Kyle Busch On The Pole In Vegas
So let’s see… Gibbs drivers are 1st and 3rd in the points. Penske drivers are 2nd and 4th in the points. Rousch drivers are 5th and 9th in the points. Childress drivers are 7th and 10th in the points. Where, exactly, are those Hendrick drivers? Oh yeah, 8th and 14th. (cough)
Hometown hero Kyle Busch returned to his native city to win the pole Friday for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup UAW-Dodge 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“It’s great to be on the pole at my home track but it would be even greater to be standing over there in Victory Lane after 400 miles on Sunday,” Busch said. “We’re locked into the Bud Shootout next year and we don’t have to worry about that anymore.
While it’s still way early in the season, you have to wonder if releasing Busch to get Earnhardt was a good idea for Hendrick Motorsports. Congratulations on the pole Kyle!
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Who Cares About The Fans
I am not one to get angry about a NASCAR race. Heck, how can you get angry when you enjoy watching cars driving around in circles trying not to hit each other?
I set my DVR to record the Sprint Cup race at 3:30 in the afternoon. When the kids and I sat down around 6pm to watch it, it was just starting due to a rain delay. No problem I thought, we’re here to watch it now, what good timing this is.
Not long after the race started, Casey Mears wrecked, almost taking Dale Jr. out with him. It turns out there was water seeping out from under the track. They needed to take time to dry it. No problem I thought, I will just cook dinner.
After we ate dinner, the race was just starting up again, so I told the kids they could watch some of it before they went to bed. Within minutes, it started raining again. No problem I thought, I will just dvr it now, and the kids can watch it tomorrow while I work.
The race was scheduled to resume at midnight ET, 9pm PST. Then they changed it to 1 am. I was sitting here working on some code anyway, so again, it was no problem. Then they changed it to 2 am. They showed the drivers and pit crews moving around busily and said they would be back at 2. By 2:15 I knew something was up, because the race was not on the tv.
I told the wife I had a feeling they were going to reschedule the race for 10am PST tomorrow and that if I was a fan at the track I would have been pissed that they did so. Sure enough, just moments ago, I read on the NASCAR site that they have delayed the race until 1pm EST tomorrow. Bastards. They didn’t even have the nerve to break in on my local FOX channel to tell me.
I think they owed it to the fans, who were patiently waiting for the race, to at least tell them it was postponed. I was sitting here working anyway, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to me, but I would be pissed if I sat here waiting all night for the race that never happened.
So much for caring what the fans think. Oh wait, this is NASCAR. Duh. I knew better.
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Still Waiting For A Green Flag
This post was supposed to be about the Sprint Cup race, how exciting it was, what the wrecks were like and who the winner was. But we’re still waiting.
The race that was scheduled to start at 4pm has been rain delayed three times and they have only completed 87 of the 250 scheduled laps.
The rain has apparently moved out of the area and they are planning to restart the race at midnight ET, 9pm PST. That makes for one very long day for the drivers and their crews, huh?
As of right now, Jimmie Johnson is the leader followed by Travis Kvapil, Kyle Busch, Greg Biffle, and Kasey Kahne.
One sidenote, the Nationwide race which was scheduled to start 1 hour after the Sprint race has been postponed til tomorrow. So much for that idea.
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Kyle Busch Wins Truck Race
I don’t watch the Craftsman Truck races too often, I just don’t have the time to sit down and watch three races each week. This week’s race, however, found its way onto my big screen. It was a pretty good race, IMHO.
Kyle Busch finally found his way to Victory Lane.
After a pair of second-place finishes in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck and Nationwide Series events, followed by a fourth in the Sprint Cup Daytona 500 last week, Busch cruised to an easy victory Saturday in the San Bernardino County 200.
It was Busch’s seventh Craftsman Truck series win and first in California as he led 51 of 100 laps in a Toyota Tundra and crossed the finish lane over three seconds ahead of Todd Bodine.
“Well, Todd got going there pretty good but my truck was great,” said Busch, who started 20th and took the lead for the first time just 24 laps in. “The guys gave me an awesome truck, just like last week in Daytona.
Following Bodine’s Toyota were the Toyota’s of Johnny Benson and Terry Cook, along with polesitter Ron Hornaday Jr.’s Chevrolet Silverado.
With rain cancelling qualifying and most of the practice session, it’s going to be interesting tomorrow to watch the Sprint Cup race. The Nationwide race, which was scheduled for today, is now going to be held one hour after the Sprint Cup race tomorrow. It’s scheduled to start in California at 9pm ET. Of course, the Sprint race starts at 3:30.
I hope the Rocketman can make it two in a row. That would be awesome.
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Rain Cancels California Qualifying
I hate it when qualifying gets rained out, but the rules are the rules and the Hendricks boys are starting at the front of the pack.
Qualifying for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Auto Club Speedway was rained out Friday, with the 43-car field determined by the rulebook instead of laps on the 2-mile oval.
NASCAR uses car owner points from the past season for the first five races of each year, so two-time reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, who finished second in 2007, will start from the front in Sunday’s Auto Club 500 at the track formerly known as California Speedway.
I can’t believe it. Not once in this entire article is Dale Jr. mentioned. I.Need.Oxygen.
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Ryan Newman Wins The Daytona 500
Wow. All I can say is wow.
I have been a fan of Ryan Newman’s for so long, and I always want him to do good, but I never thought he was going to win the Daytona 500 today.
With all the talk about Hendrick Motorsports, and then Joe Gibbs Racing, I thought for sure one of the seven drivers from one of those teams would have pulled it off. Tony Stewart almost did. Kyle Busch almost did too.
But the story of the day is that my two favorite drivers, Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch, ended up first and second. What an amazing day!
For the second straight year, The Great American Race came down to the last lap. This time the drama rewarded Ryan Newman, who hadn’t won in 81 races over more than two years, and team owner Roger Penske, long the king at Indianapolis but never a winner at Daytona.
Newman waited while the big stars fell back one by one. Then, with only Tony Stewart ahead of him, Newman got a ”push from heaven” from teammate Kurt Busch to take the lead on the final lap.
”Kurt was the push from heaven that made it all happen,” Newman said. ”Without a doubt, he could have easily gone three-wide and split us through the center and made one heck of a mess there. But he chose to be a teammate, and that was the most honorable thing that he could do.”
It was great to see Kurt Busch working for the team too!
I wonder how the guys at Sprint felt seeing that Alltel logo for the last part of the face and parading around victory lane? Ha!
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Stewart Wins Camping World 300
Most of the race was quite boring actually, at least I thought so, but the last 25 laps or so made up for it. It was a great finish to an otherwise boring race. Is this a sign of what the season is going to be like? I hope not.
The payback was perfect. Tony Stewart turned the tables on Hendrick Motorsports to win the Nationwide Series opener.
Now, if only he can do it again Sunday.
Stewart and teammate Kyle Busch finished 1-2 Saturday, combining to hold off Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished third.
The Joe Gibbs Racing teammates showed they have learned some important lessons about cooperation from the drivers at Hendrick, the team that fired Busch to make room for Earnhardt Jr.
Congratulations to Tony Stewart. Do you think he’ll repeat tomorrow in the Daytona 500?
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The Starting Lineup Is Set
How cool is that? Dale Jr. wins two in a row. haha. So were the last couple seasons just a fluke, or is he simply riding high on the momentum of moving to Hendrick Motorsports?
On a milestone day for Toyota, NASCAR’s newest manufacturer, veteran drivers stole the show Thursday at Daytona International Speedway.
With a push from Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin won the second Gatorade Duel 150 qualifying race for Sunday’s Daytona 500 in a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the event four laps beyond its posted distance. The victory for Toyota was the second for a foreign manufacturer in NASCAR’s top series. Jaguar driver Al Keller won a road-course race in Linden, N.J., in 1954.
In the first Duel 150, Dale Earnhardt Jr. passed Ryan Newman for the lead on Lap 51 of 60 and held on for the win — his second in two races for Hendrick Motorsports.
As cool as it is to see Dale Jr. winning, I would have much preferred to see Ryan Newman make it. It should be quite an interesting race, even though long time drivers Ken Shrader, Sterling Marlin, and Bill Elliott didn’t make it.
So what’s your prediction for Sunday? While it’s pretty obvious one of the bigger teams will most likely take it, I am still hoping for one of the smaller teams, I always do.
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Busch & Stewart On Probation
I guess it’s safe to say that Tony decked Kurt in the trailer, else why would he get probation as well?
NASCAR placed drivers Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart on probation for six races Tuesday, beginning with the Daytona 500. The punishment stems from a confrontation between the two former series champions, who wrecked in practice last week and then carried it into the NASCAR officials’ trailer.
While nobody involved in the incident would confirm that Stewart actually punched Busch during a meeting with officials, as is widely believed, NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton inferred that Busch’s penalty was for what happened on the track and Stewart’s was for what happened afterward.
“The accident was a racing incident,” Pemberton said. “How they conducted themselves after that, after the accident and coming onto pit road and from there through the rest of the evening is why the penalties were equal.”
I wonder how penalties are going to come down this year? It’s been so quiet we really have no idea yet.
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A Non-Typical Day At Daytona
What a great start to the season! Jr. won the Shootout, Johnson grabbed the pole. Waltrip is in the front row. And Stewart and Busch are at it each other again. Ain’t tradition wonderful?
Two-time series champion Jimmie Johnson took a trip to the Florida Keys. Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. visited Sea World. And some of NASCAR’s top officials played golf.
All was quiet — for a change — at Daytona International Speedway on Monday, just the way NASCAR wanted it.
Cheating scandals rocked the Daytona 500 the previous two years, tarnishing NASCAR’s most prestigious event and turning the attention to the uglier side of racing. It made for a busy Monday and Tuesday at Daytona, which is traditionally closed to crews on those two days of Speedweeks.
Next stop, Thursday. Daytona qualifying is so strange, but in a good way.
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