|| *Comments on the 2011 AAA 400:* View the most recent comment <#150> | Post a comment <#post> 1. 18fan posted: 10.01.2011 - 4:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think AJ Allmendinger will definitely be one to watch tomorrow. For some reason I don't see Menard staying up there too long, so I think the non-chasers with the best chance of winning are Allmendinger and pole-sitter Martin Truex, Jr. 2. Cooper posted: 10.01.2011 - 4:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I agree 18fan. I think A.J. has a good chance to win. Brad and the #2 team seem to be exactly the same as they were last week. Decent Q-Run, average happy hour practice, and an average 10 lap run time. Brad's 15th starting spot should be good enough to keep him out of trouble in the early stages of tomorrows race. And that's what counts. As long as he's able to stay on the lead lap, then I'm pretty sure they can use some good strategy to get Brad up front when it matters most. Brad has pit box #12 which is just past the S/F line. He'll be between the #71 (off of the lead lap within the first 15 laps) and the #32 (off the lead lap within the first 30 laps). Tony and the #14 team are just awful on the concrete this year. There out to lunch, so it's a good chance for all of the other chase teams to gain some ground tomorrow. Watch out for Regan Smith tomorrow. He's my sleeper pick. 3. Jocke Persson posted: 10.01.2011 - 6:02 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) What happened to #24? 4. cjs3872 posted: 10.01.2011 - 7:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cooper, 18fan, I don't believe that A.J. Allmendinger can possibly win the race, not because his car won't run good enough to contend, because it most likely will. I don't think he can win because of RPM's continuing imcompetence when it comes to pit stops. In fact, Allmendinger might have won this race last year if his crew wasn't so incompetent. And I think Paul Menard, while he probably won't contend for the win, should do a little better than you give him credit for. And if you're looking for potential sleepers for this race besides Allmendinger, I would pick his teammate Marcos Ambrose, as well as Joey Logano and David Reutimann. 5. 00andJoe posted: 10.01.2011 - 7:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Good qualifying run for Josh Wise. Hopefully somebody will give this kid a full-time Nationwide ride next year. Reed Sorenson qualifies for his first Cup race of the year. Germain Racing's woes continue. 6. 18fan posted: 10.01.2011 - 7:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Allmendinger lost this race last year because he ran over something on the track, got a flat tire, and before the leaders had to make their stops a caution came out. 7. cjs3872 posted: 10.01.2011 - 7:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sorry for that mistake, 18fan, but if he wouldn't have lost the lead from running over debris, his pit crew would almost surely have lost it. The point is, and I was rather harsh in making it, that Petty's pit crews, a lot like A.J. Foyt's, back when Foyt had contending cars, can never be trusted when you need a good pit stop, and it's been that way for decades. 8. Schroeder51 posted: 10.02.2011 - 2:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Great save by Allmendinger. Should have crashed that car. 9. LordLowe posted: 10.02.2011 - 2:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) WTF NASCAR there was no need for a caution. 10. Mr X posted: 10.02.2011 - 2:54 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I would say today might be a decent race. 11. KurtBusch22Fan posted: 10.02.2011 - 3:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I can't tell who's fault that was. I could be Allmendinger's fault for driving down on Hamlin or it could be Hamlin's fault because he didn't back off. 12. 18fan posted: 10.02.2011 - 3:02 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Looks like it could be a battle between the 99, 22, 18, and 48, but I won't count out the 16, 17, or 24 until the end. 13. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.02.2011 - 4:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cjs, what have been saying about Carl being mistake prone? 14. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.02.2011 - 4:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Alright Skinny Young Lad, time to man up. 15. 18fan posted: 10.02.2011 - 4:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Ambrose is having a tremendous run and Kahne seems to have a lot of speed right now. The 17 doesn't seem to take off real well, but he's still a threat and I think Biffle might have something for these guys. Kurt Busch's team looks like they've put a complete race together for the first time in a while, but it isn't over yet. 16. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.02.2011 - 4:59 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Lol. Kenseth thinks he has a flat tire. Just like every week. You know how we have posters like "Jimmie Johnson's Neatly Trimmed Beard"? We need one called "Matt Kenseths Flat Tire". 17. OldSchoolNascarDude posted: 10.02.2011 - 5:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) How will the 22 and 48 race each other if it comes down to the end? Would they put a title on the line for the opportunity for payback? I figure both will be smart enough to not do that. 18. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.02.2011 - 5:43 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Can I jump back on the 6 in a row bandwagon? 19. 18fan posted: 10.02.2011 - 6:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Great job by the 22 team. I said with about 100 laps to go that they finally were putting a complete race today and they ended up with a win. After their horrible performance on pit road the last two races, the 18 team did a great job on that final stop, which put Kyle in position to get into third after the restart, but he just didn't have the speed to stay up there. For the first half of the race the 18 was a 4th-7th place car, but toward the end Kyle probably wasn't even a top 10 car, great job by the whole team to get a solid finish. If they can find a little more speed, I still don't think Kyle will win the title but he will have a shot. Great recovery by Allmendinger to come back from that early spin and finish 7th and Ambrose had a great car all day. 20. Bronco posted: 10.02.2011 - 6:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Cjs, what have been saying about Carl being mistake prone?" If by mistake prone, you mean this was his first speeding penalty of the year, then yes he is prone to making mistakes. Also, where did Carl finish relative to the #17? Where is he in points compared to the #17? Who has scored more overall points this season? 21. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.02.2011 - 6:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Can I jump back on the 6 in a row bandwagon?" Certainly, LOL. I never counted him out of it in the first place and unless he has bad luck I'm not going to. He made today's race very boring and I thought he was going to win it, but Kurt and his Penske power managed to take this win. 22. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.02.2011 - 6:16 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) What me and cjs are getting at is his propensity for making mistakes at the worst possible times in the past. And it doesn't matter where the 17 and 99 are because the 48 is gonna win it again. I made a grave mistake last week counting them out. I thought frustration had taken hold of him. He is fine and that team is solid. I have a feeling they are about to go on a tear. I think they will win at least 2 of the next 4 races. 23. cjs3872 posted: 10.02.2011 - 6:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yes DSFF, I sure nailed that one, didn't I about Carl Edwards making the critical mistakes that would cost him (and I'm not trying to toot my own horn, as I am not that way), although in the end, it didn't really cost him that much today. Edwards just seems to me to be a driver that is a BIG risk taker, and while some of those risks pay off, others are likely to result in key mistakes. Edwards was able to rebound from his mistake today, but he may not be so lucky next time. Now for those that said that the reports of Jimmie Johnson's demise were greatly exaggerated, I said that if Jimmie Johnson didn't perform well at Dover, he was through. He didn't have to win, but he did have to perform well. Even though he didn't win, he DID perform well, so he's still in it. However, not winning this race means that his next non-RP win will be the first in over one year. Kasey Kahne had a great run, matching his car number by finishing fourth. Kahne, a lot like Trevor Bayne, Joey Logano, Regan Smith, and others, has a knack for being too conservative at times, in fact, he may have been the first of the current breed of young conservative drivers to enter the sport, but that paid off in a fourth-place finish today, his best finish at Dover. In fact, he finished fourth in both races this weekend. Jeff Gordon's struggles, while surprising to many, were no surprise to me, as he's struggled at Dover for years, and finishing 12th was not a great loss for his title hopes. It's also obvious that both Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman have bad setups for concrete tracks. Neither were expecting to do well, and beither did, but they were far worse than even I thought they'd be, as neither were in the top 25 much today, and at one point both were ahead of just six cars on the track. Also, there were, as I predicted on the Nationwide comments page for this weekend's race for that series at Dover, seven start-and-park cars, but I didn't have a problem with that, since no two of them were from the same team. I don't have a problem with teams S&P'ing with one car, as that practice has been going off-and-on for more than 50 years. My big problem, and it isn't currently one in the Cup series, is teams S&P'ing multiple cars, like the seven car that were S&P'd by just two teams in the Nationwide race, where the probelm is definately at it's worst, and is probably going to get even worse next year with Roush and Steve Turner each possibly, if not probably, losing one full-time car, and Rusty Wallace's two-car team probably closing up shop at season's end. And as I see it, only Penske and RCR will be adding one full-time car, meaning there will probably be about 10-13 S&P's in many NW races next year. I predict that you'll see 8-10 S&P's in many Cup races next year with the imminent demise of Red Bull Racing, as well as RCR going from four back down to three carfs, though that slack will be picked up by Michael Waltrip, who's going UP from two to three cars next year. In other words, there will be more start-and-park cars next year in Cup than there will spots filled by cars that have to qualify in most races next year, as I can see Cup races with as many as 10 S&P's next year. 24. Rusty posted: 10.02.2011 - 7:02 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Really happy to see Kurt get another win. I mised most of the race watching football but the last 70 I watched where enjoyable. 25. OldSchoolNascarDude posted: 10.02.2011 - 7:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kyle Busch did what he had to do today. He didn't have a top 5 car, but he didn't screw it up. He brought it home without letting his emotions get the best of him. 26. potatosalad48 posted: 10.02.2011 - 7:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kurt got 2 really good restarts to win. On Speed Center, he mentioned that he beat his arch nemisis, that being Jimmie Johnson. 27. Mike posted: 10.02.2011 - 7:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sixth time in the last seven races that the polesitter has finished 20th or worse. 28. Mr X posted: 10.02.2011 - 7:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Despite a few cautios that really didn't need to come out, and people constantly taking the wave around all day, this was a good race. Despite the fact that Good Year brought the same tire that was used in June tire wear was a more of a factor, and a decent race broke out during the day, Slow race cars(Martin Truex Jr.) went backwards regardless of track position, Kevin took 2 tires, got the lead however fell to about 10th during the run. Carl Edwards had a fast car and was able to make up the ground he lost out on the track, certain cars were good on shorter or longer runs, and IT DIDN'T END WITH FUEL MILEAGE. Today was a good race, far better then either of the previous two Chase races. Four tires was the better strategy most of the day. This was a better race then Dover in June. This is off topic but it makes me wonder, most of the tracks on the schedule have two dates a year, why do we have to do the same thing with both of them? They call this place the "Monster Mile," I think it deserves a monster of a race, say 500 miles/laps. Go back to the way we raced here until 1997, and leave the June race 400 miles. Other tracks could have this done also, I left a post on the Richmond comments page saying that I wished Richmond was run in the daytime, particularly the hotter, slicker September date, and actually Richmond is another race where I wish that one of the dates would be 500 laps. Most Richmond races are pretty green, and usually over in well under 3 hours, and covering 100 laps in Richmond doesn't take very long. 500 lap races at Richmond could be run in under three and a half hours most of the time. 29. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.02.2011 - 7:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Analysis time. Harvick: Got a pretty good finish at a track that hasn't been too kind to him. Finished pretty much where he ran. As I said last week, trying to predict this team is a shot in the dark. Ran well at the recent race at Kansas' sister track, Chicago, and finished even better. You would think they will do good next week. That might be a bad omen for them. Carl: Rebounded really well from a potentially devastating pit road penalty under green. Intermediates are his best friend so a top 5 run next week should be expected. Was excellent at Chicago. Smoke: He thought he would do bad toady, and he didn't disappoint. Still just 9 points back, and he won Chicago. He just has to keep his head straight and not let this stink bomb get stuck in his craw. KuBu: Winning at one of his worst tracks is big. Still hard to trust Kurt over 7 more races despite his excellent points position considering the stink bomb he laid last week. He kept a great head for 10 races once, but that will be hard for him to do again. JJ: Now just 13 points back and his cars have been really good lately. Been knocking all over the door of another victory. The rest of the cha$e shapes up very well for him. I think he gets his 6 pack. I can't believe I made the mistake of counting them out with 8 races still to go last week. Kenseth: Finished pretty much where he ran, and got a Top 5 at one of his best tracks. I think he can still make some noise for the championship. Not a bad place to be in the points considering how Chicago ended for him. But he ran great there, so I am expecting a Top 5. Brad: Not a horrible place to be in points. They have had speed and that is the important thing. Championship is still a bit of a stretch, but not a Top 5. Ran 7th at Kansas earlier before winning on fuel mileage. This team is usually better the 2nd time around at tracks. Needs a Top 5. KyBu: They just don't seem to have quite the speed they once did. Not a bad place in points, but you always have to wonder about Kyle's annual Fall meltdown. For some reason -15 points seems so much bigger next to his name. Gordon: Disappointment! In 2 of the 3 races so far they just haven't run well. I am not about to count out a team with Jeff Gordon driving, but they need to pick it up. Ran surprisingly bad at Chicago. I think he'll be better at Kansas. June: His team screwed him bad today. Overcoming 34 points and 9 positions is heading towards the Impossible Zone. Especially for a driver with no wins in 3 and 1/2 years. Newman: Thanks for playing, better luck next year. Denny: He's in the cha$e this year? 30. 1995z71 posted: 10.02.2011 - 8:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) To Post 23: I dont mind S&P because some good could come out of it (ex:Tommy Baldwin Racing, McDowell, Cassil) I just dont like when a S&P car makes the race over a non-S&P car, like when Steve Park missed the race last week & 7 S&P cars made it. 31. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.02.2011 - 8:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I'm gonna say something that probably won't be too popular: I don't mind the Start And Parks. I say this because 43 cars, especially on tracks 1 mile or less, is too many. 36 is about right. Yes, I don't like seeing the people that are just exploiting the system and getting free cash, and I fully understand the frustration over that. But I have noticed by going to the races at Martinsville, they seem to flow better with less cars. In the past it was kinda ridiculous, the leader would be in traffic in just 15 laps. 32. Eric posted: 10.02.2011 - 8:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kurt really needed this win. Kansas is where fuel mileage could determine the race like the first race in June. Here is my take the drivers in the chase now: Harvick - solid run today. Kevin could get a top 10 next week since 3 out of his last 5 races at Kansas were top 10's. Kevin sometime could save fuel and that could be big at Kansas. Edwards - got a top 3 finish, but he screwed up. I think he cost himself a win with his speeding penalty. Carl doesn't have a win at Kansas, but has an excellent track record there with 3 top 5's and 6 top 10's in 8 starts. Carl is great at fuel mileage and should be in the points lead after Kansas. Tony Stewart - continues his trend of sucking at Dover. Stewart recently is great great fuel mileage and that is plus for Kansas if it turns into a fuel mileage race. Tony is great for getting a top 10 at Kansas. Kurt Busch - surprised that he won at Dover despite his recent success there. While Kurt had a top 10 a Kansas this year, it has not be a kind track to him in his career. Getting top 10 at Kansas is like getting there for him and I expect to lose ground in points as a result. The one thing he has in his favor is Penske does get good fuel mileage if it turns into a fuel mileage race. Jimmie Johnson - great run at Dover. He has a very good track record at Kansas despite having only 1 win there. The key for Jimmie is Kansas must not turn into a fuel mileage race. Jimmie isn't great at saving fuel. Matt Kenseth - good run at Dover. Kansas is a good track for Matt recently with 3 top 10's in last 4 races there. Fuel Mileage is concern for Matt based on his history. Brad Keselowski- team went back to earth. no power steering part of the race didn't help him at all had a top 10 to top 15 car before than. Making the wrong pit call didn't help him either. Brad won at Kansas and could be a factor in the race. Brad is very good for saving fuel and could help him at Kansas if the race goes down to fuel. Kyle Busch - good run at Dover. Kansas is not a good track for him at all and his title hopes could go down after that race as a result. His only top 10 at Kansas happened in 2006. His best finish since there at Kansas is 12tb. Jeff Gordon - average race at Dover. Jeff is even better at Kansas than teammate Jimmie Johnson is with 8 top 5's in 11 starts there. Jeff could spots in points after Kansas. The only downfall could be fuel mileage because that is not what Jeff is known for as a cup driver. Dale Jr. - pit crew cost him a top 10 to top 15 finish with a loose wheel after overcoming a problem early in the race. Winning the championship is a long shot at this point. Last race at Kansas was his first top 5 there and his first top 10 there since 2007. Dale is capable of saving fuel and that could be big help at Kansas if turns into a fuel mileage race. If the 88 team has a bad race at Kansas, he is done for the championship. Ryan Newman - poor race at Dover like his teammate. He is done for the championship. Denny Hamlin - Team is done for the championship and is only fighting for a top 10 finish in points at best. 33. 18fan posted: 10.02.2011 - 9:02 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) DSFF, what I think is interesting about the #18 team's sudden loss of speed is that it started right after they won Michigan. Outside of his 2008 win Kyle has never been good at Atlanta, so the bad run there was not a surprise, and neither was the mediocre run at New Hampshire and Chicago(just like Atlanta, his 2008 win was his only really good run). But Kyle not even being a factor at Bristol and not really being a factor at Richmond or Dover today was a different story and they should be a little worried about their recent form. 34. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.02.2011 - 9:12 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "However, not winning this race means that his next non-RP win will be the first in over one year." Thanks for pointing that out, because as much success as JJ has had in Cup, that's an amazing (yet unbelievable) drought for him. It seemed like his frustration towards the Busch brothers and Logano might do him in IF he allowed those incidents to grate at him. But Jimmie Johnson is one of the best at not letting things get to him, and he showed today that he is still very well in the hunt. In fact, the only guys I would count officially out of contention are Dale Jr, Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin. With the current point system, I believe those three are just too far behind (also add that most of the teams ahead of them have been better all year) to make any kind of title challenge. "I'm gonna say something that probably won't be too popular: I don't mind the Start And Parks. I say this because 43 cars, especially on tracks 1 mile or less, is too many. 36 is about right. Yes, I don't like seeing the people that are just exploiting the system and getting free cash, and I fully understand the frustration over that. But I have noticed by going to the races at Martinsville, they seem to flow better with less cars. In the past it was kinda ridiculous, the leader would be in traffic in just 15 laps." Eh... I used to complain about start and parks when I first started posting comments on this site two years ago, but I've actually grown to just pretending they are not there, as that will be their legacy anyway. I don't think the sport is hurt very much by it. 35. 00andJoe posted: 10.02.2011 - 9:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #24 sponsor: Drive to End Hunger/Chase AARP Visa #16 sponsor: 3M Cubitron II #46 sponsor: Red Line Oil/International Trucks 36. Mr X posted: 10.02.2011 - 10:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The Start and Parkers are far from the biggest problem in NASCAR, they should be way down on the to do list. IMO the biggest problems are the lack of tire wear, shortness of the fuel run, schedule, and the amount of money being spent by the major teams. NASCAR needs to actually do something that will actually save the teams money, and the easiest way to do that is to change absolutely nothing in the Series, leave the cars, races, tracks, or tires alone. No changes unless they are absolutely neccessary. The only thing that any of these cost cutting measures that NASCAR has tried to implement have done is send teams back to the drawing board, made years worth of data useless, and made things more expensive, and NASCAR's timing couldn't have been worse, and being as teams can have up to four cars, the development process at the big teams is way ahead of smaller teams. The little guy is less competitive then ever. The major rule changes coming in 2012 and 2013 aren't going to help matters, they'll hinder them. Leave the carburetors in place, and leave the cars alone NASCAR. Restrict the use of carbon fiber to just the seat, for the 2010 season it became illegal for an owner to field four full time cars, honestly in the future I would love to see it go down to three full time cars. I've said this before, I don't understand why any team wants to be a four or five car team, other then Roush Racing in 2005 no team has ever had all four or five cars running well consistantly. Hendrick has always had the "fourth car," and frankly getting all the personnel in place to maintain good team chemistry aswell as applying all the engineering that goes into the fab' shop. A four car team means four fleets of cars have to be constantly updated. Limiting teams to three cars would slow down the development process at the larger teams, bringing smaller teams closer, fewer sponsors are needed, and its easier and cheaper to maintain the organization overall. RCR is a prime example, they don't have the elements in place to be competitive with four cars, and honestly neither does HMS, or RFR. Even though its at the expense of Clint Bowyer's career I'm glad he's moving on. RCR will benefit from losing a car, HMS would benefit from losing the 5 other then the fact that each pair of cars is in a different shop. RFR would benefit from dropping the 6. However I am unaware of how the shop is arranged at RFR. 37. Mr X posted: 10.02.2011 - 10:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) for the 2010 season it became illegal for an owner to field OVER FOUR* full time cars 38. Anonymous posted: 10.02.2011 - 10:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kurt Busch now has more Career wins than Ricky Rudd and his younger brother Kyle Busch. This is Kurt's 3rd career chase win. 39. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.02.2011 - 10:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I agree Mr X. There are a ton of issues that, if properly addressed, will render S&Ping obsolete anyways. We could go back to the glory days when fully funded Top 20 caliber teams would DNQ. I also question why owners would want 4th or 5th teams. Roush in '05 was a complete anomoly. It usually just brings teams down. As for RCR, every time they have added another car, going all the way back to the ill fated 31 Lowes car, it has brought the entire organization down badly. '97, '02, and '09 were all winless seasons for them. No coincidence. 40. Bronco posted: 10.02.2011 - 10:54 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Unbelievably this is the sixth straight Dover race where JJ has led the most laps (triple digits in all) and the ninth straight race overall. He has only won three of those six - he lost the spring race last year due to a penalty, this year he lost in the spring by taking four tires and he lost this one by getting a bad restart. He'll probably become the all time winner at this track soon with runs like this. 7 of the top 10 from today also finished in the top 10 in the spring race. Dale Jr's team let him down today with the swaybar issue and then the loose wheel, it looks like he's done for the championship. I still think he can salvage a top 5 points finish however. He hadn't finished out of the top 20 or off the lead lap since Kentucky in July. Sucks that Carl didn't win, but at least he's showing some real speed, which was missing from that team during the summer. Kurt passes 7000 laps led and moves past Terry Labonte and Dale Jarrett on the all time list. This race marks a year since Jeff Burton's last top 5 finish. His new crew chief isn't going to make it to next year. This race also marks a year since the #48 scored a dominant win, or any of kind of win that didn't involve having a teammate on your back bumper pushing you. 41. Schroeder51 posted: 10.02.2011 - 11:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "As for RCR, every time they have added another car, going all the way back to the ill fated 31 Lowes car, it has brought the entire organization down badly. '97, '02, and '09 were all winless seasons for them. No coincidence." You forgot that Kevin Harvick won a race in 2002...just pointing that out. 42. Schroeder51 posted: 10.02.2011 - 11:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Granted, though, I see the point you were trying to make-every year RCR added a new team, their performance went down the crapper as a whole. Even despite that Harvick win in '02-they still did badly overall-ironically the team that performed the best overall was the new one. 43. OldSchoolNascarDude posted: 10.02.2011 - 11:30 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I don't have a problem with start and park cars. Nascar rules state that if you're one of the eight fastest GOGH drivers that you're in the show. If you're funded for a race and get knocked out, that's just tough luck. Find some speed. 44. BON GORDON posted: 10.03.2011 - 1:03 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Boy what a disappointment for Jeff Gordon and his fans. While 12th place isnt a bad finish its not gonna win you a title. Everyone talks about how bad chicagoland was but it really wasnt going to end up being that bad of a finish. He shouldve finished around 13th instead of 24th. Bottom line Gordon and team need to run better in the chase or they will never contend for a title. 45. John Royal posted: 10.03.2011 - 3:10 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) All of the wishes how NASCAR should be, I really only want one simple thing: Require all cars to wear factory sheet metal. We would again see "stock" cars, and interesting car body concepts from manufactures to make their brand go little bit faster. Torino Talladega, Plymouth Superbird, Monte Carlo 2+2... And little bit more room for engineers to fiddle around. 46. Anonymous posted: 10.03.2011 - 6:40 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Not really a bad run for Jeff considering he always struggles at Dover, especially since the 500 mile endurance factor turned it into a craptrack... Jeff is doing well considering the Hendrick Chase sabotage-scam has begun for Jeff, Mark, and Dale. 47. cjs3872 posted: 10.03.2011 - 7:26 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) MR. X, the little guy is less competitve than ever? What races have you been watching this year? Single-car teams took BOTH the Daytona 500 (Trevor Bayne for the Wood Brothers) and the Southern 500 at Darlington (Regan Smith for Furniture Row Racing from out of Denver), two of the biggest and most historical races on the circuit. Smith's Furniture Row team also took third at the Brickyard 400. Before making a comment like that, check the facts first. And as for your idea of limiting teams to three full-time cars, that's another bad idea, because all that will do is shorten the field even more, becuase no one in their right mind would enter the sport, especially with the top 35 rule. Limiting teams to three cars would also suppress driver development, as that would take away several cars, leaving several good drivers on the sidelines for no apparent reason. Also remember that Red Bull Racing is going away after this year, with no apparent replacement, so that would leave two more open spots on the starting grid. Remember that there is a clause in NASCAR's television contract that REQUIRES a full field of 43 cars for the Cup events, or NASCAR doesn't get half of the TV money for that particular race. 48. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.03.2011 - 9:31 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) That's right, Harvick did win Chicago in '02. But it was a horrible year for RCR. The point I was getting at is that they started the 2nd team in '97 and that car didn't win until the last race of '01 (when Bill Weber had the gall to ask if that win made that year a good year for RCR. He seriously asked that). They started the 3rd car in '02. It didn't win until the summer of '07. The fourth car, started in '09 and it got its win in a fuel mileage deal this summer (after a one year hiatus). 49. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.03.2011 - 9:41 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I have a hilarious idea for S&Pers. They need a telecast sponsor to highlight them when they park. Kinda like Aarons has their ridiculous sponsoring of the lucky dog. When a car pulls behind the wall, TV needs to say "and now doing the NAPA start and park, Michael McDowell!" (I imagine NAPA sponsoring it because, like Aarons, they are a big sponsor of that whore Mikey, so they would probably would jump all over this). Then they could do an embarrassing interview asking them what their excuse will be this week (vibration? Brakes? Fuel pump?). It would be embarrassing and hilarious. Maybe they can get them to wear a hat during the interview saying "start and park". I got that idea watching Baseketball (featuring a cameo from Dale Earnhardt) when they wear those hats and shirts saying Loser when they lose the championship at the beginning. 50. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.03.2011 - 9:54 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) 18fan, I have also been surprised by their lack of contending at their normal strongholds. The thing that concerns me the most about them is their impending switch to TRD motors next year. I know Denny has had an off year, but ever since he switched to TRD, he simply has not been worth a shit. He is making a run at Vickers record for worse cha$e performance ever. TRD has been way behind on power ever since they showed up. I think JGR is taking a step backwards. 51. Mr X posted: 10.03.2011 - 12:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The Daytona 500 is a Restrictor Plate race, virtually any car in the field can win, and Regan Smith's Southern 500 win was a the biggest fluke in years, I really have my doubts as to whether that team will ever win another race, which is sad to say because I do like Regan. Regan took the lead by staying out on the final pitstop, leading only the final 11 laps, and only 4 of which were under green, and I'll say it for the millionth time, the lack of tire wear means the only thing effecting how fast each car can go is clean air and track position. Regan had it, Carl didn't. Regan Smith would've finished 10th under the same scenario back in 2004. Back up about 8 years and you have smaller teams legitimately competitive. Cal Wells #32 team, they built their own in house chassis, they had their own fab' shop, and in 2003 they had their own motor program. Even though the team fell apart in late 2003, they were still capable of leading laps and winning races, they won Darlington and Martinsville, both in thrilling fashion, and beating cars that you would think would be far superior. They won both of those races by having a fast car, they earned the track position out on the track. Ricky Craven finished higher in points then Bobby Labonte in 2002, Ricky led more laps then Rusty Wallace in 2002. Every time they went to Rockingham, Darlington, Martinsville and to a lesser extent Atlanta, they had a good run. They also ran up in the top 5 all night in the Coke 600 in 2002. Larry McClure's #4 was one of the better cars on the track in the first half of the 1990's, but after about 1996 or 1997 they just fell more and more behind the super teams every year. Andy Petree Racing, the Nelson Bowers team, Bill Davis Racing, Jim Smith's team, Travis Carters team, are all examples of teams wiped out of the sport by HMS, RFR, JGR, RCR, Penske, etc. Even Robert Yates team was wiped out, and watch the yearly prgression of Ricky Rudd's, and Bill Elliott's teams aswell. Had Alan Kulwicki been around he would've had to join a big team eventually. Up until about 8-10 years ago it was possible for a smaller team to show up with a well prepared car, dominate and win the race. Limiting teams just three *FULL TIME* cars it only eliminates two full time cars, there are only 3 current teams that field 4 cars, RCR, RFR, and HMS. RCR is losing Bowyer, however MWR is adding Bowyer. Net loss: Nothing. HMS would lose a car, however SHR is adding at least a part time car, and RFR has major sponsorship issues, that fourth car is probably more of a headache then an asset. Other then Roush Racing in 2005 no four or five car team has ever managed to get all four or five cars running eqaully consistant on a weekly basis, and no team has ever managed it for over a year. The fourth car is just dead weight. Every year since 2002, HMS has had the "fourth car," and that car has never finished better then 15th in the owners standings. Which it did in 2006 and 2007, and its been as low as 34th in 2002. At Roush, even in his fifth full year David Ragan is still the weak link at Roush, and the 16 team appears to be falling apart, however Greg and Jack have produced before. 52. cjs3872 posted: 10.03.2011 - 1:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) But, even if that final caution hadn't have come out, Smith would still have finished about sixth, and let's still not forget his third-place finish at Indy, as well as having solid runs at numerous other tracks, but you are right about the Wood Brothers, to a point. The Wood Brothers haven't been getting nearly the help from Roush and Ford they were getting before the Daytona 500 this year. But when the Woods beat Roush in the Daytona 500, I suspect that the pipeline from Roush and Ford to the Wood Brothers slowed dramatically. And even if it's good to cut down the number of teams due to the teams getting overtaxed, which is true, that still doesn't make up for the fact that, due to the top 35 rule, you still won't get anyone to enter the sport, and it still doesn't make up for the fact that if you limit the number of teams that a car owner is allowed to have to three, that potential future talent won't be suppressed, because that is already beginning to happen, with Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne being the prime example, though there are definately others. I predict that Bayne (despite his Daytona 500 win) and several other young talents will be out of the sport within three years, simply because there won't be anywhere for them to go, especially if car owners are forced to limit the number of teams they're allowed to have even more, which may result in less that 30 good cars showing up for these races, which will suppress future talent even more. 53. Michael S. posted: 10.03.2011 - 2:34 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Mr X, some of those teams you mention went under because of bad business decisions by team owners, not because of teams like Hendrick Motorsports or Roush Fenway Racing. Bill Davis's team is a striking example of this, he was caught helping Toyota establish a Cup program. Dodge of course wasn't happy about that and ended support to Bill Davis racing, and that proved to be the slow unraveling of a team that had attained the status of contender in the mid 2000's. Bill Elliott made the decision to have a 2nd car on his team in 1998, unfortunately that didn't pan out well. Prior to that point his 94 car was quite competitive, up until he eventually folded and left for Ray Evernham's Dodge team in for the 2001 season. Ricky Rudd had similar modest success with his own team, even managing quite a few wins and strong points finishes. He eventually folded and went to Robert Yates racing where he finished out his career and probably retired a little too late. Cal Wells #32 team declined after Ricky Craven left. During Ricky's tenure the team enjoyed again what I would term modest success. Well's decision to hire Rookie drivers didn't help the team's cause either. A forced switch from Pontiac to Chevrolet didn't help the team either. Nelson Bower's team was solid and enjoyed modest success with drivers such as Johnny Benson and Joe Nemechek, including a few wins. Once Bobby Ginn took over the team was finished, a shame because they were truly competitive to start that 2007 season. The team eventually merged into DEI. 54. Cooper posted: 10.03.2011 - 3:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Bobby Ginn virtually ended Joe Nemechek's and Sterling Marlin's careers. Wish that guy stayed out of the sport. The development of the sport in recent years ended the single teams. The COT was supposed to equalize everything out, but it actually had the opposite effect. Teams are still making special designed cars for each track, and teams are spending more money on computer systems because of the testing ban. Instead of being able to take my car to the track, and finding ways to improve, owners are having to buy million dollar computer simulators. Add into the fact that sponsors are no longer willing to pony up 30 Million dollars and we have a problem. 55. Scott B posted: 10.03.2011 - 3:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Post 147: "I think JGR is taking a step backwards." I agree, they are taking a step backwards by ending their own engine program. I also agree with those who have said that Clint Bowyer will be taking a step backwards by signing with MWR. However, both those decisions are based on economics and not on-track competitiveness. It's a sign the economy is now affecting drivers and teams at the top level of the sport, not just the ones who were already have-nots before the recession. 56. Scott B posted: 10.03.2011 - 3:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Er, that was responding to post 50, not 147... unless I'm seeing into the future. 57. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.03.2011 - 4:07 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Bill Davis's team is a striking example of this, he was caught helping Toyota establish a Cup program. Dodge of course wasn't happy about that and ended support to Bill Davis racing, and that proved to be the slow unraveling of a team that had attained the status of contender in the mid 2000's." I'm glad you mentioned that. That was truly one of the dumbest business decisions ever. BDR entered 2003 as a team with two sponsored cars and factory support from Dodge. They didn't have the resources some of the other teams had, but they managed 2 wins the previous year including the Daytona 500. Of course that 22 team also finished a dismal 25th in points, but they weren't exactly Start And Parking Sponsored By NAPA (we have got to make this happen). At the time it was known that Toyota was coming the next year in Trucks, supposedly with endless barrels of cash and business savvy. The thinking at the time was they would spend 2 years in Trucks getting their NASCAR legs under them in that Series, then moving to Cup in '06. It turned out to be '07, but still, two years is an eternity in NASCAR. So Bill Davis risked everything by helping Toyota. Of course Dodge pulled their support. This left BDR with no factory support for 2 and 1/2 years (it turned out to be 3 and 1/2). That was just a dumb decision. For a team that was barely hanging on to contender for occasional race wins status, they needed all the help they could get. Besides, they had already got in with Dodge when they entered on the ground floor. Why turn right around and start back from square one with another manufacturer? By the time Toyota finally showed up in '07, BDR was a shell of its former self, and Toyota really sucked that year. Their business savvy is way overrated. They gave lots of support to Michael Waltrip who promptly embarrassed himself and Toyota at every turn. They helped Red Bull get off the ground, a company whose owner is off in Austria, and one that had built itself around Brian Vickers as their lead driver. That had disaster written all over it. I'm honestly surprised they made it this far before folding. Of course Bill Davis messing up is nothing new. How can we forget he had Jeff Gordon when he first came to NASCAR. All he had to do was set up a Winston Cup ride for Jeff to keep his contract with Ford from going void. Just set up a Cup team and build it around Jeff. He couldn't even do that. Had he done that, is it too far fetched to think Jeff would have led them to a much higher level? Oh well, the bottom line is Bill Davis was a bad business man. 58. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.03.2011 - 4:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) You are right Scott. It is a shame to see, but you are right. Clint is definitely going backwards. Now Mikey will have 3 really talented drivers wasting their primes with him. 59. Smokefan05 posted: 10.03.2011 - 4:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) NASCAR just resigned with Goodyear till 2017. Why? Ward Burton gave Bill Davis some important wins (Daytona and Darlinton to name 2 races) but Ward stayied with Bill too long and ended up not having a shot at a good ride before Ward left NASCAR. Barney Vassers team has been getting better every year since Regan Smith toke over. Their win at Darlington proves they have gotten better. Now if they can a sponser and get a second car then they'd be better off. (however i didn't see them getting a second car unless a sponser foots some of the bill.) The team HAS gotten better, if people can't see it, then i do not know what else to say. Now in terms of Robbys team, well you screwed the poach on that didn't ya Robby? But i'll give Robby this, for atleast one year, was a about a 20th place car and at times has had shots to win races since starting his team. (luck and poor timing prevented those wins) 60. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.03.2011 - 4:41 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I would like to take this time to document Denny Hamlin's run towards history. In 2009 Brian Vickers set the benchmark for cha$e futility with his 23.7 average finish over the final 10. Even if you gave Kurt Busch a 44th place finish in the last two races of '05, his average finish would be 22.2. So Brian really set the bar low. Denny currently has an average finish of 26th through 3 cha$e races. After 3 races in '09, Brian's average finish was 22nd. Will we be witnessing history with Denny? 61. Talon64 posted: 10.03.2011 - 4:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) After 2 straight races of having my favorite drivers winning and sweeping the top 2-3 positions I should've figured there'd be 3 of my least-favorite up front. lol But it looks like I gave up on Kurt Busch's title hopes well before I should've. Steve Addington's a miracle worker to be able to get Kurt back in the game after the last few weeks and get the team back into victory lane. But can they keep it up for 7 more races? Don't know. And I couldn't be more thankful now for Tony Stewart's hot start to the Chase, because he needed that big gap over the majority of the Chase field to make up for the inevitable collapse at Dover. He's still just 9 points out and a 2nd straight Kansas Chase win could vault him back into the points lead. But he got his win (and 2 to boot!) so anything beyond this point is just gravy. I've softened my stance on S&P's lately. Teams, especially a couple in NNS, that have 1 or even 2 S&P cars to help fund a real, full time effort that'll run all the races is fine by me because it shows they've got legit intentions of growing. But the teams that seem like they have no ambition to make any progress beyond S&P'ing just to pick up the checks still bother me. Phil Parsons' teams, I'm looking at you! Right now, I think Carl's the favorite to win the championship. 4 of the last 7 races are intermediate tracks and I can't imagine he won't pick up at least 1 win among them and he should top 5 all of them. Phoenix will be great for him too, he might've had the best car back in February before Kyle wrecked him. He should run well enough to temper any bad result he gets at Martinsville, but a top 10's not out of the question and that'd be huge. And Talladega's a wild card for everybody. 62. Talon64 posted: 10.03.2011 - 4:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Also, where did Carl finish relative to the #17? Where is he in points compared to the #17? Who has scored more overall points this season?" 3rd compared to 5th. But the #17 made a bad call to go to 4 tires at the end and was lucky there were the late caution to help him get back into the top 5 (and Carl benefited to get to 3rd). Otherwise they both had cars good enough to win. 14 points behind. Only because Matt was unlucky to run out of fuel at Chicagoland and then get pushed by JJ Yeley to get nailed with a penalty. And Carl by 39 points. He's also the first driver to reach 20 top 10's this year so he's had a great year. The only blemish is that he let some wins get away from him early in the year (Kenseth's done better in that regard with his 2 wins) and the mid-season contract situation put him back some. It's only recently that it looks like he can win races again and at the perfect time, which is why as of right now he's the favorite to win the title. See? Despite the fact I don't like Carl I'll give him the credit he deserves. I'd like to finally see you give Keselowski some credit. 63. LordLowe posted: 10.03.2011 - 5:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Clint Bowyer has got to be one of the biggest idiots out there for his decision to sign with Waltrip racing is he trying to commit Career Suicide 64. Mr X posted: 10.03.2011 - 5:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) On NASCAR.com right now there is a Head2Head poll asking who will have a better year in 2012 with their new team, Kasey with HMS, or Clint with MWR? Which one will it be? (Enter Jeopardy Music here) The current results are 76% for Kahne. Absolutely Hilarious 65. Talon64 posted: 10.03.2011 - 5:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kurt Busch picks up his 24th career Sprint Cup victory, moving him ahead of his younger brother Kyle into 26th all time by himself. His next win will tie him with Jim Paschal and Joe Weatherly for 24th all time. It also ranks him 14th in the modern era (1972-present) and 4th since he came into NASCAR full time in 2001. It's his 2nd win of 2011, giving Penske two teams each with multiple wins for the first time since 2000 with Rusty Wallace (4) and Jeremy Mayfield (2). It's his first win in 23 starts at Dover, the 14th different track he's won at (out of the 24 he's driven at, 23 on the current schedule). Jimmie Johnson has now gone exactly 36 races since his last non-plate win (this Dover race a year ago). But in that span he has 6 runner-up finishes, more than any driver, and it's his 3rd runner-up in the last 7 races overall. It's the 6th consecutive Dover race that he's led the most laps in, leading 56.2% of the laps over that span (1349 of 2400). It's his 7th top 2 finish in 20 Dover starts. Carl Edwards has now led more laps this season than the previous 2 combined (713, versus 427 in 2010 and 164 in 2009). He's also the first driver to reach 20 top 10's this year and also leads the season with 14 top 5's and a 10.4 average finish. It's his 6th straight top 10 overall, including 4 top 5's and a 5.2 average finish. It's Carl's best finish at Dover in the last 6 races but his 7th top 5 and 10th top 10 in the last 11 races there (4.7 avg fin). Kasey Kahne gets his first top 5 in 12 races (but not without a lack of performance). But his 4 top 5's this year tie Brian Vickers in 2009 for the most by a Red Bull Racing driver in a season. It's his first top 5 and just his 4th top 10 in 10 career Dover starts (22.6 avg fin). Matt Kenseth gets his first top 5 in 9 races, but which included 5 top 10's. And it's his 7th top 5 in the last 8 Dover races and 12th in 26 career starts there (12.2 avg fin). Kyle Busch picks up just his 2nd top 10 in the 6 races since his Michigan win. But it's his 4th straight finish of 6th or better at Dover (4.25 avg fin) and 9th top 10 in 14 career Dover starts (13.3 avg fin). AJ Allmendinger gets his 3rd top 10 at Dover, his most at any one track; all of them have come in the last 5 races where he's had a 4 finishes of 14th or better, versus a 31.6 avg fin in his first 5 starts there. Clint Bowyer gets just his 2nd top 10 in the last 6 races (along with 4 finishes of 22nd or worse). Of Bowyer's 5 top 10's in 12 Dover starts (14.2 avg fin), 4 of them are 8th place finishes. Marcos Ambrose picks up just his 2nd top 10 in the 7 races since his Watkins Glen win. After only finishing a best of 14th in his first 5 Dover starts (24.4 avg fin), Ambrose finished 3rd and 9th in the two races this season. Kevin Harvick has 4 top 10's in the last 5 races, with the other finish being only a 12th (6.4 avg fin). Harvick finished 10th in both Dover races this year, and it's his 6th top 15 in the last 7 Dover races (4 top 10's with a best of 6th, 11.0 avg fin). Jeff Burton finishes 11th for the 3rd time this year (just 1 top 10 in 29 races). Brian Vickers has 4 finishes of 13th or better in the last 5 races, including his 5th at Loudon, and has scored the 9th most points in the Chase so far. Regan Smith has 6 finishes of 18th or better in the last 7 races (9 top 20's in the first 22 races). 66. Talon64 posted: 10.03.2011 - 5:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "On NASCAR.com right now there is a Head2Head poll asking who will have a better year in 2012 with their new team, Kasey with HMS, or Clint with MWR? Which one will it be? (Enter Jeopardy Music here) The current results are 76% for Kahne. Absolutely Hilarious" About how stupid people are to vote Bowyer as high as 24%? Absolutely. lol But that says more about how well I think Kahne will do next year. If how he and Francis are continuing to run up front even as RBR falls down all around him says anything. 67. Scott B posted: 10.03.2011 - 5:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Race note from Dover: TJ Bell was on the preliminary entry list in the #50, but it was withdrawn. Looking ahead to Kansas: 46 entries including Austin Dillon's first Cup qualifying attempt in the #98 (Mike Curb listed owner, I'd assume with help from RCR?). 68. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.03.2011 - 6:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Phil Parsons' teams, I'm looking at you!" I will say that team really bugs me. All Phil is concerned about is picking up free money. "The current results are 76% for Kahne. Absolutely Hilarious" That is funny. Have they not seen equally talented drivers Truex and Reut struggling just to be mid packers in those MWR pieces of shit? Kahne has overachieved everywhere he has been. 69. 00andJoe posted: 10.03.2011 - 6:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kansas entry list is out. 46 cars: -Robby back in the #7 -Stremme in the #30 (Now standard, no longer mentioned after this) -Wise in the #37 -Kvapil in the #38 -Yeley in the #55 -Starr in the #95 -Austin Dillon in the #98 70. 00andJoe posted: 10.03.2011 - 6:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The catch with Kahne is what can he do with the #5 at Hendrick where 5 is the new 25 (i.e. the red-haired stepchild team)? 71. Anonymous posted: 10.03.2011 - 7:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The truth is the 5 team actually was the 25 team originally and let me explain. When Dale Earnhardt Jr. went to Hendrick the 25 number was turned into the number 88. During the off season there was crew chief/crew swap that involved the 5,25, and 88. The 88 team in 2010 became the 24 team in 2011 with the only change being the car number a different driver. Jeff Actually has Mark's 2010 team when it the 5 team when he left the 24/48 team shop to 5/88 shop. Mark got stuck with the team Dale Jr. had in 2010 in personnel including the crew chief. 72. Talon64 posted: 10.03.2011 - 7:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) It won't be the same #5 in 2012, since Kenny Francis will be coming over with Kahne. Plus Mark's done a better job than Dale Jr. did the previous two seasons. They just need a driver who's both younger and who doesn't look like he hates his job. 73. cjs3872 posted: 10.03.2011 - 10:07 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Anonymous (#71), actually, the #5 team in 2010 became the #24 team in 2011, the #24 team in 2010 became the #88 team in 2011, and the #88 team in 2010 became the #5 team in 2011. Of those, only the current #24 team has really improved (due to the driver, perhaps?), having won three times, and letting at least that many slip away. The current #88 team (last year's #24 team) is where it was last year with Jeff Gordon behind the wheel then, in trhe Chase, but nothing more than that. And this year's #5 team (last years #88 team) is basically stuck in neutral, exactly where it was at this time a year ago. None of the Hendrick teams that swapped are doing any worse than they did last year, but only the current #24 team is doing better than last year. Ironically, the only Hendrick team that appears to be doing worse this year from last, is the only one that didn't have a major change, and that's the #48 team of Jimmie Johnson. 74. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.03.2011 - 11:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "But, even if that final caution hadn't have come out, Smith would still have finished about sixth, and let's still not forget his third-place finish at Indy, as well as having solid runs at numerous other tracks, but you are right about the Wood Brothers, to a point. The Wood Brothers haven't been getting nearly the help from Roush and Ford they were getting before the Daytona 500 this year. But when the Woods beat Roush in the Daytona 500, I suspect that the pipeline from Roush and Ford to the Wood Brothers slowed dramatically." Agreed, Regan Smith is quite possibly one of the most underrated drivers in NASCAR right now. Considering the #78 team wasn't the least bit competitive until he came aboard (Front Row Joe won a pole for them at Dega, but that was about all he did. And he too was a good driver!), what he has managed to do there says a lot about him as a driver. Also, if what you speculate about the Wood Brothers and Roush's pipeline slowing after Trevor's Daytona 500 win is true, then that would make Jack Roush one insecure individual. Even if Jack was giving MORE support to the #21, it is still on the Woods to build the right chassis/car setups, and chances are that Roush is a lot better in that department. But again, IF this was true (there's a slight chance it might not be). Kasey Kahne scores only his 4th top 5 finish of 2011, however he is just one top 10 finish away from equaling his 2010 total, and he has already surpassed his total for 2005 and 2007. 75. cjs3872 posted: 10.04.2011 - 12:53 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) All I'm saying about Roush and the Wood Brothers is that neither the Wood Brothers, or Trevor Bayne have run nearly as well after the Daytona 500 as they did before, which includes the Cup race at Texas last fall, with the exception of when Ricky Stenhouse drove the car at Charlotte. Maybe some of that's due to the fact that Bayne is only trying to finish the races in that car, due to the Wood Brothers' lack of funding, which causes them to run only half the season's race this race, and considerably less next year, if their schedule holds true, and not running hard as a result. And that also includes Bayne's Nationwide Series team, and I suspect that some of Roush's seeming unwillingness to find Bayne a sponsor has something to do with that win over one of Roush's cars in the Daytona 500, as a means of teaching Bayne a lesson, and that's not to beat the master's car (Carl Edwards, in this case) to win the sport's biggest race. Why else would Roush not even attempt to find a sponsor for a driver who seems to be a sponsor's dream that had won the Daytona 500, and bascially has forced Bayne to drive conservatively by forcing him to qualify on time for every Nationwide race since he got back in the car from his illness? I think, and have always thought, that there has been something fishy going on with the whole situation regarding Bayne, Roush Racing, and the Wood Brothers since Bayne's Daytona 500 win. Could Roush have also blocked any efforts by the Wood Brothers to find sponsorship early in the season for Bayne to run more Cup races and get more experience? The chances of all this being true is, of course, very slim to remote. But Roush has been known to be a vindictive car owner in the past, as well as not exactly treating all his drivers fairly. Remember the situations regarding Johnny Benson, Jr. and Jeff Burton, among others? 76. Curran posted: 10.04.2011 - 1:03 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I would like to take this time to document Denny Hamlin's run towards history. In 2009 Brian Vickers set the benchmark for cha$e futility with his 23.7 average finish over the final 10. Even if you gave Kurt Busch a 44th place finish in the last two races of '05, his average finish would be 22.2. So Brian really set the bar low. Denny currently has an average finish of 26th through 3 cha$e races. After 3 races in '09, Brian's average finish was 22nd. Will we be witnessing history with Denny?" @ DSFF HAHA. And it's really even worse than that because the start and parkers are as numerous as then have ever been in the chase era. As long as you make it to the first round of pit stops without being on the wrecker, the absolute worst you can possibly finish is 36th. 77. 00andJoe posted: 10.04.2011 - 3:13 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Regardless of the shell-game they played with the numbers, Hendrick still has an 'institutionaised 25'. Which seems to have shifted from the 'traditional' 25/88 to the 5 now (which, seeing as they ran 25 in the Winston, well...) 78. 12345Dude posted: 10.04.2011 - 7:47 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I have nothing really to say other then, I can't believe how many people were down on Jimmie Johnson after New Hampshire. It wasn't just here, that people were down on him. I couldn't believe it. "I have a hilarious idea for S&Pers. They need a telecast sponsor to highlight them when they park. Kinda like Aarons has their ridiculous sponsoring of the lucky dog. When a car pulls behind the wall, TV needs to say "and now doing the NAPA start and park, Michael McDowell!" (I imagine NAPA sponsoring it because, like Aarons, they are a big sponsor of that whore Mikey, so they would probably would jump all over this). Then they could do an embarrassing interview asking them what their excuse will be this week (vibration? Brakes? Fuel pump?). It would be embarrassing and hilarious. Maybe they can get them to wear a hat during the interview saying "start and park". I got that idea watching Baseketball (featuring a cameo from Dale Earnhardt) when they wear those hats and shirts saying Loser when they lose the championship at the beginning." That's an AWESOME idea. Haha. Oh and also I know it's not official yet but it almost is. Why is Clint Boyer going to MWR. Thats going to be a disaster. To me Clint Boyer doesn't have much of a personality. But everyone in the back seems to really respect him, and like him. It really showed after he won the Kansas race in the trucks. So he must be a good guy. I would of joined RPM. They have a lot of upside. I think he was planning to, but the deal went threw or something. Not sure. 79. cjs3872 posted: 10.04.2011 - 9:17 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) And Curran, if you thought the start-and-park situation in Cup is bad this year, it's only going to get worse next yearwith two more open spots on the grid becoming available with Red Bull Racing going away due to the higher-ups at Red Bull no longer wanting to be in NASCAR and apparently not willing to sell the team to anyone, as well as one of Roush's teams (#6) also possibly going away due to lack of sponsorship. The Clint Bowyer situation with him going to a third car, while leaving Childress without a fourth car doesn't change the car count there. It'll be as if Bowyer's team is moving to MWR, as far as car count is concerned. And I'm not convinced this third Stewart-Haas car that Danica Patrick is going to run some races in is going to run full-time next year. That means that you could see races in Cup next year in which as many as 10 cars start-and-park, which is more than the number that have to qualify in time. And let me clarify my comments on the Roush/Wood Brothers situation. That's a situation where Roush is/was more than willing to help them out as much as possible, but when they began to be competitve with Roush, the lead (only) dog at Ford, and even win that Daytona 500, I believe that's when Roush may have began to decrease the amount of help he was willing to give the Woods the rest of the season. And unless they put Ricky Stenhouse in the car for next year, I believe the help Roush gives the Woods may decrease even more. That's what may be driving a potential decision to replace Bayne with Stenhouse, which first circulated a couple of weeks ago. Of course, that decision has yet to have officially been made, but because that possibility has even been mentioned, despite the fact that the Woods seem to happy with Bayne, tells me that Roush and possibly even Ford may be pulling the strings there. 80. Cooper posted: 10.04.2011 - 11:24 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @jeff_gluck Jeff Gluck "Pocono announced today it is currently repaving the track. Repave will be done in time for next June's race." VIA Twitter. That should be interesting. I figure the speeds into turn 1 will probably be up 5 MPH at least. 81. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.04.2011 - 2:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "That's a situation where Roush is/was more than willing to help them out as much as possible, but when they began to be competitve with Roush, the lead (only) dog at Ford, and even win that Daytona 500, I believe that's when Roush may have began to decrease the amount of help he was willing to give the Woods the rest of the season." This is what I thought you had said, which would make Roush very insecure for the reasons I mentioned before. It seems to me that Roush has very little to worry about when it comes to the Woods, because they're not in any position to start outperforming Roush. Basically, this would prove that Roush is just as insecure, greedy and vindictive as we have given him credit for. 82. Talon64 posted: 10.04.2011 - 4:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Reed Sorenson's out of the #32 Turner Nationwide car effective immediately. Brian Vickers will return to the team to drive the car for Kansas. It was made known yesterday that Dollar General wouldn't be returning to Turner Motorsports (apparently they're moving over to JGR as a sponsor for their NNS and Cup teams), but Sorenson getting dumped like this was a huge shocker. But they'd been struggling somewhat, with no top 5's in the last 12 races to fall from a 9 point lead in the drivers championship to 49 points out. The #32 had also been in the hunt for the owners title but they're well out of it now. Turner Motorsports could be down to just 2 full time NNS teams next year, if the rumors about Great Clips also leaving pan out (I've heard conflicting stories). 83. cjs3872 posted: 10.04.2011 - 5:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) RCRandPenskeGuy, remember that RPM hasn't performed as well this year at times as they did last year, either, even though they were the ones that actually gave Roush the set-ups that they started rebounding with late last year. RPM is just having better luck getting to the finish of races, where they had next-to-no luck last year. And let's not forget that Roush was, in my opinion, almost single-handedly responsible for the collapse of Robert Yates Racing a few years ago. You are correct that the Wood Brothers are not on the verge of outperforming Roush, or anyone else for that matter, which may be another reason why Roush and Ford are contemplating another driver change there to get an aggressive driver (Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.) in the #21 car to see what the #21 car is actually capable of. Remember that Stenhouse ran hard (too hard, sometimes) and finished 11th at Charlotte, their best non-RP finish in about three years, while Bayne, except for the plate tracks, has to me, been willing to run in the middle or back of the pack, and just finish the race with the car in one piece, settling for 20th-25th place finishes as a result, with a best of 17th at Texas on the non-RP tracks. After all, I believe that Roush and Ford do want the Wood Brothers to actually be competitve with some of the other teams when they do run. As for the Turner Motorsports situation, I've been predicting that something would happen there for some time, so far as one of the teams shutting down, but even I didn't expect this. But what happened to Reed Sorenson proves to me something that I also said months ago about how little Steve Turner actually cared about winning the championship. But I didn't think he would take the third-place driver in points out of the car. It may also be some sort retribution for outperforming Justin Allgaier, who was supposed to be the #1 guy at Turner Motorsports. 84. cjs3872 posted: 10.04.2011 - 5:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And lets also remember, Talon64, that Dollar General, the sponsor for the #32 Turner Motorsports car, is also pulling out of IndyCar Racing, despite the fact that they sponsored the winning car in the IndyCar race at Kentucky on Sunday, leaving Sarah Fisher's team and driver Ed Carpenter without a sponsor for next year, though Carpenter's schedule will be greatly reduced by the contuinuing reduction in oval races for the IndyCar series. So Turner Motorsports isn't the only major racing team that Dollar General's departure is leaving with questions about next year. 85. NicoRosbergFan posted: 10.04.2011 - 6:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I've been going through a hard time lately and thought I'd say, "Sorry," for some of the horrible things I have posted on here in the last month or two. 86. 18fan posted: 10.04.2011 - 7:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Stenhouse did not run anywhere close to 11th at all during the Coca-Cola 600, he just took advantage of everybody running out of gas late to move up and then he got stuck on the restart, but he still finished higher than he ran all night because every time FOX showed him he seemed to be in the wall. 87. cjs3872 posted: 10.04.2011 - 9:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) True enough 18fan, and he (Stenhouse) did hit the wall about six times during that race, but there was a point in that race where he ran as high as fourth after taking two wave-arounds, and either he or his team said that if he had picked the right hole to go through when those cars ran out of fuel that he could have finished even higher. But the fact remains that he put himself in position to take advantage of that situation, something they hadn't been able to do in any non-RP race in about three years, but you are right about him not running that well during the first 350 miles of the race. But when he got into the flow of the race, he ran better. And remember that he also qualified ninth for that race, easily the highest they have qualified for a non-RP race this year. Conversely, the best that Trevor Bayne has qualified in that car for a non-RP race, including when he was locked in, was 16th at Las Vegas. And by the way, he actually moved to outside in turn two on the very start of the August race at Michigan from the 20th starting position to let others, including Carl Edwards, go by on the very first lap, which gave you an indication right there of his game plan for that race. By the way, after five top-20 finishes in their first ten races, they've not finished better than 23rd. By the way, on tonight's NASCAR Race Hub, Jack Roush, for whom both Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and Trevor Bayne drive for said that he doesn't have anything solid for either of them for next year, but hopes that both will have full-season sponsors and go for the NNS championship, and even said that even the #6 Cup team may be in jeopardy for next year. Now what I think he should do in a case like that is to move the numbers for one of his other cars (16, 17, 99) to the #6 flagship, if the current #6 team has to be shut down. Can anyone imagine if Hendrick had to abandon the #5, or it Richard Petty Motorsports did the same to the #43, or Joe Gibbs Racing did the same to the #18. After all, those are the flagship car numbers for those organizations, and it just wouldn't feel right for those organizations to run without a car with the team's flagship car number. (I'm not including Richard Childress and the #3 in that, due to the reason why they no longer run the number 3, namely the death of Dale Earnhardt, Sr.) 88. Bronco posted: 10.04.2011 - 9:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) What happened to Reed is not at all unprecedented. In 2009 Mike Bliss won a race and was in the top 5 in points and was let go during the summer. He bounced around from ride to ride, even doing a few S&Ps in order to collect points and to keep himself in the top 5 in points by season's end. Despite all that, this is still a real shocker. It means Almirola will likely take 3rd away and Reed will need to scramble to find a ride and keep collecting points. 89. Spen posted: 10.04.2011 - 10:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "And I'm not convinced this third Stewart-Haas car that Danica Patrick is going to run some races in is going to run full-time next year." I don't see why they wouldn't run the car full-time. The last thing they'd want is an embarrassing DNQ on Danica's record, and running the new team full-time would prevent that from happening. Plus, Mark Martin is looking to run part-time, so having him run the car in the races Danica doesn't would work out perfectly. 90. 00andJoe posted: 10.04.2011 - 11:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Prediction: The Danicamobile will take the owner points from one of Red Bull's cars. Other prediction: the rest of Turner Motorsports' drivers will take a long, hard look at their resumes and consider options now that it's been shown nobody's safe there... 91. cjs3872 posted: 10.05.2011 - 8:56 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Spen, Tony Stewart is not going to run that third car full-time if there is no sponsorship for the races that Danica Patrick is not going to run. It's as simple as that, though 00andJoe has a point in saying that they might take the points from one of the Red Bull cars, if that team is not bought out by another entity, much like the Wood Brothers got the points from the last year's #19 car to be safely in this year's first five races, one of which, the Daytona 500, they won. And I don't really think that Justin Allgaier has very much to worry about, since he was supposed to be Turner's #1 Nationwide driver to start with. I just think the release of Jason Leffler (at season's end) and now Reed Sorenson was done specifically to make room for James Buescher to move up to the Nationwide Series, though the release of Sorenson was also sponsorship-driven, as the #32 car has now lost its sponsor Dollar General, which as I mentioned, is also leaving the #67 IndyCar of Ed Carpenter, despite the fact that it won at Kentucky, leaving Sarah Fisher's IndyCar team without a sponsor going forward, as well. 92. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.05.2011 - 11:14 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "All I'm saying about Roush and the Wood Brothers is that neither the Wood Brothers, or Trevor Bayne have run nearly as well after the Daytona 500 as they did before" One thing to remember about that car in Daytona is that they were running an experimental engine package related to the engine's cooling. In the 2 car tango, this helped enormously. If you remember, he spent the entire week, whether it was practices, the qualifying races, and most of the Daytona 500 itself tucked right up somebody's ass. He was seemingly the only car that could do this with no overheating issues. This is why Jeff Gordon was very vocal about wanting to work with Trevor in the 500, high praise from somebody who is usually leery of rookies. He knew that 1) Trevor was very smart about pushing cars and 2) he could just spend forever with his nose right against somebody's bumper. When he went 500 miles like this with no engine issues, the other Ford teams quickly adopted that package. This led to the whole "Ford has a huge horsepower advantage" thing. While they were making some steam, the real key was the fact they could run their cars with much more grille tape because their engines had such great cooling systems. This allowed more downforce through the corners and less drag down the straights. 93. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.05.2011 - 11:29 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) A real shame about Reed. It has been nice seeing him reinvent himself in NWide after being brought up to Cup way too quick for a team that wasn't very good at the time resulting in lost confidence and bad habits (we shall call this the Casey Atwood Effect). Hopefully he lands on his feet somewhere, but, as cjs has mentioned, opportunities are drying up like crazy. Drivers are currently testing at the newly paved and newly configured Phoenix Raceway. It doesn't sound good. Sounds like they are having trouble getting just a single groove worked in. This race will be a damn disaster. Why did they do this? Old pavement = fun racing. The track was fine the way it was, why are they messing with it? Did Bruton Smith secretly buy the track? Also, they are repaving Pocono. This is going to be a disaster. With the speeds they will be running into the corners there, it will be less about racing, and more about making it to the end. Teams are going to use their brakes up in no time at all. The tires will be rock hard leading to no grip leading to lots of spinouts and crashed. I predict the new 400 mile races, for the first few years, will take as long as the old 500 mile races. This repaving shit is awful. Ever since Daytona developed that pothole, every track is scared to death of being "embarrassed" by a similar situation. I say that is totally unwarranted. With as heavy as these cars are, and as fast as they go, they are going to tear shit up. It is just the way it goes. Highways develop potholes all the time. It happens. Does anybody really think less of DIS because they developed a pothole on their 31 year old surface? Of course the way they handled was kinda embarrassing. Besides, a big reason for the embarrassment was that it was, in fact, THE Daytona 500. Anything that happens there will be magnified because of the viewers. There aren't going to be 15 million people watching the races at Pocono, Michigan, Kansas, or Phoenix. Remember the pothole at Martinsville in in '04? How much do people really talk about that anymore? Not much, because it is Martinsville. 94. cjs3872 posted: 10.05.2011 - 1:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Let's not forget DSFF, that the previous time Daytona was repaved, which was after the 1978 Firecracker 400, was also due to track problems, as the track was also tearing up during the 1978 Daytona 500, which resulted in Richard Petty, Benny Parsons, and Buddy Baker all suffering cut tires while leading the race. Petty's problem resulted in a crash in the fourth turn on lap 61 that also eliminated David Pearson and Darrell Waltrip. Parsons' problem resuilted in him spinning entering turn one on the 70th lap and A.J. Foyt crashing and rolling over behind him in the chain reaction that followed. Baker was able to make it safely into his pits, so there was no real reprocussions from his cut tire. but, as was the case in 2010, the problems that occurred with the track were as result of a combination of an aging track surface and torrential rains that took place prior to the race. As for your comment about the pothole in Martinsville, which by the way, overshadowed Rusty Wallace's final victory, which came in that race. They were forced to repave the concrete turns, and the racing as a result, has never been the same, as it has been far worse, as Martinsville has been a one-groove track since the repaving there. As for your saying there aren't going to be 15 million people watching races other than the Daytona 500. Well, I'd have to say that the Daytona 500 draws an audience of about about the size the Super Bowl did in the 1970s and '80s, which is about 100-120 million people around the world. (The Super Bowl probably draws more than 1 billion viewers around the world today.) The "minor" races, like Martinsville and Pocono, probably draw about 15 million viewers, while the other "major" races, like Charlotte, Indy, and even Darlington draw anywhere between 20-40 million viewers. Now that may not be the figure that watch the entire race, but rather an estimated figure that will watch at least a small portion of the race. 95. cjs3872 posted: 10.05.2011 - 1:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And also, your point about Ford and the Wood Brothers running an experimental engine during the Daytona 500 is untrue. First, when Ford came up with the FR9 engine, the Wood Brothers, with long-time Ford campaigner Bill Elliott driving, were the only ones running that engine. Secondly, that engine was designed with a better cooling system, which in turn would allow it to run more tape, which gave them an advantage in terms of handling, which they really didn't take full advantage of. And finally, Trevor Bayne seemingly was the only driver that actually learned from what Matt Kenseth did during the first qualifying race, for it was Kenseth that showed everyone else that if you run with the right front corner seeing the air, that you could push for much longer, but it seemed that Bayne was the only one that actually caught on, which is why he could push longer than anyone else could, so your point about Bayne's intelligence (or racing IQ), not to mention his ability to seemingly sense potential trouble (which Darrell Waltrip mentioned on the broadcast), is right on the money. But since then, others have caught on, thus eliminating the advantage that the Fords stumbled on to during SpeedWeeks. 96. Anonymous posted: 10.05.2011 - 1:54 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I guess now Phoenix is going to be won by Qualifying or in the pits because passing is going to be worse now for that track despite the track being wider now. I agree that Pocono is going to be a concern after the repaving. It sounds like Pocono would be turning into a Martinsville type track in terms of using breaks and the new repaving could also cause engine issues even more even it is only 400 miles. I brought engines because repaving means more speed when you shift in terms of Pocono. 97. cjs3872 posted: 10.05.2011 - 2:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Anonymous, as I remember, the last time Pocono was repaved, there wasn't a big problem. In fact, that was the last time I can remember cars running in packs before attrition started thinning the ranks of contenders. And for those that say that the higher speeds would cause more mechanical strain, and that more cars might drop out as a result, why is that so bad? Actually, that fact that the races there will be 400 miles might cause more strain than the new surface, because the shorter race distance might make the teams more aggressive on what packages they might run. As for Phoenix, that remains a mystery. I do like the apparently wider front straightaway, which is something they've needed there for years. But what the cars might do in the corners there, as well as how the racing will be there will remain a mystery until the weekend of that race. Remember that when the backstretch was effectively widened when they took out the wall that stuck out, which was done after disastrous crashes that Buddy Lazier and Arie Luyendyk had in the mid-to-late 90s? That was criticized, though it was done for safety reasons, and it worked out well. It looks like the backstretch was redesigned from the layout I saw, with the turn off turn two apparently being a sharper exit. Only time will tell what will happen at the race at Phoenix later this year, as well as the second race of next year. 98. Mr X posted: 10.05.2011 - 2:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I fail to see how the racing at Martinsville is worse then ever, Martinsville has picked up the pieces that Bristol dropped. In Martinsville the corner speeds are just 55-65mph, the aero-push means virtually nothing. We've all seen a few cars run faster at Martinsville with the front fenders cut off. It's all about mechanical grip, and with the amount of TIRE WEAR!!!! the racing is fantastic. Its got by far the best short track racing. As for Pocono and Phoenix being repaved well thats just two fewer real racetracks left on the circuit. Obviously it will turn out to be a huge mistake, the races will be half as exciting as they have ever been. In my book I honestly believe that the pothole in the 2010 Daytona 500 will go down as one of the worst things that has happened in the last 5 years. Since then every track has just become so terrified that the track may come apart during the weekend. Well dispite the two and a half hours of red flag in the 2010 Daytona 500 it was still a far better race then the 2011 Daytona 500, there weren't 16 cautions for the same single car spin, handling came into play. Daytona was a drivers track. The only good thing that came of the 2011 Daytona 500 was the fact that Wood Brothers won it for the first time in 35 years. The 2011 Coke Zero 400 was the worst race at Daytona I have ever seen, David Ragan in victory lane, two green white checker attemts, two big ones in the final 10 laps, the two car tango bullshit, and handling meant nothing. Even though the 2010 July race at Daytona also had the stupid GWC finishes, and two huge wrecks in its late stages, handling was a factor, cars were sliding around, and there were no potholes. Daytona obviously fixed their problem between February and July. 99. cjs3872 posted: 10.05.2011 - 3:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Mr X, the reason I say that the racing at Martinsville is far worse than it was before the repaving is simply that you can't race side-by-side there. The only way to get past someone is to knock them out of the way. And to me, that has NEVER been real racing. That's why the racing at Bristol since that track was reconfigured in mid-2007 is so much better. Because you can actually RACE there, instead of wrecking the guy in front of you. All the drivers want are options, and that's what Bristol now gives you, but what Martinsville no longer gives you. You used to be able to try to go on the outside to attempt a pass, but now that Martisvaille is a one-groove track, all you can do is knock a guy out of the way. And as for the racing at Daytona goes, I prefer the two-by-two style, because it gives the field a chance to separate, and makes it more chancy to hang in the back of the field, which you can't do at Daytona, anyway due to the narrower racing surface. The high muber of cautions in the Daytona 500 had to do with the fact that the drivers simply didn't know how to do the two-car tango draft. but in the Firecraker 400, the number of cautions went way down because the drivers had learned how to do it. Also remember that in the first Daytona 500 after the last repave in 1979, there were a near-record 57 laps run under caution (though 15 of them were run to start the race to dry the track after morning rains). As I mentioned in post #94, the last Daytona repave was caused by the fact that the track tore up during the 1978 Daytona 500, which did cause cut tires by three top drivers, all of whom were leading the race at the time their tires were cut by the deteriorating track surface, and caused some potentially serious accidents to some of the top drivers of the day. And by the way, just how does the fact that David Ragan won the Firecracker 400 make it a bad race? I'm a big critic of his as well, but to me what you said there was totally unfair. I don't think you'd make that particular comment if Matt Kenseth, or Jeff Gordon, or Kasey Kahne had won that race. (And let's not forget that Ragan actually won a Nationwide race at Bristol a couple of years ago, holding off Carl Edwards.) 100. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.05.2011 - 4:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Tracks like MIS and Pocono have (get this) Snow, Freezing rain, C-O-L-D weather and a season called WINTER. I'm glad those tracks are being (get this again) Proactive about it. (gee, wasn't it people on here who were slaming NASCAR about NOT being proactive?????) Hm, i wounder. A certain word might just fit this...............i'll think of it eventually. Anyway, PIR really didn't need it, but if its more unquine then it used to be, then its fine with me, i like the track anyway. "Mr X, the reason I say that the racing at Martinsville is far worse than it was before the repaving is simply that you can't race side-by-side there. The only way to get past someone is to knock them out of the way. And to me, that has NEVER been real racing. That's why the racing at Bristol since that track was reconfigured in mid-2007 is so much better. Because you can actually RACE there, instead of wrecking the guy in front of you. All the drivers want are options, and that's what Bristol now gives you, but what Martinsville no longer gives you. You used to be able to try to go on the outside to attempt a pass, but now that Martisvaille is a one-groove track, all you can do is knock a guy out of the way." Yep, a demo derby for 500 laps ("fans" miss that by the way). But at Mville it is needed to use your bumper sometimes, at a place like BMS, for as much banking as that place has, RACING should be the term used, not "demo derby." "And as for the racing at Daytona goes, I prefer the two-by-two style, because it gives the field a chance to separate, and makes it more chancy to hang in the back of the field, which you can't do at Daytona, anyway due to the narrower racing surface. The high muber of cautions in the Daytona 500 had to do with the fact that the drivers simply didn't know how to do the two-car tango draft. but in the Firecraker 400, the number of cautions went way down because the drivers had learned how to do it. Also remember that in the first Daytona 500 after the last repave in 1979, there were a near-record 57 laps run under caution (though 15 of them were run to start the race to dry the track after morning rains)." *ding* another winner. people miss their pack racing and big ones, so that is way NASCAR is "trying" to get back to pack racing were if people remember right 1 screw up can take out 50% of the field and guess what people bit#### about it then and people bit#### about the 2 car draft (but Mikey you caused the big one this year yourself) NOT causing big ones but in reality broke up packs that "fans" hated. I feel like Cooper, i'm losing my mind. "And by the way, just how does the fact that David Ragan won the Firecracker 400 make it a bad race? I'm a big critic of his as well, but to me what you said there was totally unfair. I don't think you'd make that particular comment if Matt Kenseth, or Jeff Gordon, or Kasey Kahne had won that race. (And let's not forget that Ragan actually won a Nationwide race at Bristol a couple of years ago, holding off Carl Edwards.)" People have to hate, it helps them with their shallow existance. (formerly Smokefan05) 101. cjs3872 posted: 10.05.2011 - 6:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yes, but there is a big difference between using your bumper "sometimes" and having to use it all the time. And by the way, I failed to mention it in post #99, but another reason I like the two-by-two drfting is that it has virtually eliminated the dangerous practice of blocking, which has contributed to many bad crashes at Daytona and Talladega over the years. You look at the major crashes that have occurred at Daytona and Talladega over the years, and you'll find that most of them began as a result of blocking. Also, because blocking has been virtually eliminated by the two-by-two drafting, the yellow line rule (which I hate) has become far less a factor. The yellow line rule has also contributed to the increase in blocking in recent years, and in turn, has also contributed to a lot of the major crashes at the restrictor plate crashes. And the restrivcor plate races were the only races where blocking was such a major factor. The lack of blocking is yet another reason why two two-by-two drafting is much safer than the pack racing. I frankly think it will be a big surprise if there are more than 15 healthy cars (out of 43) running at the finish at Talladega in a few weeks, if NASCAR gets the wanted results from its rule changes, and frankly, it could wind up one of the worst racing spectacles since the 1973 Indianapolis 500, if NASCAR gets its way. Now as for those that say that with the two-by-two drafting tandems that you can't see what's going on in front of you. Well guess what. They haven't been able to see through the car in front of them for many years now, so there really is no tangible difference in the visibility. So if you're not leading, you haven't had good visibility at those tracks for many years anyway. 102. Samurai posted: 10.05.2011 - 7:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I wonder if they will still shift at pocono. 103. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.05.2011 - 9:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "And by the way, I failed to mention it in post #99, but another reason I like the two-by-two drfting is that it has virtually eliminated the dangerous practice of blocking, which has contributed to many bad crashes at Daytona and Talladega over the years. You look at the major crashes that have occurred at Daytona and Talladega over the years, and you'll find that most of them began as a result of blocking. Also, because blocking has been virtually eliminated by the two-by-two drafting, the yellow line rule (which I hate) has become far less a factor. The yellow line rule has also contributed to the increase in blocking in recent years, and in turn, has also contributed to a lot of the major crashes at the restrictor plate crashes. And the restrivcor plate races were the only races where blocking was such a major factor." Drivers today don't know give and take. In the 2001 Talladega Spring race (which went caution free) was a Class A example of 'give and take.' Now a days drivers lose their minds with 20 to go. And is way NASCAR (most in part because of Jimmy Spencer) put in the yellow line rule. If drivers would learn give and take then maybe those races wouldn't be such bombs waiting to go off. "The lack of blocking is yet another reason why two two-by-two drafting is much safer than the pack racing. I frankly think it will be a big surprise if there are more than 15 healthy cars (out of 43) running at the finish at Talladega in a few weeks, if NASCAR gets the wanted results from its rule changes, and frankly, it could wind up one of the worst racing spectacles since the 1973 Indianapolis 500, if NASCAR gets its way." I don't think it'll be like 1973 Indy 500 but it would be like the 2007 fall talladega race. Boring. and people will bit## about that too. "Now as for those that say that with the two-by-two drafting tandems that you can't see what's going on in front of you. Well guess what. They haven't been able to see through the car in front of them for many years now, so there really is no tangible difference in the visibility. So if you're not leading, you haven't had good visibility at those tracks for many years anyway." with the POSCOY would could see better through those cars, with the COT and since cars have gotten safer visiblity has been reduced greatly. If there are was to make it visiblity better, what those are i have no idea. 104. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.05.2011 - 10:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "(formerly Smokefan05)" Lol. I was reading your post and thinking "that sounds like something Smokefan would say. "They were forced to repave the concrete turns, and the racing as a result, has never been the same, as it has been far worse, as Martinsville has been a one-groove track since the repaving there." Martinsville is one of those tracks that one groove racing just works on. It is like Darlington and Old Bristol in that watching drivers compete for that one preferred groove is captivating. "so your point about Bayne's intelligence (or racing IQ), not to mention his ability to seemingly sense potential trouble (which Darrell Waltrip mentioned on the broadcast), is right on the money." I think Trevor will have a good future in NASCAR. It is just that winning the Daytona 500 kinda raised people's expectations to unreasonable levels. I'm sure somebody will pick him up. I know his NWide season has been disappointing, but I think he is ahead of where Stenthouse was last year. He hasn't been benched. I know we talk a lot about his conservative style, but after seeing Ricky get shelved for tearing up too much stuff, maybe that got his attention. "Since then every track has just become so terrified that the track may come apart during the weekend." Exactly. Again, with race cars come punishment. If you think about it, pretty much the goal of a race car is to get it to grip the track as well as possible like those old Road Runner cartoons where the road folds behind them. I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen more potholes. But the fear of looking inferior due to failures is the reason why Goodyear has been bringing such crappy tires. They are so afraid they will look bad if too many tires get blown. "but now that Martisvaille is a one-groove track, all you can do is knock a guy out of the way." Again, I disagree with this. This kind of goes back to the Old Bristol vs New Bristol debate. That isn't "all" you can do. There is an art to setting up the guy in front of you to take that preferred groove. 105. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.05.2011 - 11:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) It's plain sad the way Sorenson was released. Like comment #88 mentioned, this reminds me of the way Mike Bliss was treated by his team in 2009 (and like Bliss, Reed actually won a race AND STILL GOT FIRED!). Sucks that he may have to scramble around and settle for a start and park ride just so he can continue to gather points. I hope he keeps his head up and realizes that he is not a bad driver at all, he has just been associated with the wrong people (Ganassi rushed him into Cup at too young of an age when Jamie McMurray left for Roush then he lost his ride when Target became JPM's sponsor, RPM dumped him after just a year, and now the deal with Turner Motorsports). 106. Cooper posted: 10.05.2011 - 11:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "102. Samurai posted: 10.05.11 - 7:51 pm" My opinion is NO. With the higher speeds there is no advantage in taking a lower gear up off the corner. UNLESS Goodyear brings a super soft tire, and the speeds drop off 15 MPH in a run. Then at the end of the run shifting could be a possibility because the lower gear could help you. Do people agree or disagree with this statement? Trevor Bayne is a less talented version of Mark Martin. Also, I'm not getting into the one-groove knock someone out of the way argument again. It always ends up a train wreck. 107. cjs3872 posted: 10.05.2011 - 11:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) But DSFF, Trevor wasn't at Roush when Ricky got benched for crashing too often, and he wouldn't have been in the position that Ricky was in last year because he's not aggressive enough on most occasions anyway, due to a run-in he had with a teammate in 2007 or '08 when he was a development driver for DEI. I firmly believe that his overall lack of aggression is a big reason why he hasn't been in contention to win any races, except for the plate races, where his racing IQ, as I call it, as well as his ability to sense trouble, is most to his advantage. Although the reason for his overall his lack of aggression can also be pointed to two other things, lack of a sponsor (which I don't see changing, though it would be good if he finally got a sponsor), and the fact that Roush put him in a position where he had to qualify on time for every race since his return, despite the car's position in the owner point standings, hence my analogy of saying that he's been racing with one hand tied behind his back most of the year. And yes, #103, I do think there may an incident as bad as Salt Walther's crash at Indy in 1973 (which actually involved a total of 12 cars), without the fire of course, or a string of potentially disastrous crashes at Talladega if the field is in one pack. What I mean by that is that I believe that, with the higher speeds that the larger restrictor plate is likely to bring, I believe there will be a car that gets airborne, possibly into the catchfencing, and maybe more than one. I think it could be that bad. That, along with the start-and-park cars are likely to be the reasons that I don't expect more than 12-15 healthy cars at the end of the upcoming Talladega race. Let's remember that three weeks before the Indianapolis 500 in 1973, Talladega had it's own disaster-marred race, and two drivers who were involved in the huge lap 9 crash in the Winston 500 that year, Gordon Johncock and Bobby Allison, also drove in the Indy 500 that year (Johncock, of course, won it, while Allison's was the first car out when the race was finally run), while a third driver, Dick Simon, was able to avoid the mayhem at Talladega, but was involved in the Walther accident when they first tried to start the Indy 500 that year. 108. Mr X posted: 10.06.2011 - 1:57 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I'm going to rephrase what I said about David Ragan, him winning the race didn't necessarily make it worse, David winning certainly didn't make the race better, few if any drivers can. I still think David should've been canned years ago. He's consistantly been the weak link at Roush and destroyed the reputation Mark Martin built in the 6 car. As for Martinsville this spring, Kevin Harvick got past most of his competitors cleanly, he passed Denny Hamlin on the outside, and he flew through the pack late in that race, and the last race at Richmond, a multi-groove track has had more cautions then a lot of Martinsville races. There is also a difference between using your bumper to gently move a guy as opposed to wrecking a guy. Personnally I prefer my restrictor plate racing to be non-existant. I prefer the unrestricted days myself. Restrictor plates only sort of work to prevent a certain type of crash, meanwhile creating other forms of crashes. If restrictor plates weren't used the speeds would be in the 220-240mph range, however handling would be brought into play, the field would be more spread out, and the BIG ONE would rarely if ever happen. The 1987 Daytona 500 was far cleaner and safer race then the 1988 Daytona 500. The safety factor can go both ways with or without restrictor plates. Not to mention airborne crashes aren't necessarily the worst possible crashes either. Every crash is different and just because the car gets airborne doesn't mean the crash is going to be devastating either, especially with Daytona and Talladega's large, PAVED runoff area's. Tony Stewarts 2006 crash in the Busch Series at Talladega was far more gentle then Jeff Fullers 2006 Busch crash at Kentucky. AJ Allmendinger was in better shape after Talladega last fall then Elliott Sadler was after Pocono last August. What surprizes me is that NASCAR is even allowed to use the catchfence. The fence is a great safety device, and it works well, however I'm suprised that NASCAR even allows it to even prove itself. I've been to plenty of Monster Jam events in my life, the USHRA stops in Winnipeg every year, and my dad took me when I was younger. In USHRA events the wall around the outside of the stadium is 10-12 feet tall, and the first few rows of seats aren't sold and are covered up. Talladega was built in 1969, however with what happened in 1987 with Bobby Allison, 1993 with Neil Bonnett, Goeffrey Bodine in 2000, Carl Edwards in 2009, and the repave in 2006, I'm surprised that Talladega and Daytona haven't removed the first few rows of seats and built a taller wall and built a catchfence above that. Not to mention NASCAR hasn't made any significant changes to the cars to keep them on the ground when they turn around in quite a while other then just the shark fin. I'm really surprised given what can happen at any fast track that the fans are allowed as close as they are. As for the rule changes for the Talladega race coming up, I doubt it will make any difference, the plate is only 1/64" larger, 7-10 horsepower. Speed increase will be miniscule. It will be typical Talladega, a crapshoot, good thing this race is earlier in the chase next year. 109. Mr X posted: 10.06.2011 - 2:07 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) non-existent* 110. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.06.2011 - 3:07 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "him winning the race didn't necessarily make it worse, David winning certainly didn't make the race better, few if any drivers can. I still think David should've been canned years ago. He's consistantly been the weak link at Roush" I don't think anyone is going to disagree with you on this point, the only time David has actually been better than a teammate was 2008, when he outperformed Jamie McMurray. But then Jamie would go on to by far outperform him during his final season in the #26 ('09). I know me talking about how mediocre Ragan is has probably gotten old, but if you ask me, he's lucky as hell to have kept that ride for so long. However, if you also ask me, I'll probably tell you that Ragan winning the Coke Zero 400 didn't hurt its reputation very much. After all, Michael Waltrip won that race in 2002. Its reputation was hurt enough by that. 111. 00andJoe posted: 10.06.2011 - 3:11 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I'm surprised that Talladega and Daytona haven't removed the first few rows of seats and built a taller wall and built a catchfence above that." Wasn't it Dale Sr. who always opined that they should just "close off the first 10 rows of seats, take off the plates, and let 'em race"? 112. Anonymous posted: 10.06.2011 - 5:35 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Actually, the Daytona 500 only gets 13 million viewers. The moderate attendance is around 6 million. The TNT/road course audience is around 3-4 million. A lot smaller than you would think when Sunday Night Football gets 14 million viewers. Pre-BZFrance, they got about 2-3 million more a race. 113. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.06.2011 - 9:35 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Personnally I prefer my restrictor plate racing to be non-existant." I agree with everything you said about plate racing. I haven't got into the 2x2 vs pack racing debate because I don't like either of them. But like you said, plates were supposedly put on after Bobby Allison's damn near apocolyptic crash in '87 (had he broke through the fence, NASCAR may not even exist now) when the pole speed was 212. Well, in '09 the pole speed was almost 30 mph less, and they wound up with an identical wreck on the last lap. So they aren't really doing their original job. I agree with taking out the lower seats. They are having attendance issues anyways (relatively speaking of course) and even going as far as to not open the back stretch seating area in the Firecracker 400. Just take those seats out. Besides, those have got to be awful seats anyways due to sight lines. I know at Martinsville, the smallest track on the circuit, our seats are on the 23rd row, and I wouldn't want to be any lower. Mostly, I want the days of the single car slingshot back. I don't care about 35 cars crossing the finish line within a second of each other. One of the best Talladega races ever was the 1984 Summer race. It is remembered because it was the first of many wins for Dale in Richard's #3 car, but the race itself was awesome. The main pack had 10 cars, and that was pretty much a perfect number in my opinion. And the slingshots were simply cool as hell. "I still think David should've been canned years ago. He's consistantly been the weak link at Roush and destroyed the reputation Mark Martin built in the 6 car." I think David is out of time. Like I have been saying, nowadays with the testing ban and the COT which drives like nothing else on the planet, it is unreasonable to expect the instant impacts rookies had from '99 through '06 (the last year before the Car Of Sorrow). I made this argument in the past to somewhat explain Brad's putrid 2010 season, although he should have done better than 25th in points with a best finish of 10th just twice. It takes a while for newcomers to really make a splash. I was concerned about David's sharp regression after a pretty impressive '08, but all of Roush was down in '09 and '10. I just think at this point, he needed to show more. I just haven't seen it. "However, if you also ask me, I'll probably tell you that Ragan winning the Coke Zero 400 didn't hurt its reputation very much. After all, Michael Waltrip won that race in 2002. Its reputation was hurt enough by that." Ain't that the damn truth! I think were it not for that last caution, Rusty and Sterling would have tag teamed him. After he lost June who decided not to play wingman, and rightfully so, those two were gonna get him. "Trevor wasn't at Roush when Ricky got benched for crashing too often" I'm sure he still knew about it. You made a lot of good points about the other reasons he is conservative, and I agree those also play a big role in his driving style. But Jack has never had much patience for drivers that tear shit up. And it has cost him. 114. cjs3872 posted: 10.06.2011 - 11:25 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) RCRandPenskeGuy, you say that the fact that Michael Waltrip (2002) and David Ragan (2011) have both won the Firecracker 400 doesn't help that race's reputation any. Well here are a list of some of the other long-shot winners that race has had, not all of them in the restrictor plate era. Other long shot winners of the Firecracker 400 include Sam McQuagg (1966), Greg Sacks (1985), Jimmy Spencer (1994), and John Andretti (1997). Not any of those drivers scored more than one other victory at NASCAR's highest level, but all of them scored victories in Daytona's mid-summer race. As for DSFF's assretion that David Ragan's out of time in the #6 car, I believed that two or three years ago. In fact, I believe the reason Jack Roush hired Trevor Bayne in the first place was to groom him for the #6 Cup car (ironic that it was David Ragan's mistake on a restart that led to Bayne's Daytona 500 win), but there's a good possibility that there won't be a #6 car on the Cup circuit next year, at least full-time, leaving the possibility that next year's Daytona 500 might go off without either of this year's Daytona winners in the field. (I've gone on record as saying that Bayne probably won't be in the field for next year's Daytona 500, which would leave the reigning Daytona 500 without a ride the the following year's event for the first time in it's history.) Not to mention drivers eligible for the All-Star Race and Budweiser Shootout that won't be in those races, simply because they don't have rides for them. And I don't include old-timers like Terry Labonte, Bill Elliott, John Andretti, Derrike Cope, or Ken Schrader, all of whom are eligible to run the Shootout, if next year's eligibility requirements are the same as last year's. And, how would you feel about a Talladega race with only 12-15 cars finishing (not including wrecks trying to gain points), because if NASCAR gets it's way, that's what I believe will happen, because I believe the rest of the field will be in the garage area with wrecked race cars, not including the start-and-park cars. And I stand by my comment that the Daytona 500 gets about 100-120 million viewers worldwide, and probably gets about 40-50 million here in the USA. Maybe not for the whole race, but that's how many view at least a part of the Daytona 500. 115. Anonymous posted: 10.06.2011 - 1:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) cjs3872, The 2011 Daytona 500 had 30.1 million North American viewers. Source: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/02/21/daytona-500-is-most-watched-since-2008-over-30-million-caught-some-of-race/83318/ I couldn't find any worldwide viewership numbers for 2011 Daytona 500 outside of North America. 116. cjs3872 posted: 10.06.2011 - 3:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Anonymous, the numbers I gave were just estimates, so there were no facts based on them, but 30 million is not a bad number, though I wonder how the time change in recent years has affected the number of those that watch the race. Remember that until 2010, the start time was later, giving west coast viewers a better chance to view the race, since the start time for the last two Daytona 500s was about 10-10:15 AM Pacific time, where as before it started at about 12-12:30 PM Pacific time. That might have something to do with the decrease in viewership for the race, as well as other races over the last couple of years. And I should know, since I lived in the San Diego area for 30 years myself before moving back east. With the moving back of the start times for the afternoon races, the amount of people that watch those races in the Pacific Time Zone has probably seen a significant decrease in the last couple of years, hence the decrease in overall viewership during that period. That may also be a reason for the later start time for the Indianapolis 500 in recent years, which will also revert back to the way it was next year. Interestingly, speaking of Daytona 500 viewership, the highest rated Daytona 500 broadcast of all-time was back in 1978, the last year that ABC covered the race, with Superstars as a lead-in program, with the Daytona 500 being followed by Wide World of Sports. 117. Spen posted: 10.06.2011 - 3:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I've gone on record as saying that Bayne probably won't be in the field for next year's Daytona 500" And I still don't think that will be the case. If nothing else, a start-and-park team will probably pick him up for the race. (Unless he decides to be stupid and turn them down.) Or perhaps Frank Stottard. Actually, I was thinking last night that perhaps he might have a future with Front Row Motorsports. Kvapil's performance has been dreadful even by the team's low standards, and I have a gut feeling he won't be racing in any of the top-three series' much longer. With the Red Bull cars out of the way, they've got a shot at buying owner points for the #38, and while Yeley seems to have a lock on that ride now, that would leave the #55 without an obvious driver. "Tony Stewart is not going to run that third car full-time if there is no sponsorship for the races that Danica Patrick is not going to run." Normally I'd agree, but this is *Danica* we're talking about. Can you imagine the media fallout if she gets bumped out of the field by say, T.J. Bell? It'd be catastrophic. As in, "major changes to qualifying procedure" casatrophic. It'd be a complete embarrassment for both herself, and NASCAR. And I don't think Tony would allow that to be a possibility. I think he might be able to talk GoDaddy into the same sort of minimal full-season sponsorship that Germain has with Geico. Not enough to really make for a competitive team, but enough to maintain 35th. Worst case scenario, create a fourth car as a start-and-park team to pay for Danica's ride. (Or even have Mark S&P for a number of the unsponsored races. Just so long as they get enough points for top-35 status.) 118. Mr X posted: 10.06.2011 - 4:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I just find it odd that the cars and tracks are safer then they have ever been, and in Arpil we are still setting the slowest pole speed ever at Talladega. The whole reason why we even implemented these safety features was so that we could allow these cars to run safely at high speed. We qualified faster this year at Darlington then we did Talladega. Kasey Kahne at 181.254mph at Darlington, a 1.366 mile egg shaped 35' wide track with 23-25 degrees of banking as opposed to Jeff Gordon 178.248mph at Talladega, a 2.66 mile, 60' wide tri-oval with 33 degrees of banking. If Bill France Sr knew that he would've built a short track in Alabama. Buddy Baker won the Daytona 500 in 1980, 31 years ago, at 177.602mph, that was the race speed, with 5 cautions for 15 laps, in 1980!!! The pole speed was 194.009mph, keep in mind this was Daytona. You have to go back to 1966 to find a year where the Daytona 500 pole speed was slower then the pole speed for the 2011 Aaron's 499. Superspeedway racing before 1987 was incredible, the slingshot, the handling factor, the incredible pace, not to mention the fact that the drivers actually had manhandle the car just to get it around Daytona and Talladega. With the safety of these cars and these tracks today I feel like the restrictor plates are more to protect the fans then the drivers, and they do a marginal job of protecting either. We have a catchfence to catch the racecar, but nothing to catch the catchfence. All the racing around that time was incredible. Up until 1990 in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the speeds down the full 3.7 mile Mulsanne Straight were amazing, approaching 250 miles per hour. The in car cameras made it look even faster. However with the fresh pavement at Daytona and Talladega the speeds required to bring handling into play would be much higher. This brings me to the broadcasts of the sport. We all know that quite a few of the commentators don't belong in the booth, the commercial breaks are done at terrible times, they don't go through the entire starting lineup, etc. The list goes on and on, but one thing that I've never seen mentioned is the lack of any good camera shots. These race teams today are so weight conscious that none of them want their cars to carry any extra weight from cameras. Remember 10 years ago when every single short track or road course race had a Suspension or Brake camera on at least one car, front bumper cameras, the in car cameras that were beside the driver that could turn 360 degrees, zoom in or out, they enhanced the look of speed. Cale Yarborough's CBS onboard cameras during the 1983 and 1984 Daytona 500's which he won, delivered some incredible shots, in fact Cale believed the cameras were good luck. Darrell Waltrip in the 1987 Daytona 500, Rick Wilson in the 1987 Winston 500, those cameras allowed you to see the drivers manhandle their low flying missles at high speed. I think the lack of some cleverly placed cameras has hurt the quality of the broadcasts. 119. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.06.2011 - 4:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "And, how would you feel about a Talladega race with only 12-15 cars finishing (not including wrecks trying to gain points), because if NASCAR gets it's way, that's what I believe will happen, because I believe the rest of the field will be in the garage area with wrecked race cars, not including the start-and-park cars." The difference is, like in the '84 race I mentioned, I would be the 12-15 best drivers in the field. There were a few odd names in that final pack (Lake Speed comes to mind), but it was made of Earnhardt, Buddy Baker, Cale, Darrell, Bobby, and Bill. In theory, it wouldn't be like the '05 Spring Dega race that had a real ragtag bunch at the finish, basically Jeff Gordon and a few people who are not Jeff Gordon if you catch my drift, after two big wrecks eliminated most of the field. Ironically both were triggered by JJ. "Rick Wilson in the 1987 Winston 500, those cameras allowed you to see the drivers manhandle their low flying missles at high speed. I think the lack of some cleverly placed cameras has hurt the quality of the broadcasts." Those camera shots were awesome. Not to beat this race to death, but the '84 Dega race had a great in car shot of Bill Elliott sawing the hell out of the wheel. I know with all the safety devices it is much harder to get a good in car camera angle, but there has to be a way to get a better over the shoulder view where you can see both the track in front of you and the driver at the wheel. And whatever happened to those 360 degree camers? Those were great. Especially during slingshot passes. You could look right out the back window right as they were beginning the slingshot, swivel around as they were passing, then see out the front as they pulled in line. "Normally I'd agree, but this is *Danica* we're talking about. Can you imagine the media fallout if she gets bumped out of the field by say, T.J. Bell? It'd be catastrophic. As in, "major changes to qualifying procedure" casatrophic." Unfortunately I agree with you. You know the NASCAR marketing department is going to put a huge amount of focus on the "Danica races" (I'm already cringing), and if she misses it, there is no telling what they will do. 120. Scott B posted: 10.06.2011 - 5:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) There is also the possibility of "buying out" a spot on the grid in case of a DNQ, and I'm sure there are several start and park teams that would be happy to negotiate. It's not common, but if Go Daddy wanted Danica in a particular race, they swing it. I think the last time that happened was in 2009, Joe Nemechek yielded his seat to Scott Speed (and sponsor Red Bull) for a couple of starts. 121. Talon64 posted: 10.06.2011 - 5:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Michael Waltrip bribed his way into the 2006 Coke 600. The car had to be "owned" by the team he bought his spot from, McGlynn Racing with Derrike Cope as the driver, but was switched to the #55 NAPA car from the #74. 122. cjs3872 posted: 10.06.2011 - 9:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Actually, Mr X, the slingshot pass went away due to the fact the NASCAR had to change the aerodynamic rules regarding the rear window following Bill Elliott's domination of 1985. NASCAR had to allow teams running older style GM cars to let them run a reae window extension beginning in 1986 jst to remain competitve. with that, the drafting aspect dramatically decreased before the restrictor plate returned in 1988. (They had been run in the first half of the 1970s.) And you are right that the resritctor plate was added for spectator safety, not driver safety, following Bobby Allison's crash at Talladega in May of 1987, as well as Ken Schrader's crash at the end of the Firecracker 400, when NASCAR tried a smaller carburetor to slow speeds, but they didn't go down far enough. And by the way, they couldn't go fast enough to make handling a factor at Daytona and Talladega when those tracks were freshly paved. If you've watched the 1979 Daytona 500, you'll know exactly what I mean. Those cars were going flat out, with no restrictions, and handling still didn't matter in that race. But I agree that qualifying speeds at Daytona and Talladega are way too slow, and the way to fix that is to let teams qualify with a larger restrictor plate to make the speeds more representable to what they'll see in the race. After all, the cars will probably run 20 MPH faster in the race than they will in qualifications. As for your comment about if just 12-15 cars finish the upcoming race at Talladega, it would be the bea st drivers and teams. Trust me, it won't be. It'll be a situation just like the 1973 Indianapolis 500 or the 1985 Daytona 500 was. In those cases, there were just one or two heavily sponsored cars left in the race, and the rest of them were basically junk that just happened to make it. In the '73 Indy 500, in which only 10 cars finished, Gordon Johncock's car was basically the only healthy car left that was heavily sponsored (Gary Bettenhausen, who finished fifth, and Johnny Rutherford, who finished ninth, also made it in heavily backed cars, but both had significant trouble during the race), and in the '85 Daytona 500, aside from Bill Elliott, only two other cars, Darrell Waltrip's Junior Johnson Chevrolet (Budweiser) and Ricky Rudd's Bud Moore Ford (Motorcraft) were heavily sponsored at the finish. In both cases, every other heavily sponsored car fell out by halfway. I think you may see something similar happen at Talladega, but due to crashes, not mechanical failures. You might see two to four top teams cars make it, with the rest basically bottom-feeders, like Front Row Motorsports, the Wood Brothers, teams like that. After all, that's basically what happened in this year's Daytona 500. We had the Wood Brothers with Trevor Bayne win it, Front Row Motorsports with David Gilliland finish third, Furniture Row Racing with Regan Smith finish seventh, and James Finch's Phoenix Racing finish 12th with Bill Eliiott. Furniture Row Racing is the only team that has backed up any of those results, though Phoenix Racing has come close a couple of times with driver Landon Cassill. Heck, Terry Labonte was even competitve in Frank Stoddard's #32 car at both Daytona and Talladega earlier in the year. And my prediction about Trevor Bayne possibly not even being in next year's Daytona 500 field to defend his title may have gained more speed if you believe what david Newton said on NASCAR Now earlier today that there's a possibility that Roush may not have a Nationwide team at all next year (which I doubt), which would leave either Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. or Trevor Bayne rideless next year. If that happens, I'd bet on Bayne being rideless, despite his Daytona 500 win, which again is eerily similar to what happened to Pete Hamilton in 1971, when Chrysler basically focred him out of Petty's second car, and due to that, as well as back injuries, Hamilton's career never did get back on track, and he retired shortly after the 1973 Daytona 500. 123. 00andJoe posted: 10.06.2011 - 10:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The "Buy A Ride" I remember best is Felix Sabates opening his wallet to get Joe Nemecheck into the 1997 Daytona 500, buying Phil Barkdoll's #73. (Not that I blame Phil one bit - he had to be laughing all the way to the bank!) 124. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.07.2011 - 3:49 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Well here are a list of some of the other long-shot winners that race has had, not all of them in the restrictor plate era. Other long shot winners of the Firecracker 400 include Sam McQuagg (1966), Greg Sacks (1985), Jimmy Spencer (1994), and John Andretti (1997). Not any of those drivers scored more than one other victory at NASCAR's highest level, but all of them scored victories in Daytona's mid-summer race." Cjs, that is still quite a short list for a race that has been going on since 1959. In the past 52 years, only McQuagg, Sacks, Spencer, Andretti, M. Waltrip and Ragan stick out as unusual winners. And of those, I would definitely say Mikey is the worst of those drivers. Looking at McQuagg's stats page, it doesn't look good on him that he led 126 of his 223 career laps led in that Daytona race he won, but he did manage 21 top 10's and 9 top 5's in 62 starts. That's not bad for a lesser known driver like him, considering the era he raced in. It's unknown what Sacks would have done if he'd had a full career of driving equipment on the level of Ragan's Roush ride, but he did prove that he can finish well if given a shot for a few races. Spencer might have done better if he were in better equipment, but not much better. He had a history of making dumb moves, which hindered his finish a lot of the time. I think Andretti was better than his equipment. His best rides were probably Cale's #98 team (which he managed to get that Summer Daytona win with in '97) and the Petty #43 (he got a win at Martinsville in the Spring of '99 with them). I know he has a reputation of being a backmarker driver from most fans, but I thought he was fairly good in his prime. David Ragan... well, I've made my opinion of him known a lot on this site, and although it is true he's mediocre and will eventually be released from Roush, at least it didn't take him over 460 starts to get his first win like Mikey. He's ahead of where Mikey was at the same point in his career. Although the Brickyard 400 was won this year by a first-time winner who doesn't contend for wins nearly as often as every previous winner of the race has, it still has a pretty good ratio for consistent winners winning it. I wouldn't rank the Summer Daytona race far behind, though. 125. cjs3872 posted: 10.07.2011 - 8:17 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) RCRandPenskeGuy, that list of winners I listed were just the long-shot winners of the Firecracker 400, not necessarily the entire list drivers that made that event his first NASCAR win. After all, that list would also include Greg Biffle, the only rookie ever to win that event, as well as the legendary A.J. Foyt, who actually scored his first TWO NASCAR wins in the Firecracker 400. The names I mentioned were of surprise winners, not first-time winners. Actually, the Daytona 500 has a longer list of surprise winners than the Firecracker 400 does. And the thing about Michael Waltrip, as I mentioned in another post, is that, regardless of what you think of his overall driving career, when he got to Daytona and Talladega, he was a front runner no matter who he drove for. He only won there with DEI, because that was they only team he drove for that had equipment equal to his talent at those facilities. And Waltrip did have good runs at other tracks, including three top three finishes in the Coca-Cola 600, and second place finishes at Pocono, Homestead (when it was a flat track), and Las Vegas, so he wasn't a total washout, despite what others may have you believe. As for Ragan being released by Roush, he would definately be the odd man out if Roush had to scale back to three Cup cars, but there's also that possibility that not only might Roush downsize his Cup program, but he may have to eliminate his Nationwide program, as was reported last night on NASCAR Now, especially if he kept his Cup stable at a full four cars, which would leave either Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. or Trevor Bayne rideless for next year. (And again, my pick for the one being rideless in that case would be Bayne, as Roush could still farm Stenhouse to the Wood Brothers.) 126. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.07.2011 - 11:06 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sam McQuagg's claim to fame is that he was in the car at Darlington that Cale Yarborough basically leapt over on his way completely over the fence in that Southern 500 one year in the 60s. Due to that wreck, Sam probably gets more airtime than much more accomplished drivers. And with Cale going into the NASCAR HOF this winter, we'll probably be seeing a lot more of him as Cale's springboard out of the ballpark. That was a huge moment in adding to Cale's (rightful) legend as one of the toughest sumbitches ever in NASCAR as he casually walked back into the pits afterwards. For a guy that, for fun, wrestled alligators, wrestled bears, cliff dived, skydived, etc, that was just another day at the office for him. Too bad Red Bull wasn't around back then. He coulda shown these nerdy "extreme" schmucks (like Vickers and Pastrana) what a true badass does for "extreme" fun. 127. Sean posted: 10.07.2011 - 12:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "RCRandPenskeGuy, you say that the fact that Michael Waltrip (2002) and David Ragan (2011) have both won the Firecracker 400 doesn't help that race's reputation any. Well here are a list of some of the other long-shot winners that race has had, not all of them in the restrictor plate era. Other long shot winners of the Firecracker 400 include Sam McQuagg (1966), Greg Sacks (1985), Jimmy Spencer (1994), and John Andretti (1997). Not any of those drivers scored more than one other victory at NASCAR's highest level, but all of them scored victories in Daytona's mid-summer race." Ugh, don't throw Sacks and Spencer with McQuagg and Andretti, even M. Waltrip and Ragan. At least those four drivers weren't cheating. It's generally acknowledged that Sacks cheated to win that '85 Daytona race. First off, his crew chief was Gary Nelson, one of the most notorious cheater crew chiefs of all time. Second, he was driving an R&D car for DiGard Racing (whose main driver was Bobby Allison). He BLEW AROUND Bill Elliott (which nobody did on a superspeedway that year) and kicked his ass to the point that B. Allison quit the team by not having a similar advantage. Then when Sacks was named as B. Allison's replacement he didn't do anything. He may not have totally sucked, but that win was illegitimate (more than any of Waltrip's). Ditto for both of Spencer's plate wins in '94. He was racing on a level when the Junior Johnson team was pretty much already gone. (What was with Johnson's latter era hiring decisions - Stricklin, Spencer, BRETT BODINE (who, not M. Waltrip, gets my vote as the worst long-run driver ever), Loy Allen, Elton Sawyer...) McDonald's was leaving the #27 and was completely uncompetitive except on the plate tracks. I thought it was generally acknowledged that he had an illegal intake manifold putting him on a level playing field with the #3 and #4 and #28 even though his driving talent (and equipment) wasn't even close to any of those drivers/cars. I think I also recall that when B. Bodine bought the #11 team from Junior Johnson in 1996, he attempted to USE this cheated equipment and got nailed hard. I thought NASCAR pretty much turned a blind eye to this charade because they wanted to keep McDonald's as a sponsor. I expect to get hatedom from this because nobody wants to admit anything can be fixed (and you can't be a "real fan" if you believe fixes have ever happened), but I find Spencer's and Sacks's wins even more suspicious than people find Junior's 2001 win. John Andretti had a lot of talent but nobody gave him a real shot. He won at two very different tracks (Daytona and Martinsville), scoring Cale Yarborough's only win and Petty Enterprises's last win before merging with Gillett-Evernham. He was also in the top 15 in points with Robbie Loomis as crew chief and had back-to-back 3rd places at Sears Point (good and underrated crew chief, yes, but Andretti still had talent). He was also underrated as an IndyCar driver (winning the only race for owner Jim Hall between Johnny Rutherford in 1980 and Gil de Ferran in 1995! Both of whom won Indy 500s, by the way...) It's amazing given his name and talent that nobody gave him a serious shot for a big-name team. He never landed anything close to Penske/Ganassi/Newman-Haas in IndyCar, or Hendrick/Roush/Gibbs/Childress in Cup. I felt kind of bad for him actually. I'd say McQuagg probably also had talent, although I'm certainly less aware of his career. "There were a few odd names in that final pack (Lake Speed comes to mind)" Speed had more talent than anyone admits. He won a race at Darlington (not in great equipment), finished in the top ten in points once, had Bud Moore's last decent season (11th in 1994), rejuvenated the #9 team after it totally collapsed post-Bill Elliott. Hell, he even beat three-time Formula One champion Ayrton Senna to win the World Karting Championship, which is VERY strange. Speed had talent but rarely if ever cars to match. Now his son Scott Speed (yes, I'm kidding) on the other hand pretty much sucks. Like I said before, he wasn't even good in the F1 feeder series, not winning despite driving the best car. "Too bad Red Bull wasn't around back then. He coulda shown these nerdy "extreme" schmucks (like Vickers and Pastrana) what a true badass does for "extreme" fun." Hey, I'm a nerd and I take offense to you calling them nerds. I see them more as wannabe preppies or hipsters. If they were real nerds, they wouldn't care about being PERCEIVED as "cool" or "edgy". Real nerds in NASCAR: Alan Kulwicki (engineered all his stuff himself because he didn't trust anyone else to do it and was about as reclusive as was possible for a NASCAR star to be at the time), and Ryan Newman (whom I don't like). Vickers and Pastrana? Not really. 128. cjs3872 posted: 10.07.2011 - 1:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sean, the cheating incident you refer to with Brett and the Lowe's car (some things haven't changed over the years) actually occurred in 1995, when he was driving for Junior Johnson, when a number of team were caught cheating. Bill Davis, with driver Randy LaJoie was caught cheating, as was former Junior Johnson crew chief Jeff Hammond, who was caught after something afoul was caught on Greg Sacks' SabCo car after the Busch Clash. Junior Johnson was the biggest cheater in the history of the sport, anyway, as he frequently use oversized engines, was even occasionally caught. If you remember the incident where Richard Petty was caught with a big engine in the fall race at Charlotte in 1983, he still couldn't run with Darrell Waltrip's car for most of that race, because Waltrip more than likely had a big engine, as well. Then there was the incident in the inaugural All-Star Race in which Waltrip intentionally grenaded his engine just past the finish line, so the inspectors couldn't check it, which was a dead giveaway that he was running a big engine in that race, as well. Then there was the incident, alao at Charlotte in the fall, this time in 1973, where Cale Yarborough won the race driving for Junior, and Richard Petty finished second, and BOTH guys were caught with oversized engines, and NASCAR reportedly did nothing about it, which nearly led to Bobby Allison's departure from NASCAR, as Allison (who had driven for Johnson in 1972) was probably going to switch to USAC as a result of the controversy (remember that Allison had run in the Indianapolis 500, which was sancitoned by USAC, in 1973), but Allison and NASCAR settled that if something like that ever happened again, there would be severe punishments, a promise that continues to this day. (Ironically, Allison was the first driver to be penalized following a victory after that incident, as his Penske Racing AMC Matador failed inspection following a victory in the 1974 season finale at Ontario, CA, and the team was fined $9,100, a number that Bill France, Jr. came up with as a result of loking at the numbers on an airplane.) 129. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.07.2011 - 2:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "And the thing about Michael Waltrip, as I mentioned in another post, is that, regardless of what you think of his overall driving career, when he got to Daytona and Talladega, he was a front runner no matter who he drove for. He only won there with DEI, because that was they only team he drove for that had equipment equal to his talent at those facilities. And Waltrip did have good runs at other tracks, including three top three finishes in the Coca-Cola 600, and second place finishes at Pocono, Homestead (when it was a flat track), and Las Vegas, so he wasn't a total washout, despite what others may have you believe." I agree, for a time Mikey had speed and talent. And it may suprise some people on here that is best track in terms of average finish is Sonoma, a fu##ing road course!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 130. Scott B posted: 10.07.2011 - 2:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Reed Sorenson in the #7 for RGM at Kansas, Robby was originally listed as driving it himself this week. Kudos to Robby if he's doing this because Reed was released from his NNW ride. 131. Talon64 posted: 10.07.2011 - 4:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Reed's also going to be driving the #82 MacDonald Motorsports car in NNS. I'm hopeful that Reed'll get to (try and) run the entire race; it's only run 4 times previous this year (the #81, mostly with ROTY contender Blake Koch behind the wheel, is their full time car) but attempted to run the full race the 2 times they had Koch in there. 132. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.07.2011 - 8:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "It's generally acknowledged that Sacks cheated to win that '85 Daytona race." Its pretty funny that nobody involved even tries to deny they had a ridiculously oversized engine. Usually there is always some denial no matter blatent the cheating was such as.... "Then there was the incident in the inaugural All-Star Race in which Waltrip intentionally grenaded his engine just past the finish line, so the inspectors couldn't check it, which was a dead giveaway that he was running a big engine in that race, as well." ...this. DW and Hammond still deny they were cheating. " I thought NASCAR pretty much turned a blind eye to this charade because they wanted to keep McDonald's as a sponsor." They did. Both of Spencer's wins were shams. NASCAR really wanted to keep McDonalds around. And it worked. They signed up to sponsor Bill Elliott as he committed career suicide by becoming an owner/driver for 6 seasons of futility. That is one of the reasons I think they fixed the '01 version of that race. NASCAR is not above doing that. "BRETT BODINE (who, not M. Waltrip, gets my vote as the worst long-run driver ever)" I give Brett the edge over Mikey because Brett was pretty good on the short tracks. I know his win at North Wilkesboro (my first race) was a gift due to a scorer's error, but he still led a lot of laps that day and had good finishes there and Martinsville. Those are tough tracks to drive. Plus he also hurt himself by going the owner/driver route. But what do you expect? He is a Bodine. They all think they are smarter than they really are. All of Mikey's good runs came at tracks where you just keep your foot on the gas. "Speed had more talent than anyone admits." He did, I definitely agree with that, but he never had a good ride as you mentioned. In the race I was referencing, he was driving for a pretty much done Hoss Ellington team. That wasn't a team you would have expected normally. "Hey, I'm a nerd and I take offense to you calling them nerds. I see them more as wannabe preppies or hipsters. If they were real nerds, they wouldn't care about being PERCEIVED as "cool" or "edgy"." Lol. Trust me, I'm a nerd too. I'm obsessed with numbers and I can play Sudoku for hours. But you are right. Hipsters or preppie wannabes is more like it. Whatever it is, they think their "extreme lifestyle" is really something special and interesting. It isn't. If you listen to an interview with Vickers or Pastrana, they are very Bodine-esque in thinking they are a lot smarter than they really are. Vickers is especially bad about this. He sees himself as "worldly" or "philosophical". I see him as "boring" and "tries really hard but unsuccessfully to sound smart". He is somebody I'd love to buy for what he's worth, then sell him for what he thinks he's worth. "and Ryan Newman (whom I don't like)" He is yet another one that thinks he is a lot smarter than he really is. Must be an epidemic or something. Actually, considering Newman's receding hairline, I think he might be related to the Bodine's somehow. 133. Sean posted: 10.07.2011 - 10:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) My argument for B. Bodine as worse than M. Waltrip is basically that B. Bodine was INSTRUMENTAL in the demise of three straight teams before becoming an owner-driver. Bud Moore - although obviously the team was having some fairly rough years and the equipment was getting weaker (Earnhardt wasn't a match because he drove too hard for the equipment, the more conservative Rudd did better, but they were clearly slipping). Still, the Bud Moore team had won ten consecutive seasons before B. Bodine took over, and he scored three top fives in 1988-89. That is an ABYSMAL start compared to the car's previous performance, more or less comparable to J.J. Yeley's two years at Gibbs (and the #18 hadn't been winning for a while before Yeley took over, unlike the #15 which was a fairly regular threat with Rudd). Kenny Bernstein - Maybe this team was never all that good, but Rudd still won both years in the car, and by the time B. Bodine was done with it five years later, it was pretty much out of business. If they'd gotten a real driver to replace Rudd with, they would have had a chance to keep going a few more years. Although probably they still would have gone out of business circa 1998-2000 when most of the single car teams that could no longer compete did. This team had potential especially with Larry McReynolds as crew chief (I think Larry Mac is hugely overrated as a crew chief myself, but still...) I'll add that M. Waltrip probably never even had a crew chief as good as Larry Mac was. Junior Johnson - Yeah, starting when he replaced Sterling Marlin with Hut Stricklin (no, he didn't suck; I am aware he led the most laps in the '96 Southern 500, but not exactly Junior Johnson-caliber either) he made odd hires causing his team to go from championship-caliber to Furniture Row Motorsports level in three years (Robert Yates tried his hardest to match him a decade later, though). Maybe the team was already dying, but replacing Bill Elliott with B. Bodine was the death knell (especially if you're going to have young drivers like ). I give B. Bodine credit for destroying the Bud Moore and Kenny Bernstein teams (yeah, Bud Moore won a couple more races with Shepherd and G. Bodine, but the #15 went from being EXPECTED to win every year to being a SURPRISE when they won after B. Bodine drove the car for only two years), and some credit for destroying the Junior Johnson team. Considering Moore's and Johnson's legacy in the sport, I think he has simply more to answer for than Waltrip does. It's hard for me to say Michael Waltrip was really responsible for DESTROYING any team in the same way B. Bodine was. The #21 is the best argument, considering Morgan Shepherd got some pretty consistent points finishes before Brett took over the car, but still I don't think the #21 was as strong as any of the teams B. Bodine destroyed at the time he entered the car. I think Bodine had stronger cars (before becoming an owner-driver) and did less with them, but agree to disagree. I think you're selling the other two Bodine brothers short. Geoff and Todd regularly overachieved for the crap they frequently drove. G. Bodine winning in the #15 in 1992-93 was something I don't think many could have done, and although there are certainly other drivers who would have been more consistent in the #7, I'm not sure how many other drivers could have won four times in it in that period. I like Geoff and Todd, can't stand Brett. When the highlight of your career is either a win due to a NASCAR scoring error or punting your brother out of the lead at the inaugural Brickyard (wrecking one of only two drivers who could have prevented the mawkish storybook ending), you've had an abysmal career. No, M. Waltrip was not close to deserving the #15 car, and I imagine pretty much anybody could have won in it (although the fact that Park was never really competitive in the #1 on the plate tracks always struck me as odd since I thought he was by far the best of the three drivers), but still, at least he won those races without cheating or a scoring error and I don't think he was quite the team-killer B. Bodine was. As for Pastrana, he does have talent in what he does. He at least was a regular winner/champion in the X-Games, even beating Colin McRae, one of the greatest rallying legends of all time in the X-Games Rally event... He's been quite good at American rally racing in general as well. Still, him going to NASCAR doesn't make much sense. Montoya, Franchitti, Carpentier, and Hornish at least had a bunch of oval experience from their years in CART and/or IRL. Allmendinger had virtually none because Champ Car was almost all-road/street course when he was there, but he's adapted surprisingly nicely. Ambrose - pretty much ditto Allmendinger. However Pastrana's experience seems to prepare one less for NASCAR than any of those drivers' experience. Saying he point blank does not have talent is wrong, but I see no way he succeeds in Cup. Vickers? Just another in the long, long, long line of Busch champions to not do much. The only Busch champions to actually succeed big-time in Cup (not counting people who Buschwhacked the whole season) were B. Labonte (whom I consider the worst champion of the modern era), Junior (a great driver for five years who fizzled to nothing), Harvick (well on his way to being one of the most overrated drivers ever thanks to his success in "marquee" races, which tend to be the most meaningless races), and Biffle (whom I actually do have a lot of respect for; I honestly think he had more raw talent than Edwards and Kenseth but Roush perpetually held him back; he was never the preferred driver, almost always had worse crew chiefs and pit crews, etc...) The list of Busch champions at least starting around 1990 is for the most part one bust after another after another. That's why I don't find minor-league success relevant at all. Oh, you have to have a little, but really it's about signing with the right team before you get to Cup more than whatever your Nationwide results were... Who thought Denny Hamlin was going to be the big star instead of Martin Truex? Red Bull was just proof that success in one branch of racing has nothing to do with another. For a while Red Bull was sponsoring somebody in just about every racing series on the planet, but they seem to be dropping most of their programs to solely focus on their F1 team. I'd say that's the right call has 9 wins, 4 2nd place finishes, and 1 4th place finish in 14 F1 starts this year and is probably the best driver on the planet in any series right now... Making Brian Vickers their poster boy pretty much ensured they didn't know nearly as much about NASCAR as they do about F1, but that's okay... Nobody can master anything. Roger Penske hasn't had ALL his cars (NASCAR and IndyCar) competitive since 1994. Yeah, Kurt and Brad are doing well, but Ryan Briscoe and Hélio Castroneves are doing horrible. Castroneves is actually behind Danica in points this year, and Danica has worse equipment. 134. Sean posted: 10.07.2011 - 10:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I'll add that M. Waltrip probably never even had a crew chief as good as Larry Mac was." Okay, he had Steve Hmiel for the summer of 2001 and all he really did was finishing second to Junior in the Daytona race. But still, I think I've made a solid argument for B. Bodine being the worst long-running driver ever. At least he didn't hype himself the way M. Waltrip did... 135. Sean posted: 10.07.2011 - 10:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I'd say that's the right call [as Sebastian Vettel] has 9 wins, 4 2nd place finishes, and 1 4th place finish in 14 F1 starts this year and is probably the best driver on the planet in any series right now..." I bizarrely forgot to enter the phrase in brackets in my original post, making it nonsensical. 136. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.07.2011 - 11:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) That is a damn good argument Sean. I guess Mikey has a big "advantage" in this debate due to his LONG career of being a bad driver. Considering much of Brett's career has been as an owner/driver, people rarely use that against drivers when evaluating their careers. Mikey was only an owner/driver for his last 4 years. But you make excellent points. The Bud Moore thing really sticks out. Bud ran well (but finished poorly) with Dale, did well with Ricky who, as you pointed out, was a great fit for Bud, sucked all over the place with Brett, then won with Morgan Shepherd, and won with Geoff. I think this debate really shines a light on the perception of owner/drivers. Would we not think so lowly of Mikey if he were an owner/driver for half of his career? Would more of us think of Brett as awful had he been doing awful all those years driver for a real owner? You have really made me step back and think Sean. I still personally give the edge to Mikey, but my view of Brett has dimmed considerably. And for the record, I have the utmost respect for Geoff Bodine's ability behind the wheel. He was one hell of a wheelman. I just never cared for his attitude. One last thought, the biggest reason to dislike Brett is his enormous contributions to the creation of the Car of Sorrow. Now that is another Brett vs Mikey debate: who has had the more detrimental impact on NASCAR in their post driving careers? You have Mikey embarrassing Toyota in their much hyped debut, making sure Dale Jarrett left the sport on the lowest note possible, and wasting the primes of Truex and Reut, and soon to be Clint. But then you have Brett with a huge hand in designing the COT's racing features which have totally sucked. I give Brett the edge in that one for sure. Seriously, who was the genius at NASCAR who let him have ANY input on the R&D side? 137. Sean posted: 10.07.2011 - 11:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sigh, the more you write, the more things you find that need to be fixed: "Maybe the team was already dying, but replacing Bill Elliott with B. Bodine was the death knell (especially if you're going to have young drivers like [Loy Allen and Elton Sawyer in the other car])." Forgot to finish that sentence. And Sawyer wasn't very young, admittedly. "The #21 is the best argument, considering Morgan Shepherd got some pretty consistent points finishes before Brett took over the car, but still I don't think the #21 was as strong as any of the teams B. Bodine destroyed at the time he entered the car." "Brett" there should read "Waltrip" obviously. Reasons why this site needs an edit function... Eh, I don't hate the COT as much as some people but I don't really think B. Bodine was a very sensible guy to be engineering it. Honestly, past crew chiefs would make sense than past drivers, and FAR more sense than past mediocre drivers. We should have people like Jeff Hammond and Larry Mac engineering the future cars rather than serving as television blowhards. Andy Petree and Tim Brewer can stay. They aren't very annoying. The best drivers have not been the best engineers for many years. And I would hardly say Brett was a master of either. Yeah, Brett Bodine was only an owner-driver in my opinion because NOBODY ELSE WOULD HIRE HIM. Would you hire him after he had helped destroy three consecutive teams? (Similar to Robby Gordon being forced to be an owner-driver because he pretty much pissed off everyone else in the garage; the big difference of course being that Robby has loads of talent and Brett had virtually none). He was driving for teams that had all won multiple consecutive years (Moore, Bernstein, Johnson). MW spent half of his career driving for Bahari' Racing (which let's face it, was never a good team). I honestly think MW wouldn't annoy people much at all if he had just never won any plate races. If he had gone 0-for-career, he would have still been seen as a lovable loser like Kenny Wallace and not anointed "the worst driver ever" by so many. He probably also would have not developed the ego he did. 138. cjs3872 posted: 10.08.2011 - 12:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The thing about the #21 car is that every driver until Rudd got in there, with the exception of Neil Bonnett's second stint there, won at least once, though the success began drying up in the early 1980s. Kyle Petty won twice, once each in 1986 and '87, Dale Jarrett won once, the 1991 August race at Michigan. Morgan Shepherd was their most consistent driver in the post-Pearson era, as they were factors more often in the four years Shepherd drove the car than they've been since Neil Bonnett left after the 1982 season. Sure Shepherd won just once for the Woods, a fuel mileage win in the blizzard-delayed spring Atlanta race in 1993, but was a major factor in many other races, and with some luck, could have won as many as 8-10 races with the Woods. Michael Waltrip won the 1996 All-Star Race, which, although a non-points win, was the team's biggest win since the 1987 Coca-Cola 600 with Kyle Petty. Then Elliott Sadler came along a fter Waltrip, and although they struggledin their first couple of years together, won at Bristol in 2001 (over the #43, no less), the last victory for the Wood Brothers that was truly earned, and had some other really close calls, especially at Daytona, where they had consecutive finisehs of third and second. ricky rudd was next, and although he was the first full-time driver never to win for them, he also had some close calls, including a second in a photo-finish with Joe Nemechek in the 2004 race at Kansas, as well as second place finishes at Auto Club Speedway and Sonoma. The Wood Brothers' dramatic slide began when they aligned themselves with JTG Racing in about 2006, and despite the luckiest win in modern Daytona 500 history (a win even more fluky than Derrike Cope's 1990 victory, and just as lucky as Benny Parsons' 1975 victory), they have never truly recovered from that misadventure with JTG Racing, and are now a Roush satellite team, and not a very competitve one at that. By the way, I don't really believe that Sacks' win in the 1985 Firecracker 400 was acheived with an oversized engine. Remember that the man that built the winning engine for Sacks was the same man who had built Richard Petty's winning engine in the 1984 Firecracker 400, Robert Yates. But what they did do was toy with aerodynamic ideas, and it worked. (Yates built engines for both DiGard Racing and Mike Curb's team in 1984, but Dan Gurney took over buliding the engines for Curb's team in 1985.) But another thing about Sacks' win was that they still would not have won if Bill Elliott had not had to make a late pit stop for fuel, and fuel mileage was what Gary Nelson, Sacks' crew chief that day, was best at. Let's not forget that Nelson won both the 1982 and 1986 Daytona 500s by getting the best fuel mileage of anyone (his 1982 winning car also had the speed). And by the way, Derrike Cope's 1990 Daytona 500 victory was acheived by a team that was comprised of what was left of DiGard Racing when Bob Whitcomb bought it in about 1987 or '88. 139. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.08.2011 - 10:03 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Andy Petree and Tim Brewer can stay. They aren't very annoying." I agree. They are both very casually informative. That is the way I prefer the commentators. "Yeah, Brett Bodine was only an owner-driver in my opinion because NOBODY ELSE WOULD HIRE HIM." That is true. It's just that I got to wondering about the perception of owner/drivers. When evaluating Bill Elliott's career for example, we tend to act like '95 through '00 never happened. We criticize the decision to tackle the extra headaches and responsibilities, but we give the fruitless performance basically a pass. But you are right, the fact that Brett would buy the shell of what was left of Junior's team should have been a dead giveaway. At least Brett knew he was unwanted. "I honestly think MW wouldn't annoy people much at all if he had just never won any plate races. If he had gone 0-for-career, he would have still been seen as a lovable loser like Kenny Wallace and not anointed "the worst driver ever" by so many." To me, the biggest annoyance for Mikey is the way he kept shoving his face on every TV show he could. His insistance on becoming a "TV personality" has been beyond annoying. He has never belonged in NASCAR in any capacity, yet he won't just fade away gracefully. He has to stay on TV to feed his ego no matter how embarrassing he is. And honestly, I think this has clouded my mind in this "who is worse" debate. Especially ever since this February when he used the 10th "anniversary" of Dale's passing to bring attention to himself, and basically exploit Dale's death. Between the book, the ridiculous "tribute" cars, the interviews, and now the movie, he is beyond ever being able to redeem himself. "a fuel mileage win in the blizzard-delayed spring Atlanta race in 1993" I remember that well. The blizzard that buried the southeast that is. We had to miss like 2 weeks of school (in the South, any snow or ice means everything shuts down). We had to go to school well into June to make up for it. Considering our school years go from Late August to Late May, that was annoying as hell for a 9 year old. "Remember that the man that built the winning engine for Sacks was the same man who had built Richard Petty's winning engine in the 1984 Firecracker 400, Robert Yates." Funny thing is, most people believe NASCAR also turned a blind eye in THAT race to make sure Richard Petty, who was very involved in the Republican party, won in front of President Ronald Reagan. Jeez, what is it about the Firecracker 400? That race has been the center of many rules controversies. '84, '85, '90 (the floating block in the manifold discovered in the HMS cars that was discovered in DW's car after his wreck that shattered his leg, leading NASCAR to force them to weld them in place costing them about 20 horsepower leading to the huge second lap wreck as they were moving roadblocks), '93 (we really thought Schrader would have to miss some races due to some serious pre race infractions), '94, '01, '02 (if I'm not mistaken, that was the site of the first, but FAR from the last rules infraction Chad Knaus was caught with on the 48 car), and '08 (Truex's car missed the templates badly, and he was pissed at his team for it). Oddly enough, speaking of Bill Elliott in the Firecracker 400, all of Bill's wins in the Daytona 500 and at Dega came before the serious restrictor plate rules were implemented in '88 (they tried a few versions before that never really worked), but he never won an unrestricted Firecracker 400. After the restrictions, his only plate wins were a pair of Firecracker 400s. Odd. 140. cjs3872 posted: 10.08.2011 - 11:26 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) DSFF, did you ever watch the 1984 Daytona 500? Beacuse if you had you would know that the only two cars that had the speed to beat Cale Yarborough that hot day (it was the hottest day in Daytona 500 history, with a temperatur of 92 degrees) were the cars of Bobby Allison (DiGard Racing) and Richard Petty (Curb Motorsports). Both cars had two things in common. The first is that their engines were both built by Robert Yates, and the second, which possibly has something to do with the first, is that both cars were out by the halfway point with the exact same problem, a broken camshaft. I believe that fact alone, not to mention the integrity of Robert Yates, in my mind, debunks the theory of an oversized engine. After all, Yarborough says to this day that if Doug Heveron had not crashed with two laps remaining, which brought out the caution flag ,Petty would never have won that race, as Yarborough had Petty set up perfectly for the last-lap slingshot pass, but because the caution came out, Yarobourgh had to make the move without the space he needed to fend Petty off. And let's not forget that the move Petty made after Yarborough passed him was the EXACT same move he had attempted on David Pearson after Pearson passed him on the final lap of the 1976 Daytona 500, but the difference was that Petty didn't have quite enough room to clear Pearson in '76, while he did have enough room to clear Yarborough in '84, as well as the fact that Petty had a shorter run to the S/F line being on the inside of Yarborough, dur to the dogleg on the frontstretch at Daytona, not to mention that he also got a sniff of a draft off the car of Ken Ragan, the father of David Ragan, this year's Firecracker 400 winner. 141. 00andJoe posted: 10.08.2011 - 4:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Kenny Bernstein - Maybe this team was never all that good, but Rudd still won both years in the car, and by the time B. Bodine was done with it five years later, it was pretty much out of business. If they'd gotten a real driver to replace Rudd with, they would have had a chance to keep going a few more years." Hiring Steve Kinser to drive for them in '95 wasn't the height of brilliance either, to be sure. "Yeah, Brett Bodine was only an owner-driver in my opinion because NOBODY ELSE WOULD HIRE HIM. Would you hire him after he had helped destroy three consecutive teams? (Similar to Robby Gordon being forced to be an owner-driver because he pretty much pissed off everyone else in the garage" Speaking along those same "burn every bridge you come to, and then those you can even only see" lines, one Sprague, Jack, is going to be running in next week's ARCA race at Salem. 142. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.08.2011 - 8:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Actually, cjs, the people involved even admit Sacks had a big engine. 143. cjs3872 posted: 10.08.2011 - 11:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Okay, DSFF, I didn't know that. I did hear Gary Nelson admit that they tried unusual aerodynamic stuff, which obviously worked, but I didn't realize that. Sacks' pit crew for that race was a rag-tag group from other teams, but were comprised of people that became some of the elite at what they did for the next generation. And even with all that, they still wouldn't have won the race had Bill Elliott not had to make a late-race pit stop, as his pit stop cycling and that of Sacks were not in sync. It's also worth noting that Sacks made a risky pass of Terry Labonte on the last lap, simply because he did not know where he was running, or whether he thought Labonte was actually leading at the time. 144. 00andJoe posted: 10.13.2011 - 12:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Owners' standings by best finishing team car (no Chase): 1. Hendrick, 1186 2. Roush, 1172 3. Gibbs, 1154 4. Childress, 1112 5. Penske, 1101 6. Stewart-Haas, 1029 7. Petty, 936 8. Red Bull 899 9. Earnhardt-Ganassi, 894 10. MWR, 856 11. Furniture Row, 678 12. JTG-Daughtery, 589 13. Front Row, 531 14. Phoenix, 504 15. Germain, 413 --. Baldwin, 413 17. Stoddard, 397 18. TRG, 386 19. Robby Gordon, 297 20. Wood Brothers, 260 21. Gunselman, 166 22. Whitney, 128 23. Parsons, 116 24. NEMCO, 114 25. Inception, 72 26. Leavine, 47 27. Rusty Wallace, 24 28. Falk, 20 29. K-Automotive, 9 145. the_man posted: 11.24.2011 - 9:28 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) David Ragan on a 21st place finish: "At times, our UPS team had speed, but we got a lap down and then with the way the cautions came out and pit sequences fell, we just couldn't get on a roll. Drew [Blickensderfer] made some great calls in the pits, we adjusted all day, and were able to take the wave around to get back up on the lead lap. We had a pretty good car all day; not the best car, but we were able to get back up and gain some spots in the end. We'll learn from this and move on to Kansas." 146. Jarrett88fan posted: 12.05.2011 - 12:43 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Last win, Top-5 or Top-10 of Kurt Busch's career at Penske Racing. 147. Robert Nelson posted: 07.13.2012 - 12:41 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) F1 points Kyle Busch 254 Carl Edwards 238 Jeff Gordon 215 Jimmie Johnson 212 (4th driver to reach 200 points) F1 points Chase Brad Keselowski 37 Kurt Busch 36 Carl Edwards 33 F1 points real life Chase Tony Stewart 50 Kurt Busch 36 Carl Edwards 33 148. kidracer posted: 09.14.2013 - 10:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cant believe its almost two years since Kurt's last win. Wonder if he will get a win in the 78? It will truly be emotional if he dose win. Im pulling for him in the Chase this year! 149. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 04.24.2014 - 12:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Withdrew 50 T.J Bell Chevy Green Smoke Joseph Falk 150. Anthony posted: 08.19.2017 - 7:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The caution at lap 138 in this race was absolutely ridiculous. Casey Mears slowed suddenly in Turn 1 and Mike Bliss had to take avoiding action and went out of the groove and just grazed the wall, but it warranted a caution. One thing of note, Dale Jr was about to be lapped at the time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: