Random Thoughts from the Desert!

Another Nascar weekend in the books. This was was long for me too, but not for duration! On Thursday, I was feeling a little under the weather and was sent home from the shop at about 11 AM. Well after a visit to the Dr. I was advised that I had a viral strep infection, that was also affecting my upper chest and ears. Needless to say, my fantasy and trifecta pics where not made, due to spending the whole of Friday, curled up in bed. You know us men, such big babies when we are sick.
Anyway, I am feeling much better now, and I did atleast get to watch the Cup race Sunday.

So now on to my Random Thoughts from the desert.

I heard some guy named Busch won the truck race! Wish I could have seen it. I was so out of it, I forgot to set the DVR. Duuhhhh! Whats the point in all this technology if my big dumb a$$ forgets to turn it on! LOL.

I also heard some guy named Busch won the NNS race! This one I actually DVR'd, I watched the first 50 or so laps late Sat. night. Caught the rest in the AM on Sun.
What a dominating performance by the 18. From the driver to the crew and everyone in between. In this day of back markers and wanna-be championship contenders sometimes staying out to lead a lap, either for points or TV time, to go wire to wire is a tremendous feat!
It looked to be close in the final laps. Carl gave a gallant and clean effort to catch and pass Kyle, but to no avail. Kudos to both!

Now, everyone who has ever read one of my blogs, knows I don't like the Hendricks guys! In fact, 2 of my favorite guys, are ex-HMS. That being said, my stance on Jeff Gordon has mellowed some. When he was battling Rusty Wallace, and winning all those titles, I really hated the guy. In the last couple of years I had given Jeff some slack. Having a daughter myself, and seeing him in pre-race with his kids. Plus, hearing some of his stories in interviews, really made him more of a likeable guy to me.
All that went out the window Sunday! :) As a 18 fan, I was really looking forward to the sweep. But to top it off, I had Kyle in the one fantasy league I am in that can win me actual cash. As the 4th place starter, a Busch win would have given me a 100 bucks. So now Gordon, is back on my S^%t list!
Is this the awakening of the Kyle Busch personality that will compete for a Championship! A new "kinder, gentler" KB that we haven't seen before? I thought for sure we would see some fireworks after the little bump and run move Jeff put on Kyle. Yet lo and behold in his post-race interview, he was the 3 C's of second place. Calm, Contrite and Congratulatory! No mention of the little bump,no problem from me either, but you know if was the other way around a huge deal would have been made of it. He simply said Jeff had a faster car at the end and that was it. Plus he really owned up and was apologetic to Carl for the early incident that ruined the 99's day. I think they will be ok, it really was a racing deal, and not something Kyle did on purpose to wreck Carl.
On the other hand, if I was the 17 I might be a little nervous around the 83 for a few races. It seemed to me that Matt ran Brian up the track, and then cut his left rear sending him around in front of the field. Not saying Matt did it on purpose, I just thought he could have left him a little room that early in the race. Look for payback for this one down the line.
All in all, it was a decent race. I am so glad the season is underway. One question though, you think Jr will be the Pizza Hut fan favorite for every race on FOX? We are going to Vegas, and odds are good on that one!

That's Just my opinion, I could be wrong. But probably not!

Random Thought from the Off Weekend!

The weekend off for Nascars major series turned the spotlight on the NNS cars this weekend, with a rain soaked qualiying and some rain tires runs during the race.

As many have noticed, much of the Nationwide boys have a hard time on road courses when its dry. Throwing rain at them is like throwing gas on a fire. Nothing but more trouble.

* Poor Steven Wallace, he got spun more than a dradle during Hannukah. To his defense out of his 8 (low estimate) incidents, I would give him fault in maybe 3 of them. The 86 seemed to have it out for the RWI cars. Hitting the 66 twice and the 62 once.

* I like Justin Allgier, I think he will become a fine Cup driver. Unfortunatly on Sunday, he got bit by the infamous rear wheel hop. Producing one of the more spectacular wrecks, and that was pre-rain. He locked them up coming into a hard right hander, tried to spin to avoid other cars and caught the grass, propelling him across the track, killing Ron Fellows #5 and damaging Busch rt qtr. He definetly manned up, taking full blame and apologizing to all drivers involved.

*Speaking of Allgier. Bucky Brad officially announced the move to Penske. It also includes running a full Nationwide schedule. I twittered Penske to see how this will affect Justin. News from another twitterer stated that Penske will run 2 full NNS teams next year. I am glad that Justin will continue to gain experience and look forward to him coming to Cup.

* I commented on another Blog, about Carl Edwards victory on Sunday. I think Carl should be careful next time he is around Kyle or Marcos on the next road course or short track. Carl's dive into turns 1 and 2 Sunday, were ill timed in my opinion. In trying to stay inside of the Canadien, Ranger in the 11, Carl started the last lap fracas that resulted in less than stellar results for some. Although he ran Marcos clean on the last lap, and lucked into a win. I saw some earlier attempts of his to pass Marcos that included using the front bumper. I am not saying he did anything wrong, just that some other drivers might not be to happy with him. We all know drivers have memories like elephants.

*Rain, Rain go away. Thats the usual mantra for us race fans. I think its high time that Nascars best and brightest (Cup)race in the rain on road courses. I understand that it not feasible on an oval. Despite what Helton said during Sundays broadcast, I believe that the Cup stars not only could, but should run rain tires. I think most would relish the challenge that it would be.

**** Wanted**** Racing Fans with a few billion dollars. Why, you ask?? I think we need to buy the Speed channel back from Fox, and show whats meant to be shown. RACING. Racing , and more Racing. I will also let Wind Tunnel and Passtime stay. Remove Pinks and replace it with weekly races from Dragstrips around the country. There are too many series that race fans don't get any coverage of. Things I am sure many of us would watch. Example, this weekend Travis Pastrana won his 4th US Rally title. Yet I have never seen any TV coverage of a US rally event. Would I watch? Hell yeah. Plus we could bring other forms back to TV. Remember Thursday Thunder on ESPN. With World of Outlaws, Sprint and Midget racing. I used to love that stuff. Now we barely get highlights. Plus there are great series in other countries. Like the British Touring car series, Formula 3000, and Tez's fav. the V8 Supercar series. If any channel saw fit to broadcast these, I would be burning my DVR up.

* Attention Richard Childress Racing. It will do more harm than good to force Harvick to stay if he wants to leave. In fact, it could delay any progress being made next year. If he wants to leave. Let HIM!! It will be best for all parties involved.

* Kyle Busch article of the week. Attention all fans who were upset when Kyle busted the guitar in Nashville. Please read this article. http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090901/NEWS04/909010338/1009/NEWS02/Guitar%20smasher%20gives%20gift%20of%20music%20to%20schools

I know this will never make any Nascar shows, because we the fans should never see Kyle Busch as a human being, who gives freely to charities. No he is the Nascar devil and should be hated by all , for the sake of ratings.

I used to hate on KB, when he drove for HMS. If I can change you can too people. Everybody on the 18 bandwagon. Me and Gene will save you some room!



There I feel much better, now thats I got all that out. I like my new weekly brain cleansing rant.
Remember Race fans, this is only my opinion, I could be wrong. Probably NOT, but I could be.

See you in Atlanta. Not literally, you know what I mean.

Chase Conspiracy Theories!

When the Chase was first introduced, one thing caught my eye. Notice the 2 short tracks, in the last three races. I actually called in to a local radio show, to voice my concerns.

The Question went something like this. What if the guy in 13 (then 11th) happened to "move" the guy in 12 (then 9th) causing him to crash, thus enabling the guy on the outside to move into the Chase? The radio pundits, after much deliberation, decided they really didn't know what would happen.

This has never really become an issue. Especially last year. The big 4, HMS, Roush, Gibbs, and Childress. Had the Chase field covered last year. Each team with most, if not all their drivers making the Show.

This year is a entirely different story. With seven different owners taking up the 12 spots. I will for this blog denote Stewart/Haas and a seperate entity from HMS.

Where am I going with this, you may ask?

Picture this on Sat. night. The 33 is close to making the Chase. His teammate, the 29 who is way outside the Chase, runs up behind the 17. Harvick , not known for patience, boots the 17, who backs it into the fence and has finishes back in the pack. Up moves the 33, one step closer to keeping Childress from being shut out of the Chase.

Voila, instant Chase conspiracy.

Example 2. The 20, with a rookie driver, gets loose and takes out the 5. Helping the 18 inch his way back into contention.

Rookie mistake or team orders? You be the judge.

I'm not saying that teams are sitting in the haulers and Richard is telling Harvick and Burton to dump the guys in front of Clint in the standings, but who knows. In fact, how could you tell at all? Isn't Bristol known for beating and banging.

I guess I must just have a warped mind, but if I was Childress, looking to be shut out of the Chase, I promise its something that would run through my thoughts.

Just something to think about. Of course, we will probably be sitting in front of the TV waiting for the rain to stop. I hope not.

Anyway, just a little food for thought. I am thinking of bringing back the Incident Report, for atleast the next 3 races. That way I can analyze the cautions, and see if I can throw a little gas on the fire for us Nascar conspiracy theorists.

Let me know what you think of my little Conspiracy theory.

Random Thoughts from Michigan!!

Another weekend in Michigan has come and gone. Before we all get to pumped up and excited for Bristol, I thought I would take a few moments to look back at what happened the last two days.

* Jimmie Johnson and I finally have something in common. We both want to be weatherman. What other job can you get, where you can be wrong 50% of the time and still not be fired. o% percent chance of rain, yet still two delays. Atleast they ran it on Sunday eventually.

* Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers- Man I hate when two of my guys have a problem. You would think they would get along, both being HMS leftovers, but I digress. Although I freely admit Kyle acted rashly by running the 32 down on pit lane. But,I do see his point. Had Vickers run the line that he had been using all day, it would have come down to those 2 cars. By pulling down and running Kyle along the bottom, he did slow both cars down. Don't ask me how, its one of those aero deals. If Vickers spotter had kept him aware that the 88 was coming on the high side, he would have ran high, and he and Busch would have dueled for the win. The fastest two cars were Vickers and Busch, those two battling for a win would have been classic. Instead we got Bucky in the 88 playing the opportunist for a second time this season. I won't say Brad was lucky, he had his car in the right position to take advantage and when the time came he pounced.

* The pre-race both days included stories about Keselowski, being from Michigan, and donating tickets to 40-50 area workers, that have been laid off. It was a nice story.
What doesn't get reported, Kyle Busch donated 60 tickets to MIS for them to distribute. Maybe the public wouldn't think he was such an a-hole, if the media would report some things like this about the guy.

* Jimmy Johnson's driving ability called into question once again. Two HMS cars pitted on the same lap. Both had pressure from other cars. One managed to finish and the other didn't. Saving fuel is directly related to a drivers ability to maximize performance while not mashing the gas. Floating the car in, and pedaling off allow a driver to maintain some speed, while saving fuel. Some masters of this include Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Brian Vickers.

*While we are on the subject of JJ. He should have never been out front to begin with. He clearly jumped that last restart and should have recieved a penalty from Nascar. I think jumping the start is a pass through. I only heard Jarrett mention it once on the broadcast and have yet to see anyone talk about it anywhere else. I guess rules don't apply when JJ is gunning for a win.

* Kudos to the Red Bull team and Brian Vickers. I hope this allows them to finalize Brian's contract and get him a teammate that can provide some feedback and help. I like Speed, but he is not helping provide any info that would enable Red Bull to contend seriously for the title.

*Once again we are foiled by too much pre-race and not enough post-race. I raised the same issue during Fox's coverage. Please TV people, less pre, more post.

Well enough whining and crying. (HMMM maybe thats why I like Kyle, we both like to complain)

Hope everyone has a good week, I can't wait till Fri and Sat. I love me some Bristol night racing.

Thats just my opinion, I could be wrong. But probably not!