Archive for September, 2008

Juan Pablo finally captured a Sprint Cup pole. Then he lost it. They are calling it a
“technical violation”.

Less than an hour after Juan Pablo Montoya celebrated his first NASCAR Sprint Cup pole, it was taken away from him because of a technical violation.

NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Montoya’s fast lap was disqualified because a postqualifying inspection discovered his rear shock absorbers exceeded the maximum gas pressure allowed.

That moved two-time reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson up to the pole, with Montoya’s No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge moved to 42nd in the 43-car field for Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway.

The only thing technical as far as I see it, is finding out who was responsible for this happening. Seriously. They have so many guidelines to follow, the NASCAR rule book is quite clear what the levels should be, so someone had to be cheating, or trying too, right?

Does the pressure in your rear shocks really affect how fast you are going?

It’s good there is going to be random testing. But how random can you get?

NASCAR on Saturday morning at Dover International Speedway announced an updated drug policy, which will include random testing beginning in 2009.

NASCAR held a mandatory drivers’ meeting for the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series competitors on hand for Saturday and Sunday’s events at Dover, including some team owners and crew members.

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The selection would be so random that O’Donnell said a driver could be tested every week in the season, or never after the preseason test is given. And he deflected any concern about bias.

If your test ends up so random that one particular driver is picked every week, there’s something wrong with your “randomness. Then again, why would an organization unconcerned about consistency worry about randomness either?

I hate hurricanes. I hate anything that makes the cost of gas go up.

On Thursday, gas at this same station was $3.67. I filled up there yesterday for $4.07. I hate hurricanes.

Tomorrow’s race at Loudon, the Sylvania 300, is a 317 mile race. Each car in the race will average 2.6 laps per gallon (according to Hendricks Motorsports). That’s a total of 121.92 gallons of gas.

If Sunoco wasn’t sponsoring their fuel, they would be paying for their own fuel. If they paid the current rate (like I would have too), that would amount to $523.04 to run the whole race.

There are 43 cars in the race using 5,243 gallons of fuel. The cost of the fuel for the entire race would be $22,492.47. Wow.

With that kind of gas mileage, I’m not to upset about my 19mpg this week.

I am a bit shocked here. The National Stock Car Racing Commission rarely overturns penalties. I am somewhat confused why they would reverse the probation part of the penalty, but not the points.

On Sept. 3, 2008, the National Stock Car Racing Commission heard and considered the appeal of Joe Gibbs Racing. The appeal concerned two penalties issued by NASCAR to drivers Tony Stewart and Joey Logano.

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After reviewing the testimony presented during the hearing, the National Stock Car Racing Commission unanimously decided to amend the penalties assessed by NASCAR, removing the probation portions of both driver penalties, while leaving the championship driver points portions intact.

So, they believe the infraction warrants the penalty of all those points being taken away, but feel that they don’t need probation because of it. Were the infractions serious or not? Who knows. It’s bad enough when NASCAR acts inconsistent.