’s best tracks over the past several seasons. If a rebound was going to start, you would have thought it would have started this past weekend. After having three drivers in the Chase the past several years, RCR will probably only have one. You have to wonder if this was the result of going to four teams?
The Ugly: An early caution coming in the middle of green flag pit stops putting a bunch of good cars down a lap or more. You have to wonder if Biffle used up some of his stuff early in the race getting his lap back, which may have lead to Johnson being able to catch him in the closing laps.
Living the dream, Driving a NASCAR Stock car.
Yesterday, thanks to my Brother, I had one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I got to drive a race car on a super speedway, the 2 1/2 tri-oval at Pocono. I’m still struggling to find the words, but I’m gonna try.
The day actually started the night before at my Dad’s house. My brother, not known to me, invited two of my closest friends to share the experience. One of them came from Clifton, about 45 minutes away, the other from Las Vegas, NV. Michael had booked us a hotel and off we went after dinner to try to get a decent nights sleep as we had an early start to the next day. For whatever reason, I do not get a good night’s sleep in hotels, so it was very hard to get up the next morning, but up we were and on the road at 6:30.
After getting close to the track, we found a Dunkin Donuts for breakfast (I’m addicted to their iced coffee!) And then off to the track.
Once we got there, it was through the tunnel, on through the infield and in to the garage area to register and start class. Class is really a couple of short video’s designed to give you basic safety information, teach you about the signs you’ll be shown from the flag man, etc. The biggest thing is that you’re driving race cars, not street cars and they are very different.
After the video class, it was off to the garage where our instructor first showed us how to get into the car. This may sound silly to some people, but stock cars don’t have doors. Next, it was how to fasten the belts and info on the cockpit’s gauges (no speedometer), and what there ideal settings should be. I was paying more intention to the light on the dashboard that warns if something’s wrong, and the button to activate the fire extinguisher system. The other important button was the master switch. Again, race cars don’t have keys.
From here, we piled into vans for a spin around the track. We were going 65 miles per hour, but it seemed like we were flying. It was a van. The main purpose of the van ride is to teach you about the marks you need to hit to go fast.
The way the track is set up, you have two sets of marks. The first is a set of colored cones going into each turn. The first cone is yellow. This signifies two things, the first is that you are getting close to your turning point. The second is that this is were you need to make sure you’re maintaining your spacing from the car you’re chasing, and make any adjustments needed. The next cone is red. This means it’s time to turn. From here, your marks change to blocks on the track. These blocks show you the ideal line, and you want to drive over them. The last cone is a green cone that goes with a triangle on the track that shows you the apex of your turn. In other words, time to follow the blocks back out of the turn.
After the van ride, it was off to the drivers meeting. This was really to teach us about the safety equipment we would be wearing. Firesuit, helmet, HANS device. Then we suited up and got ready to roll.
Michael, Lester, Pete and Myself suited up and ready to drive.
My friends Pete and Lester got out first. It seemed like they had to wait for a while in the cars. In addition to drivers, the school also had ride-alongs going on, so pit road was a busy place. Once the car that had the instructor that Les and Pete were following pulled in and had a quick safety check, they were off. I really didn’t get to see much, because the cars that Michael and I were to drive pulled in. Michael was in the 5 car, a COT Toyota. My car was an older style Dodge Intrepid. Once we got to the cars they took some pictures (I didn’t purchase them, so don’t ask!) The first test was getting in and getting fitted in the chair. I needed a pad to push me forward so that I could comfortably control the pedals. Then, with the help of the race schools crew, I was getting belted in, helmet on, HANS set up and reseting the tach. I was all stapped in, and when I say all strapped in, you are so snug in the car. You can’t turn your head to the right very far, just enough to see out the windshield, which is a lot smaller than you would think. One last review of the controls and then my window net went up and waited for the signal to fire the engine.
I was now in the car all by myself, and, oddly enough, I felt really, really comforable. I wasn’t at all nervous, instead very content. At that, it was time to flip the switch to fire the engines and put it into gear and roll down pit road. These cars are 4-speed manuals, and you get through the gears very quickly, in fourth by the end of pit road and then onto the track for your first lap. The first lap is a pace lap run at 5000 rpm’s (again, there’s no speedometer in the car).
I really needed that lap to judge my distance from the chase car, but after that, I was off and running. It was amazing. I know at one point I was turning of 7500 rpm, then 8000, then over 8000. I was hitting my marks. I would feel the car start to slide and then would accelerate to get more grip, catching my instructor. I was really cranking. I was amazed at how late we would turn into the corners, and how quickly I would be able to get back into the gas. But I think the most amazing thing was that, from a speed stand point, I really didn’t fell like I was going that quickly. My thoughts were really on staying with my instructor and hitting my marks.
Before I knew it, I took the checkered flag, which in this case didn’t mean the end, but go as fast as you can into turns one and two, then signal my brother that I was slowing down and heading into the pits, throwing the car into neutral and coasting to a stop.
Once I was done, I just sat in the car for a second amazed at what I did. I figured I had hit the 160 mark, I had to. The guys on pit road were right over to help me out of my hans and helmet. That’s when I hit the recall button on my tach, over 8300 rpm. “Not bad”, said the gentleman helping me, “that’s about 170. One of the fastest I’ve seen today.” All I knew was I felt like Dale Earnhardt winning the Daytona 500. “We did it, we did it.” I drove a stock car at 170 miles per hour, and nothing could seem more natural.
I can’t wait to do it again.
GBU: The Sprint AllStar Race!
The Good: Credit NASCAR with going back to the final 10 lap segment. That was some of the most exciting racing there’s been all season. A big congrats to Tony Stewart. He did what he’s been doing all season, putting himself into position to win races, and it was finally his turn. It was also great seeing Ryan Newman waiting for him in Victory Lane. You can tell that they are both enjoying themselves and have become great teammates. I think bot of the can win championships with Stewart-Haas.
The Bad: I really thought the race was kind of boring until the last segment. It seems that on these intermediate tracks the if you get up front you can drive a way from the pack for a while.
RCR also had a dismal night. It really seems that the Childress program is in big trouble and needs to make a bunch more changes. It’s really surprising since they have been so good for the past couple of seasons. The good news is they still have several drivers in Chase contention, so they shouldn’t panic too much.
The Ugly: Well, it really wasn’t very ugly unless you hate Kyle Busch, but the way he passed on the outside time and time again was amazing. I’ve said it before and will say it again, the man can just wheel! What was ugly was the number of people online blaming Kyle Busch for the wreck that took out Jeff Gordon. There really was no blame there, just three cars running where there’s only room for two, and anyone who really understands racing knows that those where three guys running for a million bucks, so non of them were going to give an inch.
GBU: The Southern 500!
The Good: Hendrick-mania. Hendrick and Hendrick affiliated cars dominated the late stages of the race, taking six of the first seven spots. The final shoot-out between Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson was fun to watch, but how weird was it to actually hear JJ throw in the towel. And speaking of Johnson, just the fact that he was up there shows that he’s still a championship contender and that Chad Knauss is still one of the, if not the best, crew chief in the biz.
And how about a great run from Joey Logano. He’s starting to show all of the promise that we heard of.
Great racing action all night, as the top 10 kept changing. Cars that were a lap down were all of a sudden in the top 10, and then vice versa. Great action, however . . .
The Bad: Too many cautions, and some that probably should have been. I couldn’t believe how many cars were in the wall where NASCAR didn’t throw a caution. Their had to be car parts everywhere.
The Ugly: Jeremy Mayfield getting suspended for substance abuse. I was always a big fan of his, but this is unacceptable, as NASCAR showed. Baseball and other sports, steroids and other “banned” substances are almost taken for granted, but those sports aren’t litterly life and death as it can be in racing. NASCAR has done such a good job with safety, as we saw at Talledega, that we take it for granted, but competitors never do. Which is why Mayfield should not be aloud back in the sports. It’s also ironic that earlier in the year he fired one of his crew members for the same thing. While we don’t know the whole story, and we might never know it, it’s really just a shame that such a good career should end this way.
CBU: Richmond
Better late than never folks!!!!
The Good: A great win by Kyle Busch. I know most people dislike him, but you gotta respect him. Three wins on one weekend, winning a charity race, the Nationwide and Cup races. The guy can just plain drive. And I also love that he’s having fun with the way the fans boo him. Heck, I think I may start to take a bow with him!
And how great is it to see both Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman running so well. Let’s here it for Stewart-Haas and all they’ve accomplished. Could Tony be running for a championship? I think it’s possible.
The Bad: What’s going on with Dale, Jr. I know everyone is asking this. The truth is that he is just having a bad season. It happens to everyone, so ease up on the guys.
What happened to Jimmie Johnson last weekend? Talk about a bad night, the winner of three of the four previous Richmond races wrecked, had a brake failure and got a speeding ticket. Not a typical night for the old 48.
The Ugly: Roush-Fenway. What the heck is going on there. We know it’s not the drivers, but after Matt Kenseth winning the opening two races of the season, the team has faded into the pack. Is this a new trend for RFR. After putting all five teams into the Chase in 2006, the team had a dismal 2007. I guess the RFR guys are just good in the even numbered seasons.
Kevin Harvick was having one of best runs of the season, his first since the crew swap with the 07, and then got caught up in a wreck and finished 34th. Can KH buy a break?
GBU: The Aaron’s 499 at Talladega
The Good: This was one of the most exciting races to watch in a long time as there was constant action. Cars were consistantly going from the back to the front to the back again. There were 57 lead changes and an exciting finish (more on that later).
It was also great to see a single car team in victory lane, and so many drivers not from the power teams in the top 20. A great day for the rookies as well with Brad Keselowski winning, and fellow rookies Scott Speed (fifth) and Joey Logano(ninth) finishing in the top 10. And how good is Marcos Ambrose. Another top 5 (fourth place) illustrates how good he can be once he gets some experience on these tracks. We will see him in Victory Lane at some point.
The Bad: The Big One times two. Let’s be honest, casual fans love the wrecks and that’s why they love restrictor plate racing, even thought most of them don’t know a restrictor plate from a dinner plate. Personally, I would rather see the kind of passing we did Sunday. The first of the Big Ones happened so early and took out so many good cars. On the other hand, it also played havoc with the points, so maybe that’s a good thing.
The Ugly: The Finish. Yeah, it was crazy to watch and Carl was great jogging to the finish. Also, he showed a lot of class in his post race interview. But we can all be in awe of this because there were no serious injuries. One thing I don’t understand is why no one really talked about Ryan Newman after the race. Carl’s car came down on his windshield, thankfully on the passenger side. I didn’t see an interview with him until Monday night. Of course, the crash also illustrated how seriously NASCAR takes not only driver, but fan safety. The fact that the most serous injury was a broken jaw (according to news reports) is really a testament to that. And you know NASCAR is now working on a safer catch fence.
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