Nascar Racing Online

Archive for September, 2009

Martin Truex Jr. tries to figure out what happened with that crazy kid who hit him. What’s the conversation at work here? Best caption wins … well, nothing, but you can have fun trying, yes?

After the jump, Kyle Busch is missing. Whodunit?

Rick C:
Take one, and ONLY one!!!!! You know what too much sugar does to you guys!

JJ:
Joe Gibbs: "Bring it in gang. Listen, we got the sponsorship freebies a little mixed up this week. Instead of the usual M&M snack provided to Kyle during pit stops, all we have is this Pedigree stuff. No one says a word to Kyle about this. Understood? That means you Dona!"

boogie:
JG: OK Guys.. Since you’re on the bottom of the ladder, and it all rolls down hill, you should’ve expected that, since Kyle didn’t make the chase, we would start picking you off one by one until he wins again.. Since this is NASCAR, instead of drawing short straws, we’re going with "odd man out" in reference to firesuits.. Martin – you’re it. The rest of you, the goal is to finish the season with more than four of you… Alright everybody, "still have a job" on 3.. 1-2-3!!

JonathanD:
Joe Gibbs: "Come on, guys, hurry it up. Kyle’s gonna be here in a second… remember, after you reach in the bag and draw the name for this year’s Christmas gift exchange, keep it quiet and we’ll meet again secretly to exchange gifts December 22."
Tire Changer: "Good idea, coach. Nobody ever knows what to get that guy."

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No sport offers up a more bewildering array of souvenir crap memorabilia than NASCAR, and They Make It digs deep into the corners of the Internet to bring all that strangeness to light. Today: fine instruments for all your meat-searing needs.

The item: The Kasey Kahne four-piece barbecue set, an undisclosed price from Dollar Days.

The deal: NASCAR and barbecue go together like football and violence, baseball and bad sportswriting or hockey and feelings of self-loathing. So it’s only approprate that somebody has come out with a complete set of NASCAR-branded grilling hardware. And oh, does that look like a finely-crafted set of stuff! Poke, flip and press your meat with this high-test set, and just for good measure, brand your burgers with a No. 9 to show ‘em who’s boss!

Of course, you need to make sure you grill carefully, because you never know when disaster might –

Whoa! Easy, Kasey! Wait until after the race to get your grill on!

The hat tip: Reader Gator, who’s all over this strangeness. If you’ve got some NASCAR souvenir memorabilia of your own, hit us up at jay.busbee@yahoo.com. It’s okay, we won’t judge.

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If you bear with me this will eventually get to NASCAR – I promise.

If you don’t know it by now I do a lot of coaching – pretty much 9 months of the year.  My coaching season started off with Baseball; Senior Girls 3-Pitch to be exact.

Not to sound too egotistical but I usually have pretty good teams each year.

I don’t pick a team based on skill alone either, I look at what that person can bring to the team and what role they can play – attitude speaks volumes over skill.  I’d take an averaged skilled player with a good attitude over a highly skilled player with a poor attitude any day.

A few years back I won the city Championship with a legally blind girl on my team and the next year I had a legally deaf girl on my team and we finished in the final 4.  And they played in every game.

We don’t discriminate in any way.  It isn’t about winning, it is about building your physical skills and your team skills; improving both as a player and as a teammate.  It is about getting better than the way you were.  For some of these girls this will be the only organized ball they will every play.

These are the reasons why I coach.

We almost always finish in the final 4 too.  O.k. that was egotistical, but it’s the truth.

Well this year’s version of my team played in their tournament this past week.

To put it quite frank, we kicked butt!

Out of the 5 games we played we either outscored our opponents or at least tied them in every inning but one.  We outscored our opponents by a total score of 54-18.  We only had four errors all day.

We had a dream tournament right?  We should have won the Championship right?  Wrong.

You see, we didn’t even make it into the Championship.

How so?

Remember how we won or tied every inning but one and those four errors?

Well, all four of those errors came in that inning that we lost (oops) and that inning cost us to lose the game too.  The team that beat us that inning won the game and went on to the Championships.

You see, that team won but they didn’t beat us, we beat ourselves with our errors.

Sucks doesn’t it?

Yep.

And let me tell you this NASCAR Chase format is like our 3-Pitch tournament format.

Essentially you have to put together a near perfect run in the Chase or you’ll get knocked out of it.

One bad mistake can cost you the Championship like that one bad inning cost a chance to get into the Championship game.

We finished second in our division and third over all with a 4-1 record.  Not too shabby really, but what could of happened if we didn’t beat ourselves?  We’ll never know really, and this would be the exact same answer by any driver who didn’t win the Championship because of one silly error on his part or his team’s part.

The Chase is that tight.  Just ask Kasey Kahne or Denny Hamlin if you don’t believe me, they’ll tell you.

Oh, and that would be another final 4 finish for us again this year BTW.

Now how am I going to get that big inflated head of mine through the doorway?

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We’re getting within sight of the end of the season, and so it’s time to begin our look back. In a feature shamelessly ripped from Puck Daddy’s Death Watch and Big League Stew’s Walk Toward The Light, we’ll be counting down each and every car that fell short of the Sprint Cup this year. And yes, I know there aren’t taillights on Sprint cars. It’s a metaphor. Roll with it.

Name(s): Of the 65 drivers who ran at Sprint Cup level this year, five ran in two races: Ron Fellows, Boris Said, Erik Darnell, Mike Wallace, P.J. Jones. I would have given you five American dollars if you could have named this list without looking. But you’ve already read it, so no deal.

Records: Um … not so great. No top 10s, no poles, nothing. Though, to be fair, many of these guys are road-race specialists brought in to run at Infineon and Watkins Glen.

Where it went wrong: Hmmm … can it go wrong if it never really went right? Though for a brief instant, Fellows was running No. 1 at Watkins Glen, so that’s got to count for something.

Prospects for 2010: Most of these cats will get trotted back out when the road races come ’round again. Darnell has several more 2009 races in his future, running in the 96 in place of Bobby Labonte. He may have the brightest future of this crowd, but it’s still a few years away.

Next up: Some more familiar names, including a former champion.

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Exceedingly scary moment at Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover, as rookie Joey Logano dipped into the grass, then got t-boned and flipped more than half a dozen times before coming to a hard stop. Hearts were in mouths as everyone watching feared the worst, but fortunately, Logano popped out none the worse for the wear:

And, as always, it bears repeating: for all the grief that NASCAR receives for its clunky Car of Tomorrow, wrecks like this make it all worthwhile. If NASCAR had still been running older models, Logano, Michael McDowell, Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon — all of whom have suffered brutal wrecks in the last couple of years — might not still be with us.

"It just really scared the heck out of me," Logano said afterward. "The biggest thing was, I was fine the whole time, [but] I’m not really sure what happened … I haven’t seen a replay, and I’m not sure I want to see the replay. It started rolling, and I was in there, thinking, ‘Man, just make this thing stop.’ It wouldn’t. It just kept going and going. It goes to show how safe these cars are. I was fine."

Logano walks away from scary crash shaken but OK [NASCAR via Yahoo! Sports]

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As opposed to the usual Nationwide recaps on Sunday mornings, we are going to do something different here. With luck, this segment can become sort of a written Windtunnel every Sunday night. So without further ado, you can find the weekend recap after the jump!

Sprint Cup Series

Stage two of the Sprint Chase for the Championship ran at Dover on Sunday afternoon to mixed results. On the positive side, the Monster Mile created tight racing across all four turns. The track developed two and a half well-defined grooves and the race never really became a sleeper. Reversely, the tight racing led to an incredibly scary accident on lap 31 that witnessed Joey Logano flipping several times after contact with Martin Truex Jr. and Reed Sorensen. Fortunately, everyone walked away clean.

For better or worse, Jimmie Johnson did his Superman Thing Sunday afternoon, leading 271 of 400 laps including the last one to take home his fourth trophy of the 2009 and first of the Chase. Right behind him was Mark Martin, who is doing his Superboy thing. The Kid finished second and maintained a slight 10-point advantage over HMS teammate, Johnson.

“I’m pretty sure that dude is Superman,” Martin said of Johnson. “I’ve seen that dude up close and I see why he’s so successful. He works harder at it than anybody else, I think, on the circuit.”

Fellow Chasers Juan Pablo Montoya, Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart also had solid runs. Denny Hamlin did not, finishing 22^nd, two laps down, capping off what, for him, was a terribly unlucky weekend for the Gibbs Toyota driver. That of course leads us to Saturday’s Nationwide Series.

Nationwide Series

The Nationwide Series was not quite as exciting as Clint Bowyer chased down Kyle Busch over the final 100 to win the Dover 200 at (where else?) Dover International on Saturday afternoon. The race saw a dominant Busch lap over 2/3 of the field before falling back to field for the finish. Bowyer passed Busch at lap 117 and held off Mike Bliss, Brad Keselowski, Busch and Carl Edwards to win his second Nationwide Series victory of 2009.

The big story (and most of the excitement) was around a heated conversation between Hamlin and Keselowski. The two former Cup race-winners made contact late in the race that ended Hamlin’s day. This was not the two’s first tussle.

“I wanted to talk to him,” Hamlin said. “He obviously needs some sort of guidance on what he needs to do to make it.”

Keselowski blamed Hamlin for the accident.

“He cuts me off like he always does,” Keselowski said. “He’s Denny Hamlin.”

Off Topic

To Minnesota Vikings fans; don’t get too excited just yet. Remember that QB Brett Favre also led the 2008 Jets to an 8-3 start before tapering off due to injury or excuses. Don’t be too surprised to see an immensely talented Vikings squad fall the same way.

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Hey everyone, welcome back to Midnight Marbles, where our guest is Denny Hamlin! You know Denny as — uh, Denny? Camera’s over here, Hamster! Hold still!

Anyway, this is your place to hang and chat about whatever crosses your mind this fine Friday. Suggested topic for discussion: rank your drivers in order of who’ll be eliminated from Chase consideration. Proofread your work, and erase all stray marks. Keep your eyes on your own paper. And enjoy the weekend, everybody!

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Just want to keep everyone up to speed.We are getting some very positive feedback from potential sponsors. Also wanted to let everyone know I will be doing a radio interveiw on Burning Rubber Radio October 23. I hope everyone can tune in and listen to the interveiw. We will keep everyone informed of what is happening.We now have over 600 Fans on our Facebook Fan Page. We are trying to get as many people as we can to join our fan page and stand with us in the battle against Cancer. Thanks Ricky 

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At least part of the ongoing Danica Patrick saga has come to a definitive close. Patrick has signed a three-year deal to remain a part of Andretti Green Racing. As before, she will drive the No. 7 sponsored by Motorola. It brings to an end months of speculation on the Indy side of things, but plenty of elements of her 2010 and beyond remain very much up in the air.

Patrick’s future has been the subject of debate for years now; while she’s not the most talented driver on the Indy circuit, she’s unquestionably the best-known and most marketable to a broad audience. And that’s exactly why every racing circuit from Indy to NASCAR to soapbox derby racing has coveted her.

Now, still unresolved is whether Patrick will run in NASCAR, as ESPN reported three weeks ago. Since that report, which got far less press than expected, there’s been little news on the Danica-in-NASCAR front. Tony Stewart, who was mentioned as a mentor of Patrick, has said Patrick has not signed any kind of NASCAR agreement. (Yet, we could add.)

Regardless of what Patrick decides about NASCAR, the three-year agreement with Andretti Green seems to indicate that she’s not going to completely jump ship from Indy. It’s a wise move, considering how many open-wheel drivers have challenged NASCAR and fallen short. But then, when it’s about Danica, it’s not really about wins, is it?

Danica Patrick staying in IndyCar series [Indianapolis Star]

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No sport offers up a more bewildering array of souvenir crap memorabilia than NASCAR, and They Make It digs deep into the corners of the Internet to bring all that strangeness to light. Today: fun 4 tha kiddies!

The item: The Dale Earnhardt Jr. Activity Book, $6.99 from NASCAR.com.

The deal: It’s a combination activity book/CD-ROM! And it’s all devoted to everyone’s favorite marketing tool/walking heritage exhibit! (You can also find similar books for Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon.) Now, I’m sure this is full of "color the cars" activities and the like, and that’s rather dull. I’m thinking we could come up with much better activities for a NASCAR activity book, such as:

• The Dale Jr. "find your pit stall" search

• The "find the debris" yellow-flag track search

• The Kurt Busch "things you shouldn’t say over the radio" word hunt

• The Kyle Busch "create your own Chase-missing excuse"

• Where will Danica go? A maze with no end!

• The Jimmie Johnson "find-the-square-on-the-checkerboard" game for the exceedingly dull child

… and that would be your cue, friends. Roll with it!

The hat tip: Reader Gator, who gets credit for the first item in the list above. Got some NASCARiana of your own that you’d like featured here? Hit us up at jay.busbee@yahoo.com and we’ll make ya famous.

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