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.
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