|| *Comments on the 2011 Hollywood Casino 400:* View the most recent comment <#200> | Post a comment <#post> 1. Talon64 posted: 10.07.2011 - 6:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) Greg Biffle earns his 2nd pole of 2011 and 8th of his career. It's also the 8th pole for Roush this year, the most of any organization. Current Truck Series points leader Austin Dillon qualified his way into the show, 26th and the 2nd quickest of the 11th GOGH drivers. He'll make his Cup debut on Sunday. 2. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.07.2011 - 10:30 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Clint, you will look back on this weekend and wonder what the hell you were thinking an unmeasurable number of times. You will wonder why you didn't look closely at talented drivers Truex and Reut wasting their primes and realize you were about to do the same. You will wonder why you had a sponsor that you could have taken to just about any organization, and took it to the place where talented drivers go to waste their best years instead of conforming and making it work either at the place you were currently employed or to other proven organizations (Roush's #6 car? a 4th JGR car? anywhere else?). And you will definitely wonder why you made this quote: "When you go into RCR, which has already won many championships, and to have the success Richard has had, you're just kind of another guy there." Um...... what? 68% of their 99 wins (67) and 100% of their championships (6), Top 2 points finishes (9), seasons with 1500+ laps led (6), seasons with 2000+ laps led (4), seasons with 3000+ laps led (1), and time in which they were the sport's standard setter and achieving true greatness came with one driver. You make it sound like RCR has a long and glorious list of top notch drivers winning championships, dominating eras, and adding to NASCAR's folklore. They don't. They have one. And their time of being "The Guys" in NASCAR ended 15 years ago this summer. 3. irony posted: 10.07.2011 - 10:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Truex is right where he was with DEI. Top 20, occasional contender for wins. Reut is a guy who has overachieved in my view. I don't see him as someone loaded with natural talent. Could work out well for Clint. 4. 00andJoe posted: 10.07.2011 - 10:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The numbers tell the tale: RCR is the 4th best team in NASCAR right now. MWR? 10th. And being pushed by Furniture Row for that position... 5. cjs3872 posted: 10.08.2011 - 12:33 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) By the way, the reason that the car Austin Dillon drives carries the #98 has to do with a great tradition that goes back to the 1940s and '50s. One of the car owners for dillon's car is Cary Agajanian, son of the legendary J.C. Agajanian, who always used that number when he owned cars at Indy. In fact, Troy Ruttman (1952) and Parnelli Jones (1963) won the Indianapolis 500 dirving for J.C. Agajanian. Dillon's red, white, and blue car also harkens back to the days of "Old Calhoun", the Indy roadster that Parnelli Jones broke the sacred 150 MPH barrier at Indy in while driving for J.C. in 1962. Curb also used the number in NASCAR from 1986-'88, with drivers such as Ron Bouchard and Ed Pimm. Curb bought that number from Ron Benfield, who used the number from 1982-'85, and one of Benfield's drivers in the #98 was Joe Ruttman, Troy's younger brother. Also, while Jack Roush's cars have been fast in qualifying most of the year (all three of his competitve drivers qualified in the first two rows), Rick Hendrick's cars have, for the most part, been slow in qualifying this year, especially Jimmie Johnson, who has, more often than you would think, brought up the rear in qualifying among the Hendrick contingent. 6. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.08.2011 - 10:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Truex is right where he was with DEI. Top 20, occasional contender for wins. Reut is a guy who has overachieved in my view. I don't see him as someone loaded with natural talent." I think he did well for DEI. His rookie year wasn't bad considering it was a brand new team. DEI never did good with start up teams. '98 with Park was a disaster. '00 with June, even with the 2 early wins plus The Winston victory, was bad considering he didn't have a Top 10 in the final 21 races, finishing just 16th in points and losing ROY to the much less heralded Matt Kenseth, who as it turns out is much better than June. '01, even by Mikey's incredibly low standards, was a disaster for the start up 15 team. He had a 1st and 2nd in the Daytona races, and that was IT. 25th in points. So for Truex to be 19th as a rookie with a declining DEI team wasn't bad. '07 and '08 were definitions of overachievment. He won a race and made the cha$e in '07, and contended for many other wins while DEI was in the process of crumbling. And he might have made the cha$e in '08 were it not for the 150 point penalty and losing his crew chief for 6 races after submitting a car for the Daytona Summer race that missed the templates so badly, they may as well have submitted a 1970 Plymouth Superbird. Martin is capable of winning 2-3 races per year and finishing 4th - 7th in points every year if given competitive equipment. I feel Reut is capable of the same, maybe just slightly less. He has been the embodiment of overachievement since '07. That 2007 season, nobody got more out of less. Driving for the least prepared organization to ever hit NASCAR (even worse than Eel River Racing), he DNQed far less that his very experienced teammates DJ (a former champ who had 6 Get Out Of Jail Free passes) and Mikey. Granted DJ was basically doing it just for the paycheck, and Mikey may be the worst driver in NASCAR history (although I have been given compelling evidence that Brett Bodine may have been worse), but still. And the 3 seasons that followed were simply outstanding considering the organization. 7. cjs3872 posted: 10.08.2011 - 11:47 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) DSFF, we don't know how Steve Park's rookie season in 1998 would have panned out if he hadn't been injured at Atlanta early that season, though the stability that Darrell Waltrip gave that organization in Park's absence was just what it needed, as Waltrip had some runs that reminded fans of the days when Waltrip was a front runner, including a near-win at Pocono and a fifth-place finish at California, passing car owner Dale Earnhardt late in the race to acheive that. (Let's not forget that, except for Jamie McMurray's success in the big races last year, that car #1 has never been that successful in NASCAR, no matter who has fielded or driven it.) And under no circumstances would I consider Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s 2000 season a disappointment. In fact, I would consider it a great success. remember that Matt Kenseth had Roush Racing, one of the sport's top organizations the prior decade, backing him, while DEI was a new organization. All things being equal, Kenseth had a better and more seasoned organization around him, and he should have won Rookie of the Year honors. And for Michael Waltrip's 2001 season, you have to remember that Dale Earnhardt, Sr. wanted Waltrip to feel the satisfaction of winnin ONE race, something he had never done before 2001 (except for the All-Star Race victory for the Wood Brothers in 1996), and he certainly did so, and nearly won at Homestead, finishing second. Yes it wasn't very good at all in between. But considering the available drivers at the time, who would've been a better candidate for Earnhardt to put in the #15 car, the number for which he used as a tribute to Bud Moore, for whom Earnhardt had driven in 1982-'83. But except for 2007, when he got his only Cup series win on the day that Bill France, Jr. died, Martin Truex, Jr. has, for the most part, not been much better than a mid-pack runner. Certainly, there have been flashes of brilliance, such as his runs at Bristol this year, where he dominated one of the races early and finished second in the other, but for the most part, Truex has been a mid-pack runner in Cup, and nothing more than that, so I disagrree with your assessment that Truex is capable of competing with the top teams, because he certainly isn't, or at least, hasn't shown the ability to on a consistent basis. And the hiring of Clint Bowyer by Michael Waltrip isn't going to help him either. After all, since he got to MWR, Truex has been consistently outperformed by David Reutimann, who is a solid driver, but by no means, a driver that is ever going to set the world on fire. And by the way, I want to correct something I mentioned about Austin Dillon's car in my last post (#5). There is no red on the car, but the blue and white does harken back to "Ol Calhoun", as does the car number 98, which is being used since Cary Agajanian, son of J.C., is a part owner of the car. 8. The Great Dave posted: 10.08.2011 - 2:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Austin DIllon's Debut race 9. 00andJoe posted: 10.08.2011 - 4:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Interesting news on Boyer and MWR: Apparently he -wanted- to stay at RCR. With 5 Hour Energy as sponsor. And Richard said no. 10. LordLowe posted: 10.08.2011 - 7:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well then if he couldn't have stayed with RCR why on earth did Bowyer choose to go to MWR then 11. Baker posted: 10.08.2011 - 7:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Stewart is done if he doesn't back into another fuel win here. 12. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.08.2011 - 7:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Truex is right where he was with DEI. Top 20, occasional contender for wins. Reut is a guy who has overachieved in my view. I don't see him as someone loaded with natural talent." Truex joined DEI when they were on the downswing. They weren't quite down when Martin first joined them in '06 (Dale Jr finished 5th in points that year), but starting with '08, they began falling apart until the merger with Ganassi brought them back to relevance in '09. In 2007 he performed to about the level of his equipment. I think if he got to drive for DEI in the '00-'04 era, he'd have won a lot more races. You are correct about Reut overachieving, but both his season and Truex's has had some pretty low pitfall moments. I don't see MWR as a team that will be breaking through anytime soon, and I don't see how the hell Clint would choose them over RCR. 13. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.08.2011 - 8:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Apparently Richard didn't feel 5 Hour Energy was providing enough money to be able to keep an entire Sprint Cup car afloat (plus the fact it is only for 24 races) and to afford Clint's salary demands. I think MWR is the only one who was willing to pay Clint what he wanted. That is where Clint needed to scale back his salary demands. Although he is obviously talented, he has only won 4 races. Take the lesser salary, go out and put up some numbers (something he will be unable to do at MWR) and the money will eventually take care of itself. 14. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.08.2011 - 8:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I guess my feelings about Truex's ceiling is a gut feeling. I've been wrong about these before, but I just think he showed a lot in '07 and '08 considering his situation. I can definitely see where the numbers say otherwise, especially looking at his previous 3 seasons (counting this one). But luckily we all agree MWR is simply a poorly run organization. "I don't see MWR as a team that will be breaking through anytime soon" I agree. Plus, I see Toyota taking a step back next year. With JGR cutting their engine department and them losing the Red Bull cars (not a huge deal, but they had to contribute some info), I think they will have a shaky year. JGR is far and away Toyota's meal ticket, and if Denny's runs this year with TRD engines are any indication, Toyota will have to spend a lot of time helping JGR get back up to speed. BTW, this brings me to my first 2012 prediction: Kyle will be so disgusted with the TRD engines, he will eventually spontaneously combust. Slight exaggeration of course, but you get my point. 15. Bronco posted: 10.08.2011 - 11:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Certainly, there have been flashes of brilliance, such as his runs at Bristol this year, where he dominated one of the races early and finished second in the other, but for the most part, Truex has been a mid-pack runner in Cup, and nothing more than that, so I disagrree with your assessment that Truex is capable of competing with the top teams, because he certainly isn't, or at least, hasn't shown the ability to on a consistent basis." Completely agree. His stock looked so high after 2007, but he has never come close to having another season like that. Remember that in his 2009, his final year driving the #1, he was badly outperformed by JPM who nearly made the chase and nearly won Indy and New Hampshire. And in 2010, his old team won 3 races (nearly 4) and his new teammate won Chicago. Martin did nothing last year except for a strong run at Homestead. He seems to be the anti closer, runs in the top 5 or top 10 during most of the race, and then falls backward in the final quarter. The spring race at Bristol and California are good examples of this, or even take last week at Dover. He should have more than one win in almost six full time seasons, and while I realize he has experienced tons of bad luck this season and throughout his career, I'm not sure I could ever see him winning multiple races in a year or even being a chase contender. 16. cjs3872 posted: 10.08.2011 - 11:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The #1 team nearly won four races in 2012, Bronco? Keep counting, because I count at least six or seven he could have won. In fact, McMurray could have won NASCAR's "Golden Slam" last year, which would be an unprecedented sweep of ALL FIVE crown jewel races. not only did McMurray win the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400, he was also second in the spring Talladega race (in which Kevin Harvick nipped him right at the finish), the Coca-Cola 600 (he would also have won that if not for an ill-timd caution), and was also second at the Southern 500, where if Denny Hamlin would have made an error, which has been known to happen at Darlington, even to the greatest drivers, McMurray would have won that race, as well, and of course, he also won the fall race at Charlotte. By the way the term "Golden Slam" was coined after Steffi Graf won the Grand Slam of tennis, as well as the Olympic gold medal in 1988. Members of the media soon coined that the "Golden Slam". 17. Mr X posted: 10.09.2011 - 1:12 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I am honestly curious as to how long Toyota will even stay in the Cup series, Dodge already has as many wins as Toyota this year with only 2 competitive drivers. Toyota is losing two cars and unless NASCAR will let them redesign their engine, JGR will have no hope of winning anywhere except short tracks. To be honest the most Toyota would probably get is just to be able to redesign a single part of their engine, most likely the cylinder heads, and if they don't get that they'll have to turn their engines into hand grenades to even keep up with the R07's, FR9's, and R6P8's. Not to mention they get terrible fuel mileage aswell. Both the Chevrolet and Dodge make more power, and get better mileage, and they aren't grenades either. The FR9's tend to get similar mileage to the Toyota's but they make far superior power. I think this has a lot to do with why Toyota spends so much time, money, and effort in the lower devisions. If they can't get a redesign I most teams will probably switch to the other brands and Toyota could be out of the sport in the near future. It wouldn't hurt my feelings, I can't figure out why they're involved anyways, its not like they build anything performance oriented for the street. They have zero performance image. 18. cjs3872 posted: 10.09.2011 - 9:29 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Mr X, one thing that must be realized as it concerns the reliability issues that Joe Gibbs Racing has had with it's engines that they had never previously had is that about a month before this year's Daytona 500, there was a huge explosion in their engine building plant, which basically meant they had to start from scratch this year, where their engines were concerned. That's why they've had so many engine failures this year. With everyone mentioning all the probelms that the Gibbs engines have had this year, nobody has ever brought this up. As far behind as Gibbs was due to engine plant explosion, the problems they've had should really have been expected, as well as their merger with TRD. But I think that merger may also help Gibbs catch up to where they were on their engine development much quicker. 19. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 12:02 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Remember that in his 2009, his final year driving the #1, he was badly outperformed by JPM" That is the biggest fly in the ointment of the Truex argument. I think it stemmed from the fact that he wanted out at the end of '08, agreed to come back after DEI threatened legal action, and basically rode out his contract. That was inexcusable. Had he put forst a better effort, he would have done better and realized EGR had a good future. I think one of the things we have to realize is that Mikey may be the greatest snake oil salesmen of this era, and one of the greatest in NASCAR history. He convinced Toyota to let his organization be their flag bearer in '07 and hoodwinked NAPA, UPS, Dominoes Pizza, and Burger King into joining them for perhaps the most embarrassing year ever for an organization. He has also convinced highly thought of drivers like DJ, Truex, and now Clint to come to his organization even though his organization hasn't done jack shit, while also conning Aaron's, Tums, and 5 Hour Energy into sponsoring mid pack entries. I guess we have to give him credit for that. 20. cjs3872 posted: 10.09.2011 - 2:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) DSFF, Jarrett's career was, for all practical purposes, already over when he signed with MWR, so I wouldn't include him on the list of MWR disappointments. Martin Truex, Jr., as I mentioned has been, for the most part, a mid-pack runner his entire Cup career, except for 2007, when he scored his lone win in the Cup series and made the Chase. Remember that he has, for the most part, been constantly outperformed by David Reutimann, who is a solid driver, but he drives a lot like Ricky Rudd, Benny Parsons, and the Labonte brothers. Steady, but never spectacular. He'll win a race every now and then, but he'll never set the world on fire. And Bowyer is the same kind of driver, but with seemingly more potential. He is also a Labonte-Parsons type, though he'll finish among the leaders more often than he's given credit for. But Bowyer will be the true test for what kind of potential Waltrip's organization truly has. Remember that, even though he seems to have no problem getting some drivers sponsored, remember that he's had to release Ryan Truex (though he'll be back in Waltrip's #99 NNS car for Charlotte), and most infamously, Trevor Bayne, due to lack of sponsorship. Truex has run consistently with the leaders in Joe Gibbs' #20 NNS car, and all Bayne did this year was to win the Daytona 500, though he has done little else, possibly due to a loss of desire from that victory, and of course, his illness that struck in April. (For the record, Bayne still can't find sponsorship, even with his Daytona 500 triumph.) 21. Mr X posted: 10.09.2011 - 2:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) cjs, The explosion wasn't the engine plant, it was in the dyno cell. JGR was testing a motor on the dyno, and the engine decided it wanted a career change, and it became a grenade, most likely threw a rod, the bottom end fell out of it, something catastropic. A large fire erupted in the dyno cell and obviously the motor was destroyed. But from what I heard the fire was extinguished, and that was all that was lost. Unless that was their only dyno cell, which I doubt, however it may have left them with only one other dyno cell. Leaving them with only one to test both race and experimental engine packages. That partially explains their engine woes this year, there still is something deeper IMO. 22. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 2:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Bobby spins yet again to cause a caution. He has been doing that a lot lately. 23. LordLowe posted: 10.09.2011 - 2:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This Race SUCKS 24. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.09.2011 - 2:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I think one of the things we have to realize is that Mikey may be the greatest snake oil salesmen of this era, and one of the greatest in NASCAR history. He convinced Toyota to let his organization be their flag bearer in '07 and hoodwinked NAPA, UPS, Dominoes Pizza, and Burger King into joining them for perhaps the most embarrassing year ever for an organization. He has also convinced highly thought of drivers like DJ, Truex, and now Clint to come to his organization even though his organization hasn't done jack shit, while also conning Aaron's, Tums, and 5 Hour Energy into sponsoring mid pack entries. I guess we have to give him credit for that." Convincing big sponsors and well-known names to come drive for his team is definitely his biggest strength. MWR's regression after last season ended looks pretty bad on them, so they were simply lucky they were able to get Clint. "Jarrett's career was, for all practical purposes, already over when he signed with MWR, so I wouldn't include him on the list of MWR disappointments." I agree. His last year when he was competitive on a weekly basis was 2002. He truly struggled after winning Rockingham in '03, and went through a so-and-so '04 and '05 before the bottom fell out on his career in '06. I really think he had already thrown in the towel mentally by the time he signed with MWR, and was thinking more of his post-driving career. But at least he showed class regarding the situation. 25. jabber1990 posted: 10.09.2011 - 3:12 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) was the second caution a phantom debris caution? 26. TeamPlayersBlue posted: 10.09.2011 - 3:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) NASCAR Trying to make the race remotely interesting. 27. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 3:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Daugherty: "Gordon is FLAT FLYING!!!!!!" Ugh. The racing is pretty good, its just that JJ is kicking the shit out of everyone. Of course it will be paved next year. 28. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 4:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) A bullshit caution. 29. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.09.2011 - 4:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) If they don't show debris on TV, I'm pretty sure it's called a phantom debris caution. And apparently that wasn't the first one today. No reason for that. 30. Anonymous posted: 10.09.2011 - 4:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I wish a deserving human being like Regan Smith would put on a clinic for once (as in lead 85% of the race). 31. Schroeder51 posted: 10.09.2011 - 4:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jeff Gordon 2011 Championship Chances=Over 32. 18fan posted: 10.09.2011 - 4:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Except for the 48, which has been clearly the best car, taking gas only was clearly the wrong call by the 17 and 24. 33. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 4:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Good news for Brad fans: I am questioning Paul's decision. That is a good omen for them. 34. Schroeder51 posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) It's not the tires-it's the engine. Figures! 35. Anonymous posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hendrick the scab starts his scam... 36. Schroeder51 posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yup, my prediction after Chicagoland of 10th-12th in points for Jeff Gordon sounds about right now. 37. TeamPlayersBlue posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kablamo! 38. LordLowe posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) WTF Gordon If you think your motor is going to blow just bring the car to the Garage and not try to ride it out until it blows and cause a caution you imbecile 39. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Game over. 40. Schroeder51 posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Looking good for crown #6... 41. LordLowe posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) DSFF I Order you To go to Charlotte this Saturday and sabotage the 48 car cut his tires cut the break lines put sand in the gas tank because it is time to end his reign of terror ONCE AND FOR ALL. 42. TeamPlayersBlue posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) If this keeps up Johnson will win 20 straight championships. 43. Anonymous posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:30 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Shut the hell up Lordlowe. Youre an idiot. If i was him id stay out too. Your the freaking imbecile. Ypur not driving the car. Youre the loser whining about Gordon. Get a life. 44. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yes sir LordLowe :) 45. LordLowe posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Go f**k yourself anonymous 46. cjs3872 posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I knew that Gordon could not win the championship with alan Gustavsion calling the shots. He's good for a couple of (or in the case of this year, three) wins, but he's one of those guys that just can't stand the heat of a championship battle. It was proven a couple of years ago with Mark Martin, and it's been proven again this year. But then again, Buddy Parrott never won a championship, either. however, even though Jimmie Johnson won the race, a most overdue victory that moves him ahead of Lee Petty and into a tie for eighth with Rusty Wallace with 55, Gordon's blown engine late in the race could spell dark clouds on the horizon for the #48 team, as it could be a sign that Hendrick may be about to encounter a series of engine problems. We know of the problems that Gibbs has been having with his engines all year, for reasons I brought up in post #18, but you must also remember that in the middle of the season, Jack Roush ran into a series of engine problems in a short time that affected all of his Nationwide cars, as well as Carl Edwards' Cup car on two occasions. So while it looks like Johnson may have re-established himself as the championship favorite again, there may be problems looming for the #48 team. However, it looks like Hendrick has gone back into it's usual Chase mode, with everything tilted toward the #48 team. 47. Eric posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Here is my take on the chase drivers for Charlotte: Carl Edwards - don't know how he got a top 5 today. Charlotte isn't Carl's best mile and a half track with him being outside of the top 10 at that track 5 out of the last 6 races there. Kevin Harvick - don't know how he got a 6th place finish here. I don't know what to expect out of him at Charlotte. Jimmie Johnson - great performance. Jimmie isn't quite as good at Charlotte as he was before 2006, but he should take the points lead after that race. Brad - very good run today. He should get a top 10 at Charlotte. Matt Kenseth - very good run today. Charlotte is a good track for him and expect him to get a top 10 run. Kurt Busch - average day today. Charlotte isn't a great track for him traditionally despite his top 5 there in May and a 600 win there in 2010. Kyle Busch - had a good car early, but faded late. Charlotte is a good track for him at times, but he doesn't have the speed since the chase started. His pit crew not being as good since the chase started hasn't helped Kyle either. Tony Stewart - pit stop screw up by himself cost him a top 10 or top 5 finish to a otherwise great day. Charlotte used to be good track Tony up to the end of 2007. Tony hasn't got a top 10 there in 7 straight races and expect Tony to lose ground in points after the next race as a result. Dale Earnhardt Jr. - average day today and had one too many average or bad days in this chase. He really needs misfortune to happen to Carl, Kevin, and Jimmie to get back into the chase. Jeff Gordon - His title hopes went up in smoke for the most part after today. He really needs Carl, Kevin, Jimmie, and Brad to had misfortune for getting back into the chase. Ryan Newman - no chance of winning a cup title this year. Denny Hamlin - No chance of winning of being cup champion this year. 48. cjs3872 posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Okay, Mr X (#21), I apologize for the error, but Gibbs' engine problems this year definately started with that incident, and all of JGR has paid the price. And as I said in the last post, Hendrick seems to have gone back into their Chase mode, tilting things toward the #48 team, which makes me wonder who's really calling the shots at HMS' competition department. Could Chad Knaus really be calling the shots there for the entire organization's competition department, just as Ray Evernham did about 15 years ago, when everything was heavily tilted toward the #24 team? 49. NicoRosbergFan posted: 10.09.2011 - 5:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) LordLowe is one of the reasons I hate Jimmie Johnson. People like him do not deserve to have their driver win the championship. I mean what a rotten thing to say to someone. You are obviously jealous because Jimmie isn't a scab on Jeff Gordon's @$$ and the only reason why Jeff hasn't won five straight from 06 to 10 is because of the Chase (Hack Chase for Scum Who Aren't Talented Enough to Run Well for 36 Races) and Letarte. In a head to head battle Jimmie hasn't beaten Jeff yet this year and your greener than Junior's Amp car with envy. Behold LordLowe, who knows all things!!! Get real. Your scum won; enjoy it instead of rubbing it in peoples faces. Give Jeff Jimmie's equipment and he would have won 02-10 straight with an average of 15 wins a year. I thought I would stay out of these boards but now I am straightening people out for the sake of the nicer people on here. 50. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Analysis of the Jimmie Johnson Show going forward: Carl: outstanding recovery. Needs to make hay at Charlotte because the races after are Dega and Martinsville. With JJ coming, he needs all he can get. Harvick: another nice recovery, but needs to be better on intermediates. JJ: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Game over. Brad: another great 2nd half run and Paul Wolfe continues his run of outstanding calls. Schedule actually looks good for him. Matt: steady as always. This isn't 2003 anymore, steady don't win titles. KuBu: needed better result today. Nowhere near consistent enough, his "arch rival" is gonna give him another ass spanking. Smoke: also needs better consistency. Pit road mistake was a back breaker for a promising day. KyBu: another cha$e, another Kyle dissappearing act. June: just needs to get back to front running. He career dip has been awful. Gordon: between bad luck and bad runs a huge letdown so far. Newman: where did he go? Denny: those TRD engines are crap. 51. DanicaPatrick'sFlatChest posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Wow, that was a terrible race, and it just got worse as the day went on. 52. 18fan posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kyle ran really well today considering his past at this track and the 18 team showed a little more speed both on track and on pit road today than they did in the first 3 races. They had probably a 6th-8th place car most of the day that kept getting better and he could've gotten a top 5 but the last two cautions and the subsequent pit stops and restarts cost him several spots. Considering the way they have run at Charlotte in the last couple years I'm expecting a good result on Saturday night. That battle between Kyle and Jimmie for 2nd in the closing laps last year was great to watch. 53. Have at it Brad posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Way to go Brad on another top 5. Didn't need fuel mileage this time around, not when you got the next Chad Knaus on the pitbox. Also, nice fade by Kyle at the end there, continuing his typical Chase collapse. Another mediocre run and I think we can all officially count him out of this. 54. 00andJoe posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #14 sponsor: Office Depot Tech Depot Services/Mobil 1 #98 sponsor: President Ronald Reagan Centennial/Camping World #46 sponsor: Green Stuff Absorbent 55. Texas Terry posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Man the NASCAR media pisses me off. Who were the idiots writing off the 48 team? No one with half a brain would make that mistake, but all I heard on ESPN was how everyone had counted him out. 56. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Welp, the championship race is decided. I officially predict 6 in a row for Jimmie after his strong Dover run and dominating performance today. This win breaks a 21 race winless streak (seems like an eternity when JJ goes that long without winning), and this is his first non-plate win since Dover last September. I think we'll see another win or two from him in the cha$e. Brad's really going for a top 5 points finish. To think I was concerned about how he would do today after dominating a minor series race yesterday. Finally, Kasey Kahne gets the finish to match where he ran during the race. His car was the best towards the end of the race. 57. Anonymous posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I will after you lordlowe. Youre such a loser so ill let you go first. Stupid johnson fan. I hope he loses this title so bad. 58. bduddy posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) So, any good words that rhyme with "six"? 59. jabber1990 posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) did ESPN ever mention what happened to Logano on the second-to-last lap? it seemed like somebody got into him 60. 00andJoe posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Man the NASCAR media pisses me off. Who were the idiots writing off the 48 team? No one with half a brain would make that mistake, but all I heard on ESPN was how everyone had counted him out. " -Everybody- did. Including just about everybody here. (Including me.) I'm still not convinced six is inevitable. 61. cjs3872 posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) NRF, another reason that Gordon will never win another championship (which may be appropriate, due to the fact that he won all his titles racing for an entire season) is, as I mentioned, the fact that Alan Gustavson, while one of the better crew chiefs in the sport today, can't stand the heat either, as aside from the 2009 Southern 500 with Mark Martin, he's never won anything big. no ther crown jewel victories, and no championships. When and if that changes, I'll admit that I'm wrong, but Gustavson has proven to men that he can't stand the heat when the pressure is highest. He has never, as a crew chief, won a race at Daytona, Talladega (granted the crew chief has nothing to do with success at those tracks), Charlotte, Texas, well, you get the picture. In fact, the only track left on the circuit this year where he has won as a crew chief is Phoenix (three times with three different drivers), and they've changed that track. Now being Jeff Gordon's crew chief when he set the modern wins record is something he'll have with him. But Gustavson is hardly the only elite crew chief never to win a championship. As I mentioned in a previous post, Buddy Parrott never won one, nor did Steve Hmiel, who was underrated, in my view, nor did Larry McReynolds, which more due to the cruel hand of fate on two occasions (1992 and '94), nor did Tony Glover, who won three Daytona 500s, including consecutive 500s in 1994-'95, the last crew chief to do so. so there have been numerous successful crew chiefs that never won a championship, just as there were several successful crwe chiefs never to win the Daytona 500 (Chad Knaus, Tim Brewer, Andy Petree, Kirk Shelmerdine, just to name a few). It would, however, be a feather in Gustavson's cap, or whatever crew chief happens to be the one calling the shots for Hendrick's 200th win. If it is Gustavson, then Gordon would have secured HMS' 100th and 200th wins, as his 55th career win, which was the number Jimmie Johnson reached today, came at Michigan in 2001, and was HMS' 100th win as a team. But we all know that, unless it happens at Talladega, that it will be Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson securing HMS' 200th win, if it happens in the final six races this year. 62. DaleJrFan20 posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:54 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Holy shit, what a boring race. Phantom debris galore, Mr. "Five"-Time winning, at least if he wins it this year, he might actually deserve it looking at the non-chase points. Time for Cookie-Cutter number three of four in the Cha$e. Also, kind of off topic, but does anyone else think NASCAR should go to the Circuit of the America's track sometime in the future? 63. cjs3872 posted: 10.09.2011 - 6:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 00andJoe, I never counted Jimmie out of the title fight, though it didn't look good after two races in the Chase. But I didn't pick him to win the title, either. My pisk before the Chase began was Matt Kenseth, and he is, by no means, out of it. But I did say that if Johnson didn't run well at Dover, then you could stick a fork in his title hopes. He didn't have to win that race, but he did have to run well. He did run well and backed it up with his first non-RP win since last year's fall race at Dover. 64. TheTruth� posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Truex has been consistently outperformed by David Reutimann" 2010: Truex 36 0 1 7 18.8 avg Reut 36 1 6 9 18.1 avg 2011: Truex 30 0 2 8 18.9 avg Reut 30 0 1 2 23.3 avg I'll have to disagree... 65. Bronco posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) First ever GWC finish at Kansas, and the most number of laps ever in a 400 mile Cup race. Also most number of laps led in a Kansas race, passing the record that Kurt set earlier this year in June. This win makes JJ the all time lap leader at Kansas. If Carl wins the championship this year, he can point to this race as the reason why. To come back from a lap down to a top 5 is incredible, as KP would say. This is the TENTH straight season where JJ has scored 20 top 10s in a season, and the fifth season where he led more than 1000 laps. His streak of having at least one pole per season is in jeopardy, only 6 more races to score one This win ties him with Rusty Wallace, next up he'll be chasing Big E. Jeff Gordon joins Earnhardt Jr, Hamlin and Newman as guys that won't be winning the championship this year. Tony can probably be counted out after Charlotte, while I think Kyle will rebound well there. This race perfectly validates what I said earlier about Truex being the "anti-closer". He was in the top 10 for the first 100 laps, then kept falling back before the axle problem did him in. At Dover it was the same story, fast car that starts up front, eventual 30th place finish. At HMS, the #88 car was the best in the first 3rd of the season, from Daytona to the beginning of the summer, then the #24 ruled the summer and now they're both falling back while the #48 picks things up in the fall. That's the way it looks to me. I think Denny Hamlin has a firm lock on 12th in the standings, I don't see him being able to make up points on Newman even. 66. TheTruth� posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Remember that in his 2009, his final year driving the #1, he was badly outperformed by JPM who nearly made the chase and nearly won Indy and New Hampshire." It's easy for most to forget that Juan drove all new cars all year, and Truex was driving the old stuff except for 2 races. He got a top 5 in one of those 2 races. When McMurray came onboard for 2010, McMurray got all new cars as well. It's easy to say that two teammates would be getting the same stuff, but for 2009, it absolutely was not true. 67. Spen posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Matt's not out of it, but things will really have to go his way for him to have a shot. And I can almost guarentee you that Talladega will not go his way. Looking at the rest of the schedule, it looks like Johnson will win, with Harvick sneaking into second, Brad third, and either Matt or Carl in fourth. I think we can officially count Tony out of the running, and the Busch brothers aren't looking good, either. And poor Gordon. If you'd told me ten years ago I'd write those words, I'd have thought you were crazy. 68. hurkadurka posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Hendrick the scab starts his scam..." queue another person who thinks that Hendrick is intentionally screwing Jeff Gordon, which makes LOADS of sense *rolls eyes* man, they must be great to figure out how to grenade engines like that during appropriate times! 69. TheTruth� posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "He's good for a couple of (or in the case of this year, three) wins, but he's one of those guys that just can't stand the heat of a championship battle." Alan Gustafson has never been a crew chief that suddenly starts running worse in the Chase. However, Gordon's been inconsistent all year. Some great races, and hen some rougher ones thrown in the mix. I didn't think Gordon would win the title for that reason. However, I don't think Gustafson is someone that "can't stand the heat of a championship battle". Mark Martin was not the favorite in 2009, and he still came home 2nd in points. 70. awesomegordonfan posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Gordon's done. Bowyer's career's over. NASCAR's screwed for life. 71. TheTruth� posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:41 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "LordLowe is one of the reasons I hate Jimmie Johnson. People like him do not deserve to have their driver win the championship." You might need to re-examine your thinking, as LordLowe's posts clearly indicate someone who is NOT a Johnson fan. "In a head to head battle Jimmie hasn't beaten Jeff yet this year" You know, except for all the races that Jimmie beats Jeff.. You're looking for excuses to hate on Jimmie Johnson. LordLowe told DSFF to go to Charlotte to sabotage the 48's car... clearly sounds like a Johnson fan, right? Hopefully you read this and realize that you took a Johnson hater and called him a Johnson fan, using it as an excuse to hate on Johnson. So is this where the conspiracy theories begin? Are drivers gonna start letting Johnson win while blocking Gordon for Johnson, just like 2007? 72. Cooper posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Brad keeps proving me wrong. Maybe Watto was right afterall....It's so close yet so far away. Keep driving Brad, keep driving. 73. TheTruth� posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I will after you lordlowe. Youre such a loser so ill let you go first. Stupid johnson fan. I hope he loses this title so bad." HE'S NOT A JOHNSON FAN!!! A couple of races ago he made posts HAPPY that Johnson got WRECKED. How hard is it to understand? 74. 00andJoe posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) -First Cup race for Mike Curb as an owner since the Fall Atlanta race in 1988. Also the 100th Cup start by a Curb-owned car. 75. Watto posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #72 Cooper - I got a little carried away in that debate. I think it's a fair argument to say that Brad has more potential if he went the JJ48 route and focused 110% into his Cup effort. I just don't think he's average at best while pulling double duty :). Sorry if I got a little too brash in the Nationwide comments section. 76. Anonymous posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Actually Hendrick screwing Jeff would make sense; look at DiGard, another team who wanted to replace the cagey veteran with a cheap to pay, young kid. 77. TheTruth� posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) do u really think that Johnson is a cheap to pay, young kid though? Hendrick does not want to get rid of Jeff. I guarantee you that Rick would LOVE to see Jeff score another championship before he retires. 78. LordLowe posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) @ the truth| Thanks for having my back man I really appreciate that. Now as for Anonymous and NicoRosbergFan the reason I said what I said about Gordon was not because I was Jimmie Johnson fan I said it because I wanted that race to end because it was very boring and very brutal and Gordon blowing up to bring out the caution was just prolonging the boredom. I dont know where you two idiots think that I am a Jimmie Johnson fan because I am not I dont like his dull as dishwater personality and I dont want him to win another title because I think it would lead to the further decline of the sport (not that there have been other reasons that NASCAR's in the shape that it is in) and if you still think I am a Jimmie Johnson fan after this well to quote Bender from Futurama Bite My Shiny Metal Ass 79. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 7:59 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Who were the idiots writing off the 48 team?" I was one of them after Loudon. Maybe I didn't totally write them off, but I thought, and said, it looked bleak. He had a bad handling car there and let his frustrations take hold, going after other cars and chastising Chad on the radio. I thought his mind set was off. I forgot JJ is the kind of person that can put that behind him, and I feel stupid for that. Obviously a lot can still happen, but it will be pretty hard to bet against the 48. And even if they don't win it, they are still by far the best team out there. Honestly, and I don't think this is just my heart talking, I think the biggest threat to the 48 is the 2. This is Brad and his team's first time in the cha$e, so they don't have the experience of constantly battling the 48 and losing to them. Them moving from 10th in points to just 4 out of the lead has to be playing with the minds of people that have been there before and lost to JJ. Carl, Kevin, Matt, and Kurt (even though he beat JJ in '04, that was a long time ago with a different organization) have to be thinking "Ah shit, here we go again". They have the added pressure of not wanting to lose to the 48 yet again. Brad, Paul and the Blue Deuce guys? They aren't even supposed to be here. They are excellent at getting their cars better in the second half of races, Paul is on the cutting edge of calling a race, and they don't have any real weaknesses. 80. potatosalad48 posted: 10.09.2011 - 8:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hendrick is not the type of business man who would attempt to screw one of his drivers out of a championship. If you look at both of their careers from the start, Jeff has made WAY more money for Rick than Jimmie. Why would Rick want to sabotage perhaps the 2nd best driver in NASCAR history? 81. Martin5fan posted: 10.09.2011 - 8:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Brad Keselowski has really impressed me so far in the chase. After Richmond i thousht he wouldn't do so good after the way Vickers did in the chase in 2009. By the Way, Jimmie Johnson will win his 6th Championship. I Hate Nascar, It it is Rig. If Jimmie Johnson wins this championship Nascar to me is going to be the worst sport in History 82. Spen posted: 10.09.2011 - 8:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I don't think Brad will escape Talladega intact. Johnson almost certainly will. Matinsville and especially Phoenix could be question marks for them too. And Homestead has practically nothing in common with the other cookie-cutters except for length, so Paul wouldn't have any good notes to fall back on there. By the way, I'm calling Charlotte for Kasey. It's a great track for him, he has nothing to lose, and he's getting on a roll. 83. AlmirolaFan88 posted: 10.09.2011 - 8:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Man, it's weird seeing Austin Dillon's name on a Cup race results list. Didn't watch the race but looks like he did a decent job. I really want to see Kahne win a race for the Red Bull guys. Hope it happens soon... 84. Spen posted: 10.09.2011 - 8:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) On a side note, I'd like to give a shout out to Mark for finally getting ten top tens for the year, extending his streak to twenty-four consecutive years of having double-diget top-tens. It's taken a while, but it looks like he and McGrew have been getting somewhat on track the last five races or so. And if he can score one more top-ten this year, it will be the highest number of top-tens the #25 team has had since Kenny Scrader in '94. By the way, NASCAR is most certainly not rigged in Johnson's favour. Notice how they threw a debris caution right at the edge of everyone's fuel window, knowing that Johnson's been getting lousy milage this year? If Landon Cassill hadn't wreaked, I'm sure they'd have happily gone caution-free to the end. And afterwards, they threw another debris caution to try and let everyone else catch up, and threw the yellow again the second Jeff's engine grenaded with two to go. Trust me, the last thing Brian France wants is to give Johnson another trophy. Now, is Hendrick rigged in Johnson's favour? Well, I do think that Hendrick puts most of his resources towards the guy who he knows can light it up at the end of the year, and that certainly ain't Gordon. Can you really blame him for that? 85. NicoRosbergFan posted: 10.09.2011 - 8:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yes when one driver is WAY better than another (not passing judgment where). I will make a dangerous analogy here: Fernando Alonso is to Felipe Massa as Jimmie Johnson is to Jeff Gordon (except Jeff is not a doormat or a wimp). That is how it appears to be from the outside. Yes NASCAR is about to reached sterility paralleled by Sebastian Loeb in the World Rally Championship (which had Dani Sordo being regularly told to let Loeb win; more of the analogy above). 86. BON GORDON posted: 10.09.2011 - 8:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well another year is in the books for Gordon. Gordon runs strong enough to be a top 5 team but that may not happen either. I was on such a high before the chase and now Gordon is done and Johnson looks like he will win it again. At this point i want a 3rd-7th place points finish and maybe another win for Gordon. Im honestly depressed about Gordons luck. It f**king sucks. I feel like a Cubs fan. One thing everyone needs to remember reguardless of crew chiefs, conspiracies, chase struggles Jeff Gordon is a legend and im proud of him. Hes my hero and will ALWAYS be a NASCAR legend. 87. Champcooper posted: 10.09.2011 - 8:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) well this race was uneventful 88. Cooper posted: 10.09.2011 - 8:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "75. Watto posted: 10.09.11 - 7:50 pm" No, you actually made some valid points. My arguments weren't 100% valid. "82. AlmirolaFan88 posted: 10.09.11 - 8:26 pm" As long as your first start is uneventful, then it's considered a good debut. And Austin did what he had to do. "65. Bronco posted: 10.09.11 - 7:20 pm" Hey Bronco, wouldn't it be cool if the championship came down to Edwards and BK. That would be awesome. You probably never thought you'd hear that eh... "64. TheTruth�?� posted: 10.09.11 - 7:19 pm" Truex Jr. is a better driver than Reutimann. Hands Down. But both of them are better than there statlines read. "58. bduddy posted: 10.09.11 - 6:46 pm" The Fix for Number Six "28. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.11 - 4:25 pm" For every fake debris caution, an angel gets their wings. "13. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.08.11 - 8:14 pm" And people wonder why no one can get a sponsor? It's too frickin expensive. Teams are asking for $30M when in reality $20M would be sufficient. Greed is always the root to problems in sports. 89. cjs3872 posted: 10.09.2011 - 9:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The Truth, I'm not saying that Gustavson's car suddenly run worse when the Chase starts. Remember that Jeff Gordon, for whatever reason, has always been a terrible finisher, except for 1998, and there might have been chicanery going on then (like NASCAR-approved traction control to keep Ford from winning EVERY race in the second half of that season, perhaps?). I'm just saying that Gustavson isn't one you can trust when the heat is on and the pressure is highest. Kyle Busch never finished a season strongly with Gustavson, and neither did Mark Martin. And remember, there have been other crew chiefs, like drivers, that tend to shrink when the pressure is at it's highest, and Gustavson seems to be one of those crew chiefs. (Remember Darrell Waltrip and DiGard's collapse in 1979. Buddy Parrott had quite a bit to do with that as well, and he never won a championship either.) You are right when you said that he led Mark Martin to second in 2009, but what you didn't note is that they did start to not perform as good as they had, but they were able to finish races better than they ran, except for Talladega. In fact, had he not been wrecked early at Texas, Johnson would actually have clinched the championship a race early, which is the very situation NASCAR tried to avoid when they came up with the Chase. But the plain truth is that, except for the 2009 Southern 500, Gustavson has never won anything important as a crew chief. No Daytona 500s, no Coca-Cola 600s, no Brickyard 400s (he has been second two of the last three years there), no All-Star Race victories, and no championships. He seems to be able to get a team to the edge of greatness, but can't get over the top to win an important race, or a championship. 90. Sean posted: 10.09.2011 - 9:07 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) In addition to tying Rusty (a big deal, since Jimmie is by no means guaranteed catching Earnhardt on the all-time win list) Jimmie also tied Jeff Gordon's record of ten consecutive 20 top-10 seasons today. I'm almost certain he'll break that. "[Michael Waltrip] had a 1st and 2nd in the Daytona races, and that was IT." Hey, he finished 2nd at Homestead in Bill Elliott's comeback win too, so if you count only the Florida races, he would have been the 2001 champion! Too bad there were 33 other races for him to suck in. "the fact that Alan Gustavson, while one of the better crew chiefs in the sport today, can't stand the heat either, as aside from the 2009 Southern 500 with Mark Martin, he's never won anything big. no ther crown jewel victories, and no championships. When and if that changes, I'll admit that I'm wrong, but Gustavson has proven to men that he can't stand the heat when the pressure is highest. He has never, as a crew chief, won a race at Daytona, Talladega (granted the crew chief has nothing to do with success at those tracks), Charlotte, Texas, well, you get the picture." I don't see what the big deal with marquee race wins is now. Daytona has been diluted several times by Cope, M. Waltrip, and Bayne at the very least (Cope had Buddy Parrott, yes, but Donnie Wingo is merely good, not legendary, and Scott Eggleston wasn't a good crew chief at all). Charlotte was diluted by Mears. Indianapolis was diluted by Menard. Talladega? Anyone can win there if they catch a lucky draft and don't wreck. It didn't USED to be like that. In the '90s it was probably harder to win almost anywhere, but honestly the marquee races are among the LEAST important now. I don't understand why you still think they're relevant in saying Gustafson can't capture any big prizes. And Texas? Besides a big payday, that race has never been seen as particularly important. Even before the plates you had people like Ron Bouchard, Greg Sacks, and Bobby Hillin (no he didn't suck) winning plate races. They've usually been more about car strength than talent. The short tracks are far more relevant in actual driving talent. The superspeedways used to best reflect engineering talent (connected to crew chief talent), but these days the plate tracks are pretty much just about luck. Who cares about marquee races now? Matt Kenseth won the Daytona 500 with Drew Blickensderfer and then missed the chase for the only time since it was introduced. Daytona wins might be flashy, but they are no longer meaningful for driver or crew chief besides being big paydays. The truly great crew chiefs get it done on the cookie cutters, which score the most points. I can see the point that Gustafson doesn't thrive on the big stage when you consider his chase performances (which are relevant), but criticizing him for not getting it done on high-profile tracks seems weird since the high-profile tracks are becoming less and less relevant (and the one he has won - the Southern 500 - is by far the most relevant). The crew chief probably has more impact on car setup at Phoenix than Daytona or Talladega (as those are just random now) so I'd be more impressed with the three Phoenix wins with three different drivers than three random plate wins (just because they are erroneously considered marquee). Still, I think Mark Martin lost the 2009 title due to his conservatism (not Gustafson) and Gustafson is not responsible for Gordon's engine failure today... 91. Sean posted: 10.09.2011 - 9:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "no Brickyard 400s (he has been second two of the last three years there)" That's hardly his fault. NASCAR threw a debris caution that set up the caution when Menard and others pitted and Gordon couldn't catch him in time. That was hardly Gustafson choking (unless you're saying Gordon should have short-pitted then, which he shouldn't have since he was up front at the time...) Reiterating myself, why do you think marquee race wins are important for drivers or crew chiefs to win anymore? Good points finishes are FAR more important now. Back in the '90s I'd agree with you, but too many mediocre drivers and/or crew chiefs have won these races now for me to care about them. I'm more impressed with how Chad Knaus has nailed the setups at places like Martinsville and Phoenix (even ignoring Johnson's titles and success elsewhere) than the fact that he never won a Daytona 500. 92. cjs3872 posted: 10.09.2011 - 9:12 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And Spen, the #88 is the old #25, not the #5. Sure the teams may have changed, but the car numbers remained the same, and the #88 is the old #25. And I stand by my comments that Reutimann has consistently outperformed Truex on the track. The results may not always reflect that, but Reutimann is the better of the two drivers, though neither will ever have a great deal of success on the Cup level. After all, Reutimann has had an outside chance at making the Chase, as well as having won a race, in each of the last two seasons (2009-'10). Sure the Coca-Cola 600 win of his is the cheapest win in NASCAR history, but it counts just the same as any other win. Then again, with Clint Bowyer coming on board at MWR, we are now going to see what kind of potential that organization truly has, because Bowyer is the first elite driver that organization has ever had. If Bowyer struggles to top the performance of both Truex and Reutimann, we'll know that MWR will never be a front-line team. But if Bowyer excels, it will prove my point about both Martin Truex, Jr. and Reutimann. 93. Sean posted: 10.09.2011 - 9:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hey, I actually think Paul Wolfe has been the best crew chief this season for bringing Brad Keselowski from mid-pack mediocrity to a weekly threat. But he doesn't have any marquee race wins yet, so he must suck, right? (Granted, Gustafson's been around a bit longer, but still, my point is that marquee wins - at least Daytona and Talladega - haven't been relevant in measuring any kind of talent in a long time). 94. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.09.2011 - 9:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I also don't buy the HMS conspiracy theories. Jeff brought Rick his first Winston Cup, dominated while Rick was battling cancer and legal issues which had to lift his spirits, generally raising their profile from really good to legendary, and is so close with him he actually lived with Rick and Linda while going through his divorce. I think if you could get Rick to tell the truth, he'd rather have Jeff win it than Jimmie. Besides, the 48 team was the brainchild of Rick and Jeff together. And Bon Gordon, did you really say you feel like a Cubs fan? They haven't won a championship since 1908 and haven't even been to the World Series since 1945. Jeff won a Winston Cup as recently as 2001, and had a mathematical chance in '04 and '07. 95. cjs3872 posted: 10.09.2011 - 9:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Agree about the Brickyard 400 playing out the way it did, Sean, but until he wins a big one (either a marquee race or a championshbp), there will always be doubts whether or not he can get a team over the top. But you are dead wrong about the crown jewels not mattering. After all, what is Darrell Waltrip best known for, his three championships or his one Daytona 500 win, which came on fuel mileage? Is David Pearson better known for his three championships or his one Daytona 500 win in 1976? And of course, there is MArio Andretti. though he won four IndyCar titles, as well as the F1 title in 1978, he's best known as the first driver to win both the Daytona 500 (1967) and the Indianapolis 500 (1969). And A.J. Foyt says the the Indianapolis 500 is what made him, yet he won more championships (6, as I don't count 1979) than Indianapolis 500s (4). And as for your saying that long-shot winners dilute the marquee races. I say it adds to the lure of those races, as long as there aren't too many of them. You say the Daytona 500 has been diluted by the likes of Cope, Michael Waltrip (never mind the fact that he ran up front in whatever car he was in), and the biggest fluke winner of them all, Trevor Bayne. Then there are the stories of Pete Hamilton, who flashed on the scene there in 1970, then due to neck injuries, was out of the sport by 1973. Tiny Lund, who didn't even have a car to drive when SpeedWeek 1963 began, won the Daytona 500, which was the first important win for the Wood Brothers, the very same team that won it this year. and your point about Waltrip is shot down by the fact that he won it TWICE, much like Andy North at the U.S. Open. That event has had many long-shot winners, but North was the only long-shot winner to actually win it twice. As for Charlotte, Mears' win was far more legitimate than David Reutimann's two years later, as well as ironic, considering the weekend on which it took place (in fact, it took place on May 27, the same date on which his uncle Rick took the first of his four Indy wins back in 1979). But the list of winners also includes Joe Lee Johnson, the first winner, Nelson Stacy, who did win the Southern 500 in 1961, the year before his 600 win, but he never won in NASCAR again after that 600 triumph. And let's not forget the Southern 500 has had it's share of strange winners, starting with it's first winner, Johnny Mantz. Other long-shot winners of that race include Stacy, Larry Frank (his only NASCAR win), Darel Dieringer, Terry Labonte (in 1980, as he did win it twice), and the biggest long-shot winner that event has has since the 1962, Regan Smith. And as for your saying that Daytona and Talladega, and I consider the spring race there to be a crown jewel race, has just now become all about luck, as it comes to winning, pointing out the strange winners there, you've forgotten some other names, like Dick Brooks, Lennie Pond, Sam McQuagg, John Andretti, and this year's two Daytona winners, Trevor Bayne and David Ragan, so this kind of thing has been going on at Daytona and Talladega for generations, it's not just a recent thing. But Drew Blickensderfer won the Daytona 500 with Matt Kenseth in 2009, and should have won it with Ragan this year. But back to the point of this post. While championships can build a career resume in racing, the marquee races build a legacy for driver, crew chief, and car owner. Much like in golf and tennis, where you have the four "major" or "grand slam" events, you have the same in NASCAR with the five crown jewel races, as well as the Indianapolis 500 in open-wheel racing, and wins in those races will be remembered long after the championships have been forgotten. We know of Foyt, Andretti, R. Petty, B. Allison, Yarborough, Waltrip, J. Gordon, Rutherford, the Unsers, and Penske, not for all the championships they won, but rather, for all the times they won their branch of racing's biggest events. And that's as it should be, because unlike championships, which are year-to-year, winning the sport's biggest events will last, because those events take on a life of their own. 96. Kinetic posted: 10.09.2011 - 9:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The most interesting topic about this chase to me is the #18 team once again disappointing. And this year it doesn't even look it's Kyle's fault. He seems to be getting the most out of his cars. That team has just lost all speed, although they hadn't been great on the 1.5 tracks all year. I can see Kyle bolting JGR when his contract ends. But the question is who would take him? 97. Sean posted: 10.09.2011 - 10:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "After all, what is Darrell Waltrip best known for, his three championships or his one Daytona 500 win?" Actually neither. He's more known for being an annoyance in the FOX booth, but I'd say he's more known for his titles and dominance in his early '80s Junior Johnson period... "Is David Pearson better known for his three championships or his one Daytona 500 win in 1976?" Daytona win probably, but that's because it was the best Daytona 500 finish ever. "And of course, there is MArio Andretti. though he won four IndyCar titles, as well as the F1 title in 1978, he's best known as the first driver to win both the Daytona 500 (1967) and the Indianapolis 500 (1969). And A.J. Foyt says the the Indianapolis 500 is what made him, yet he won more championships (6, as I don't count 1979) than Indianapolis 500s (4)." Mario's Daytona 500 was a big deal primarily because he wasn't a regular driver...he was an open-wheel invader winning a major Cup race. And I'm not saying ALL marquee victories are minor. I acknowledge that those are by far the biggest golf and tennis events AND that the Indy 500 is more important than the IndyCar championship has ever been. I just think NASCAR's majors (only NASCAR) are far less relevant than the majors are in other sports, because they do a much worse job of measuring talent. "And as for your saying that long-shot winners dilute the marquee races." My point is deeper than that about Daytona and Talladega, especially recently. I LIKE watching long-shot winners, and it's entertaining, but at least since the wicker bill era of 2000, the Daytona/Talladega races have been completely random. Sure there have been some years (2005) where the Daytona 500 top 10 has been a strong measure of talent, but far too often, it comes down to the arbitrary result of who doesn't crash (2007). Success at Daytona and Talladega comes down to who catches a lucky draft and who doesn't crash, especially now. There are some longshot winners I'm more okay with than others. Cope obviously had a strong car (Hendrick engine with Buddy Parrott as his crew chief). He was up there all race. He did not just luck into it and did have to outrace Terry Labonte and some other good drivers. Pete Hamilton was in a Petty Enterprises car, Tiny Lund was in a Wood Brothers car when they were just getting good... Even if the drivers weren't as legendary as others, they at least had strong equipment or something indicating the team's strength in general. The plate races of the last several years are 100% luck. At least before about 2000 or so you could understand where most of the upsets were coming from, and even if there was an upset winner, most of the top ten would be comprised of the strongest teams. I know Daytona and Talladega have always been like this to a DEGREE, but I just think it's so much worse in the last ten years. At least in the pre-plate races, the drivers who dominated the races were the people who had the best equipment or driver or pit crews or whatever in the race. Nowadays, it literally comes down to catching lucky drafts. Using MODERN-DAY Daytona and Talladega as a means of indicating talent seems asinine to me. In the '90s, sure. Cope won, but he had Hendrick engines and Buddy Parrott. Marlin won his first two races, but he was in a Morgan-McClure car and the Runt Pittman engines were among the best then. Furthermore, most of the top tens in those years were usually comprised of regular contenders, not Eddie Bierschwale and Dave Mader III and Ken Ragan suddenly showing up in the top ten because fifteen of the top contenders wrecked. I'm not saying all longshots should be discarded, but RECENT Daytona and Talladega races (from the last ten years) are just less meaningful to me. When anything can happen, it's hard to care when something does happen. Regan Smith's win was much more meaningful to me because although he was somewhat lucky, he at least ran in the top ten all race, had to fight Carl Edwards by himself, and won straight up. He won due to good pit strategy, nothing wrong with that I guess. Ditto for Menard. I DON'T mind longshot winners, as much as it may have sounded like there. I mind when people shortchange drivers who didn't win these races. Do you think lowly of Rusty Wallace because he didn't win at these tracks? I think it takes FAR more talent to win on the short tracks and road courses where he dominated than most of the marquee races, and would more highly rate somebody like Rusty who can dominate most of the schedule at large even if he struggles at the marquee races rather than somebody like Jamie McMurray who has a knack for winning marquee races but not a whole lot else. The Indy 500 is different from Daytona. Luck can certainly play a role as can strategy, but far more often it actually reflects the best drivers and teams in the race; it reflects actual performance far more than Daytona, which to me reflects just luck. Yes, there have been longshots there too (but few recently honestly, and Lazier and Cheever would have gotten their butts kicked had there been no split). Do not put the races in the same category. In the distant past, I agree Daytona and Talladega meant more than they do now. Daytona still means something due to its history, but to me, Talladega means almost nothing at all (neither race). I mean, which one is supposed to be the marquee race again? People said the spring race, but then Winston changed its sponsorship to the fall race in 1998. Did the fall race suddenly become the "marquee" one? I agree the general public focuses on the marquee races more, but to me I'm more interested in winner's lists at places like Bristol, Martinsville, Dover, Loudon, Phoenix, Richmond, Rockingham. Sure, EVERY track has occasional longshots, but these tracks tend to have very few and come FAR closer to reflecting talent (both driving and crew-chiefing). Dominating tracks like these is what built Dale Earnhardt's legacy rather than his one late-period Daytona 500 win. It's different than golf and tennis. The tournaments have more prestige for obvious reasons, but the nature of play reflects just as much skill as any other tournament. The marquee races reflect far less skill than other tracks on the schedule (most of those shorter than 1.5 miles, the road courses, and I'll add Pocono and Indy, for the most part). I agree Mears's win was better than Reutimann's, but neither was impressive. I'm familiar with all the obscure winners you mentioned. And again, I don't hate all long-shot winners. I think there have simply been far too many at Daytona and Talladega in recent years (and hell, long-shot top tens). If it was simply a matter of Brian Vickers or whoever winning the Daytona 500 followed by nine other top 20 drivers, I wouldn't say anything. But often these races are like this year's: three presently great drivers (Edwards, Busch, and Busch), two washed-up drivers (B. Labonte and Martin), three decent but second-tier drivers (Montoya, Smith, Menard), and two totally random surprises (Bayne and Gilliland). The championship is more relevant (or used to be) because it reflects running well everywhere. Daytona has become a random one-shot that has nothing to do with the rest of the schedule, and far more than it was in the '70s and '80s. Even when there were longshot drivers they were with killer teams (Andretti/Holman-Moody, Lund/Wood Brothers, Hamilton/Petty Enterprises, etc...) I guess I'm still surprised how seriously people take plate racing. The problem with the idea of the present marquee races in NASCAR is simply that there are 10 or so other tracks that better reflect talent. The same is NOT true for IndyCar, golf, or tennis. "wins in those races will be remembered long after the championships have been forgotten." I totally agree with you with regard to the Indy 500, which has always been more meaningful than the IndyCar championship. I disagree with regard to the Daytona 500. Do you think Rusty would trade his title for more crown jewel wins? I don't think so. He knows titles are more important. Look at the Bristol winner's list in the modern era - although yeah, Elliott Sadler has won there and he's awful, the rest of the list reads more or less like a list of legends. Far more than Daytona ever has. And I'm somebody who believes titles aren't even that important, either! (Especially in the chase era). I think winning and dominating and kicking butt throughout the entire schedule matters more than wins at specific marquee races or points championships. Say what you will about their personalities, but Kyle Busch impresses me more as a driver than say Bobby Labonte, and Ernie Irvan impressed me more than say Terry Labonte, regardless of how many titles they had, whether their driving styles were conducive to winning titles, and how many crown jewels they won... 98. TheTruth� posted: 10.09.2011 - 10:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "And if he can score one more top-ten this year, it will be the highest number of top-tens the #25 team has had since Kenny Scrader in '94." Wouldn't the #88 in 2008 be considered the 25 car? 99. Sean posted: 10.09.2011 - 10:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "When anything can happen, it's hard to care when something does happen." This is basically my rebuttal in one sentence. Tracks like the short tracks or Darlington have structure. When an upset happens there, it matters because those races tend to reflect talent. When another upset happens at Talladega, who cares... 100. Watto posted: 10.09.2011 - 10:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I hear you, Sean. I understand the importance of Daytona because of history, but I truly don't see Talladega as a crown jewel race. I'm not a fan of the recent crapshoot racing that we've seen at Talladega and Daytona, and I'd much rather see my favorite driver win at tracks like Martinsville, Bristol, Sonoma, Dover, etc. 101. BON GORDON posted: 10.09.2011 - 10:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I know DaleSrFan. For me the ten years feels like 103 years. And unlike Gordon the Cubs will be around for a long time to come. Jeff Gordon wont be. His chances of winning a fifth title are getting very very tiny. I really thought this could be the year. But like i said he will always be a legend and i wont let Jimmie Johnson cast a shadow over Big Daddy. I dont care if Johnson wins ten straight titles! 102. Spen posted: 10.09.2011 - 11:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cjs: "the #88 is the old #25, not the #5. Sure the teams may have changed, but the car numbers remained the same, and the #88 is the old #25." My exact phrase was "#25 *team*". But the Truth is right about the #88 in '08. Perhaps I should have called it "the fourth car" (or third car, for pre-02 seasons.) Point being, the most top-tens for the lowest guy on the team's totem pole since Schrader. I mostly agree with Sean about the marquee races. They were a *huge* deal when I was a kid, and even well into the '90's. But after they replaced the Winston million with the "No Bull 5", they started to lose their luster. Especially when they randomly decided that *Las Vegas* was a crown jewel... The World 600 is the only one I still get a bit excited over. (As far as I'm concerned, the Southern 500 hasn't been held since 2003.) I haven't taken Talladega seriously as a marquee race since they switched dates for the Winston 500. The Brickyard, I still think of as being an IndyCar track. Still a big deal for them, but just not enough history as a stock car track for me to fully accept it. And as for the Daytona 500, the day I realized that Michael Waltrip had more 500 wins than Dale Earnhardt was the day I stopped considering it to be *the* race. And the following years have done nothing to change my mind about that. The 600 at least is still a unique race. Though not quite as big of deal now that cars can more easily last the extra hundred miles. DSFF: "I think if you could get Rick to tell the truth, he'd rather have Jeff win it than Jimmie." He'd probably like it more, but I think that when they instituted the Chase, he started focusing more on Jimmie out of necessity. Jeff has always had problems at the end of the year. When the weather starts cooling off, he does too. If they kept the focus on him, they'd never win another title. Jimmie, as he'd already demonstrated at the end of '03, has no such problem. Rick saw the writing on the wall, and backed the horse that would bring home the championship. 103. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 12:39 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) To Sean's point, in Derrike Cope's Daytona 500 win, the rest of the top five were Terry Labonte (second), Bill Elliott (third), Ricky Rudd (fourth), and Dale Earnhardt (fifth), but Eddie Bierschwale finished 12th in the 1991 Daytona 500, won by the Morgan-McClure car of Ernie Irvan, and Phil Barkdoll and Mickey Gibbs, who were both involved in incidents in that race, were in the top 20 in that race because so many of the leading contenders crashed. In fact, I've always thought that the greatest Daytona 500 of all-time was in 1984, which was action-packed start-to-finish, didn't have many crashes, and the battle for the win was fought among seven greats of the sport, six of whom battle right to the checkers. And I'm not sure about Rusty, but I would, in fact, trade a championship for a Daytona 500 win, because a Daytona 500 win, no matter by whom, makes you a part of the sport's legacy forever. The lack of big wins dosen't mean that Rusty wallace's career was a failure, but they do reduce his standing among the greats, even in his own generation, slightly. For instance, even though he has more wins and far more laps led, I rank Wallace below Bill Elliott on my all-time list, though neither is in my all-time top ten, because a number of Elliott's wins carried greater significance. And again, the five crown jewels of the sport, in my mind, are the Daytona 500 (the biggest race), the spring race at Talladega (the fastest, with Mark Martin once averaging over 188 MPH for an entire race), the Southern 500 at Darlington (the oldest), the Coca-Cola 600 (the longest), and the Brickyard 400 (run at the most prestigous track in the world). As for Daytona and Talladega, they've been crapshoots for decades now, so what has changed in recent years? The only thing to me that's changed is the style of racing, which to me is now safer than it used to be. Can you imagine a race with just 10-12 cars finsihing, other than rolling wrecks? If NASCAR gets it's way and eliminates the two-car drafts, I think that's exactly what you'll get, and you may get a leaderboard filled with the traditional mid-to-back of the pack runners. Remember, the one thing about the marquee events that are in line with the battle for the championship is that those events will expose weaknesses, especially the inability to seal the deal. There's a reason that Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch are unable to seal the deal, much like Rusty Wallace could not seal the deal in his era. They often got tight when the pressure was on, and would make the critical mistake that would cost them, while guys like Bill Elliott, and definately Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, and Jimmie Johnson seemed to be calmer when the pressure was/is on. The reqason that Rusty won only one crown jewel in his career wasn't that he wasn't good enough. It was because he would tighten up in the big situations. That's why he won just one crown jewel, but finished second in them about ten times, including four times in the 600 and three more times in the Brickyard 400. On the other hand, the big moments seemed to calm guys like Gordon, Johnson, and Earnhardt down, and they thrived under the pressure. Want to know why Johnson seemingly can't be beat for the championship? It's because he doesn't fold under the pressure, while guys like Busch, Edwards, and Denny Hamlin can almost be counted on to fold under the pressure, and I think both Johnson and Chad Knaus know that. Jack Nicklaus always said that he had about 80% of the field beat in a major championship before it ever started. The same is true about Johnson. He knows that, among the drivers in the Chase, there's only two or three in this year's field that can probably beat him, and he has one of them, Gordon, in his pocket before the Chase even starts. The only other drivers that Johnson really has to fear are Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, and Matt Kenseth, as they don't seem to fold under the pressure, though Stewart also has wins in only one crown jewel, the Brickyard 400, which he has won twice. Harvick, on the other hand, lacks just a Southern 500 win to have wins in all five of the crown jewels, and he also hs wins in the Firecracker 400 (2010) and the All-Star Race (XXIII-2007). And Kenseth has wins in both the Daytona 500 (2009) and the Coca-Cola 600 (the only rookie ever to win that event in 2000). Everyone else in the Chase either doesn't have a good enough car or team, or gets tight and makes the critical mistake that costs them, as Edwards and Kyle Busch are likely to do. The real wild card in the Chase is Brad Keselowski, as he doesn't seem to crack under pressure, either. If he gets in position to win the championship, it'll be interesting to see what he and his crew chief Paul Wolfe do. So far, they've come up aces, but we'll see how long that lasts. 104. GDR posted: 10.10.2011 - 12:47 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I hope Carl, Kevin, and Brad aren't giving Johnson another title as fast as y'all are. It isn't over, not by a damm sight. 105. Mr X posted: 10.10.2011 - 1:44 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Even though Kansas is just another race, especially now with two races a year its now aged enough that its become a decent intermediate. I can't believe that they're repaving this place in 2012. Its going to be just like it was in 2001, and the repave is completely unnecessary. The groove is all the way to the wall, the track is slick, and tires were a factor today. We had pretty good racing all through the pack all day. I just wish NASCAR would've let the race play out naturally. The fake debris caution on lap 206 just started a snowball. Cassill spun out shortly after, and then there was an actual debris caution, it was refreshing. A truck full of safety workers drove out to turn 4 and picked something up, I couldn't tell what it was but it was in the high groove. One thing I think NASCAR needs is a debris clown, similar to a rodeo clown. The guy who goes out and gets the debris needs to look like Jeff Gordon circa 1992-2000, namely flamboyant looking. This caution was followed by Jeff Gordon's engine internally grenading itself, leading to yet another godawful GWC finish, and no I don't buy into the Hendrick Motorsports conspiracy theories, Jeff's struggles lie with the fact that Jeff hasn't had a crew chief since 2005 that could think for himself without help from Chad Knaus, which Chad hasn't done. I still wish Jeff and Robbie were together, Robbie was a good crew chief. I like Tony Stewart, he's a true racer and an excellent driver, and I especially like the way Tony races the other drivers. He races the other drivers the way they race him. Jeff races Tony very cleanly, however that move Tony pulled on Jeff on the restart pissed me off, it ruined Jeff's race. However it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the bullshit cautions. I'm confident that the incident on the restart had something to do with Jeff's overheating problems. I bet Jeff makes it to the end if those last 4 cautions don't come out. One thing I would like to point out is something that I've been thinking all year. We had a race today where tire wear was a bit of a factor though still not as much as it should be, and clean air was still factor though more then it should've been, and look who won. I would agree that some of the 48 teams struggles lie with their new stablemate Dale Jr. but most of the lack of wins is because in most races this year have been won on strategy over speed. Chad, Jimmie, and the 48 team have been the best at consistantly building the fastest racecar every week since 2002, and up until 2011 it was possible to pass, race, and gain track position where its supposed to be gained, on the track. Chad Knaus isn't an expert strategist, how often in Jimmie's career has he come out on the good end of a strategy call, not often. Most of Jimmie's good runs and wins have come when they had the fastest car. The only reason two tires worked for them today was because they had the dominant car. What NASCAR needs to be doing is ensuring that every race happens under conditions that better bring out the drivers abiltity, more tire wear, less night racing, more aged tracks, fewer rule changes, teams have been sent back to the drawing board constatly since 2006 which was a pretty competitive year. That way we could have some actual racing, we wouldn't have constant crashes on restarts because you could actually make time under green, we wouldn't need stupid gimmicks like double file restarts, green white checkers, the wave around, if we moved the fans out of the first 5-10 rows at Daytona and Talladega we could maybe get these restrictor plates off. Its also a good reason why I think that NASCAR throws a caution every time anything happens, I think that they must realize the on track product is pathetic most of the time compared to what it was 15 years ago, and they now have less trouble then ever just adding fake drama. They're just looking for any reason to bunch the field back together because it doesn't happen naturally because of the lack of tire wear. Occasionally we'll have a race where one car would just be really hooked up all day, today for example, Jeff Gordon at Atlanta in 1995, Dale Jarrett at Rockingham in 1997 even though he didn't win but cars that dominant wouldn't appear very often. Either somebody in the higher ranks of NASCAR needs to finally realize that Brian France isn't fit to run the fruit stand on the highway, nevermind the worlds most popular motorsport or Brian needs to learn how to create exciting racing where even smaller teams can be competitive, and if they leave the rules alone eventually the smaller teams will catch back up. I also agree with Sean that most of the none of the Crown Jewel races really mean anything anymore. Daytona and Talladega are restrictor plate races where handling and driver skill mean almost nothing compared to other races. Everyone knows how I feel about restrictor plates, Darlington and Charlotte have both been repaved and switched from day to night, and the Brickyard is only a Crown Jewel because its at Indy. Its not a classic stock car event, its not held on a holiday weekend, and its only a 400 mile race, and there are better tracks then Indy to produce good racing. If the fans are pushed back I believe its realistic to take the plates off or at least make them much larger, and even though the fresh pavement at Daytona and Talladega would prevent handling from becoming a factor at any speed, the higher speeds would help to wear out either track faster. Darlington needs to be on a hot Labour Day weekend, the heat is something the drivers and teams know how to combat, and they did it for 53 years, not to mention the place is called the track to tough to tame, the race was most grueling of the year, anything that adds to the difficulty level in the Southern 500 will increase the persona of the Southern 500. The World 600 as it should be called to me has lost a lot of meaning because of the lack of attrition these days. In 2002 NASCAR implemented the one engine per weekend rule, which is the only money saving initiative that NASCAR implemented that actually worked, and even still the attrition is no more then in any 400 or 500 mile race, and I'm not a driver but the drivers don't appear any more exhausted afterwards either. I say extend the race by 100 laps, can you imagine 500 laps or 750 miles at Charlotte, other series have major endurance races, why cant NASCAR? Another thing to me that keeps any race from meaning as much as they used to is that NASCAR throws a caution for an ant or a ladybug crossing the track, the average speed in a lot of these races are slower then ever, drivers get more of a break, and overall the races are shorter aswell, which Daytona 500 was more impressive? 1980 with Buddy Baker at 177.602mph or Trevor Bayne in 2011 at 130.326mph. Thats right, its Baker's win. NASCAR needs to let these guys race, keep that ugly Toyota Camry Hybrid pace car off the track, and why is it always a Toyota Camry Hybrid, if NASCAR wants to save the planet they can contribute by keeping that POS where it belongs, on pit road. IMO more marathon races are needed aswell, I don't understand why we don't run at least one 500 mile race at Dover, 500 laps at Richmond could be done, Fontana should be 500 miles especially with only one date, and Road Course races, specifically Watkins Glen are too short. On a sidenote I think Joe Gibbs has finally given up on Joey Logano, they've had at best a 25th place car in all the recent races not decided by fuel mileage, and based on their performance late in 2011 I doubt they'll run well in 2012, and if Joey can't make it next year you can stick a fork in him, because he is D.O.N.E. DONE. 106. John Royal posted: 10.10.2011 - 2:47 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Whats up with Joey Logano? 107. Mr X posted: 10.10.2011 - 3:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Wouldn't it be funny if Carl Edwards won the Chase with only one win all year, and that win wasn't in the Chase, it was in the third race of the year at Las Vegas, just like another certain champion back in 2003. That would piss off NASCAR. Maybe they would get rid of the chase then. Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadian posters! 108. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.10.2011 - 3:30 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) What an awesome charge by Marcos Ambrose on the GWC. 18th to 9th in two laps for his second back-to-back top 10 this year. Let's make it 3 in a row! "After all, what is Darrell Waltrip best known for, his three championships or his one Daytona 500 win, which came on fuel mileage?" Darrell Waltrip was here in Australia for the Bathurst 1000 and when our commentators briefly talked with him on air, he was only mentioned as a 3 time champ and winner of 84 races. I believe championships will always be more important than individual races. 109. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.10.2011 - 9:10 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think Darrell Waltrip is most known for winning 7 straight races at Bristol, and 12 overall. SEVEN IN A ROW!!!!!! Incredible. 110. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 9:19 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The thing with the crown jewels are that they are more meaningful than the other races, not necessarily better. I totally agree that the Brickyard is a crown jewel because of where it's held. There's no doubt about that, as IMS was NEVER designed to be a race track anyway, much less at the speeds that are run today. Remember that IMS was originally built as a test track for the cars that existed a century ago. As for Daytona and Talladega, the speeds would still be too great, even if you eliminated the first few rows of grandstands, because a car, if it got over the catchfencing,would just continue to go toward the top pf the grandstands with the momentum it would be carrying. I do agree that Buddy Baker's 1980 Daytona win was more impressive, but that particular Daytona 500 wasn't much of a race, either, as everyone else just decided to let Baker lead them, since his car had considerably more horsepower than anyone else's. Remember that the fastest race in NASCAR history, the 1997 Winston 500 at Talladega, was a restrictor plate race, and that there have been fast Daytona 500s in the restrictor plate-era (1998, 1999, 1990, 1992), but none since 2001, which was run at an average speed of over 163 MPH. In fact, the speeds run at the Daytona 500 this year were the fastest in the hisstory of the event. The reason for all the cautions was that the drivers, by enlarge, didn't know how to do the two-car drafts. The Firecracker 400 was actually one of the fastest in recent memory until the GWC finishes. In fact, once the drivers learn how to race the new way at Daytona, I wouldn't be surprised if the speed record is threatened in the next couple of years. Remember that the 1979 Daytona 500, run on freshly repaved asphalt, had the second-highest amount of caution laps in the race's history until this year, with 57 laps run under caution in the race's first 145 laps, though 15 of them were to dry the track. But the last 55 laps were run under green with an average over 190 MPH. Then in 1980, the second year for the ashpalt, the records for both the Daytona 500 (Baker) and the Firecracker 400 (Bobby Allison) were set, and both exist to this day, not to mention that Richard Petty's 1981 Daytona 500 win was also nearly run at an average speed of 170 MPH for the distance. So if history repeats itself, we could see some blisterlingly fast races at Daytona the next couple of years. As for the Coca-Cola 600, remember the reason that race was moved to night in 1993 was so that it wouldn't run head-to-head against the Indianapolis 500. Before then, you could only watch half of one of the races if you wanted to watch the other one in its entirety. And theSoutern 500 was moved off of Labor Day as much due to trhe constant problems they were having with rain. From 1999-2002 that race was adversely affected by rain three times, and they just barely got the 2001 race finished before a big storm hit. Then they put lights in at Darlington for the 2004 race, which was a great move. Now if they wanted to move that event back to Labor Day weekend, they could without risk of serious heat-related injuries for competitor and spectator alike. And among the big races, it is still the toughest test, and will remain so, because of how close to the wall the drivers have to run. That always made it the hardest test, not the heat. Remember that one driver (Carl Scarborough) actually died during the Indianapolis 500 in 1953 due to heat exhaustion. As for the comment about Darrell Waltrip in Australia, that would figure over there, since NASCAR isn't as popular there as it is here, but even Waltrip has said that he's gotten more from winning the Daytona 500 than he ever did from any of his championships. And remember how Waltrip used to needle Dale Earnhardt about the fact that Earnhardt had seven championships, but had never won the Daytona 500? Of course, Earnhardt fixed that in 1998. To the general sporting fan in this country, a win in one of the crown jewels will always mean more than any championship ever could, because it is the big events that the general sporting fan identifies with. And I stand by my comments about Jimmie Johnson knowing that he has Carl Edwards beat, in terms of the championship, because he, as well as the rest of us, know that Edwards is going to make the critical mistake that will cost him. Now, Kevin Harvick ahead of him in the standings, as well as Matt Kenseth behind him, are different matters. I'm not sure Harvick will make that critical mistake, and it's almost certain that Kenseth won't. And again, the wild card in this is Brad Keselowski, but it doesn't seem like he's going to buckle under the pressure either, but we just don't know about him. As for the others among the eight that are in contention, Kurt Busch is too hot-headed, tony Stewart just doesn't have the cars, and Kyle Busch, like Edwards, will buckle under the pressure. So I would currently rate Johnson as a 45-55% favorite to win the title among the eight still in contention. And remember that, for the Roush contingent, Martinsville still looms, as Roush puts very little effort into his short track program, so Martinsville, rather than Talladega, may end up being the undoing for Kenseth and Edwards. Penske's #2 team is not experienced enough to win a title this year. And if I'm right about all this, that means it'll boil down to a battle between Johnson and Harvick for the title, and the difference may wind up being the three extra points that Harvick got for the Chase for the win at Richmond, courtesy of the orders to have Paul Menard bring out the final caution at Richmond by doing his lazy spin, then stopping on the track. I think that was planned as clear as day. And frankly, I don't think the #24 team has truly gotten over that incident, and the hangover from it is still lingering, I believe, resulting in the #24 team's sudden malaise. I think a lot of people want to see Johnson win the title, just to see RCR not win it after that stunt they pulled at Richmond. and I think the evidence is there to support my opinion on thae incident, it's just that NASCAR wanted to sweep that incident under the rug, because the Chase was about to start. 111. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.10.2011 - 10:20 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) In NASCAR, I don't personally think the "crown jewels" carry quite the significance of other racing Series or sports crown jewels or Grand Slams when it comes to evaluating a driver's career. I think the prime example is Rusty Wallace vs Bill Elliott. I think most people would agree Rusty had a better career. Rusty has 55 wins to Bill's 44, and they each have one championship. Yet Bill is way ahead in crown jewels. Rusty only has a single World 600 win. Bill has 2 Daytona 500s, 3 Southern 500s, and a Brickyard 400 (beating Rusty). But Rusty has 11 more wins, and his wins are more representitive of a driver's ability. He racked up a ton of wins on all 4 short tracks and all 3 road courses. He also won quite a few on the quirky tracks such as Pocono, Rockingham, and Dover (but oddly enough was goosed at Darlington). He also won a lot on the bigger intermediates like Michigan and California. His only real weakness was the superspeedways. Conversely, Bill has only a single road course win (strangely his first win) and two short track wins. That alone pushes Rusty way ahead. Although Bill had a great record at quirks like Darlington, Pocono, Dover, and Rockingham, it just isn't as diverse as Rusty's, not nearly as many road courses and short tracks, and he has overall less wins. That is the way a driver's career is ultimately measured (aside from championships which are far and away #1). It is like Sean said, it is your record at the tough tracks like Darlington, Bristol, Sears Point, Dover, Martinsville, etc. Honestly, Bristol may be the biggest measuring stick. Not the only, but possibly the biggest (although with the new config, that may need to be rethought) due to how tough it is. Rusty and Darrell are both famous for being Bristol masters. Other examples are Earnhardt and JJ. Both are known first and foremost for their obscene number of championships. That is why most people (including myself) have them both ranked ahead of Gordon even though he has won EVERYWHERE usually a whole bunch of times. Dale and Jimmie both have stellar records at the tough tracks. Dale's record at Darlington, Bristol, Old Atlanta, and Martinsville, and JJ's record at Martinsville, Dover, and Phoenix really stand out. I think people look at Gordon's numbers and think "Damn, why doesn't he have TEN championships?". And I don't want to hear anyone say "because of the cha$e". Everyone knows the champion will be determined over the final 10 races. Crown jewel wins get you attention over the years during the week (or in the Daytona 500's case, two weeks) of that event, then it is on to the next one. NASCAR has always been bigger than any one single event, unlike Indy racing and the Indy 500. They are very nice to have and get you attention you would otherwise not get, but they don't define careers. A great modern example? Kevin Harvick vs Kyle Busch. And for the record, I don't consider the Spring Dega race a crown jewel (and this is an Earnhardt and Brad K fan talking). I know before plates it was "the fastest", but the reason it got so much attention is because Winston sponsored it. You think RJ Reynolds would really put up the "Winston Million" without a Winston sponsored race in it? Of course not. Besides, in 1998 they moved the Winston 500 to the second Dega date which was taken out of the suffocating heat and humidity of Alabama in July and moved to October along with the newly modified "No Bull 5" million dollar races. So that kinda messed things up. Besides, the truest test of Dega might would be overcoming the heat and winning the old July race. Remember the drivers when that race was over? They were WORN OUT! 112. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.10.2011 - 10:46 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "And unlike Gordon the Cubs will be around for a long time to come. Jeff Gordon wont be." That is true. As an Earnhardt fan, I should know that as well as anyone. Once your guy is no longer racing, it can be really hard to find somebody new to root for after years of having your entire Sundays hinge on their performance. It took me 10 years. Of course it isn't made any easier when the guy replacing them in their car is a complete d**k. BTW, for the guy who asked "what rhymes with six?" How about "Six for the d**ks". That is mostly pointed at Knaus. JJ isn't a bad guy at all. He is a ruthless competitor on track somewhat like Dale and Jeff. Somewhat. He definitely needs to learn how to retaliate without hurting himself more than the other guy (see Busch, Kurt at Richmond and Busch, Kyle at Loudon). Dale and Jeff made an artform of this. "Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadian posters!" I learned something new today. Happy Thanksgiving Bronco! "Whats up with Joey Logano?" Rushed up way too soon with way too many expectations. I don't know if he was ever any good or not, all of his success on the lower circuits came with FAR superior equipment either provided by his rich overbearing father, Tom, or by JGR in in the K&N Series and NWide. But he was given a ride in Cup he obviously not ready for. Now his confidence is shattered, his team wishes like hell they had Tony and his tantrums and biting sarcastic criticisms back. Casey Atwood 2.0. "The fake debris caution on lap 206 just started a snowball." I agree. Cautions breed cautions, especially late in races. "DSFF: "I think if you could get Rick to tell the truth, he'd rather have Jeff win it than Jimmie." He'd probably like it more, but I think that when they instituted the Chase, he started focusing more on Jimmie out of necessity. Jeff has always had problems at the end of the year. When the weather starts cooling off, he does too. If they kept the focus on him, they'd never win another title. Jimmie, as he'd already demonstrated at the end of '03, has no such problem. Rick saw the writing on the wall, and backed the horse that would bring home the championship." That is an excellent point. With the exception of 1998, Jeff has always tailed off at the end of the year. '95 and '97 saw him nearly blow big points leads, and he didn't end '01 very good, but it didn't matter because the two guys he was battling for points most of the year, DJ and Rudd, were even worse, allowing Smoke and Sterling to grab 2nd and 3rd. That was the second time (the other being '91) where Rudd had a sputtering points leader in his sights, but sputtered even worse and couldn't catch him. "In the distant past, I agree Daytona and Talladega meant more than they do now." One thing that also needs to be remembered is that, for a long time, only a select few races got airtime either in pieces on Wide World of Sports, or flag to flag on CBS. Nowadays, every single race gets the same flag to flag coverage with extensive pre race hype and post race dissections. They face pretty much the same microscope everywhere. 113. Bronco posted: 10.10.2011 - 11:34 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Point being, the most top-tens for the lowest guy on the team's totem pole since Schrader." That's still not true, Vickers and Mears had 10 top 10s in '05 and '07, and both had better seasons that what Martin is having now. "I also don't buy the HMS conspiracy theories." It's not hard too hard to believe. Last week at Dover Jr broke a sway bar 10 laps into the race. This week Gordon lost an engine. When was the last time the #48 had any kind of similar mechanical failure in a chase race? Probably not since 2004. 114. Scott B posted: 10.10.2011 - 11:40 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Stat of the Week: J.J. Yeley finished 43rd in both the NNW and Cup races, running 2 laps Saturday and 12 on Sunday before parking. 115. BON GORDON posted: 10.10.2011 - 11:40 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Where does everyone think the other two Hendrick cars will finish in the chase. Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon of course. For Gordon id say around 6th place but after Richmond i had him in my top three easily. I still think he will have a couple good runs at lowes, martinsville, and talladega(depending on BIG ONE). What will keep him from a top five is what happened at Kansas and i think Texas will be an epic fail as always. Dale Jr. I think will finish around tenth in points. I got this weird feeling that hes gonna win at either Martinsville or Talladega. Texas he will be an ok 15th place but homestead will be a mess for Dale Jr. The one race im not sure about is the repaved new phoenix. I think they both will be fairly strong but again im not sure. 116. 00andJoe posted: 10.10.2011 - 12:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "In 2002 NASCAR implemented the one engine per weekend rule, which is the only money saving initiative that NASCAR implemented that actually worked" Partially, maybe. Or did it? "One engine per weekend" = more money spent tuning that engine to get max power for qualifying AND max reliability for the race out of it. Really, is there -one- thing NASCAR has done that has saved cost or improved things? Let's look at a few (and I know I'm missing some): -Eliminating second round qualifying: you get -one- shot at the field, not two. You'd better be perfectly tuned the first time, because you won't be able to say, "OK, at full speed it pushes, take a round of wedge out for second round..." -Condensing race weekends: OK, this might save the teams money on hotel rooms. But again, you have less time and fewer practices to work on things, so you have to work harder, and trickier, in what you do have. -Moving final practice to before the Busch/Nationwide race: Horrible idea. Gives the Buschwhackers practice time the NNS drivers don't on race day, and encourages more teams and drivers to Buschwhack to increase the amount of race-time-conditions data they get. -Banning testing: another horrible idea. "The road to Hades is paved with good intentions", and this was good-intended, but the result is that now, you pay through the nose to rent non-touring-series tracks for a day or two, by yourself, instead of having a group test session that -also- provided fun for the fans... -"35/8" - another...etc. You'd think they'd have learned from when their good buddy Tony George tried "25/8" at Indy...anyway, this replaced the old Provisionals system for one big reason. Specifically, the intent of the top-35 rule was to make it easier for teams to sign and keep full-season sponsors, because they'd be able to guarantee "no DNQs" to said sponsor. In practice, however, it's lead to car-number shell-games (see Front Row Motorsports, 2010, for Exhibit A), AND not even JEFF GORDON is able to keep a full-season sponsor anymore. Verdict: failed. Can we have our provisionals back please? 117. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 1:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 00andJoe, the reason NASCAR went with the "35/8" rule had to do with what happened in the fall race in Atlanta in 2004, which was also due to the Chase. See, what happened there was that several teams that were in the Chase that year entered an extra car to protect their driver that was in the Chase. All of those cars qualified, if I remember right, and that knocked several fully sponsored full-time teams out of that race. And as usual, NASCAR overreacted, creating the top 35 rule in Cup, top 30 in Nationwide, then the Busch Series, and the top 25 in trucks. I don't entirely diasgree with that idea, but they just simply made too many cars exempt. If they would've made it the top 25 in owenr points would be exempt in Cup and Nationwide and top 20 in trucks, I think that would have been the perfect amount, given the number that start the races in each of those series. The biggest victim of the top 35 rule is the Daytona 500, especially the qualifying races, which lost a lot of significance. I also agree that moving final Cup practice to before the Nationwide or Truck race was a terrible idea for the Cup races, because it gave those running the Nationwide race a free 200-300 mile practice session that those not running the Nationwide Series don't get, effectively giving those drivers an unfair advantage, and Roush was, and continues to be, the biggest benefactor, and Childress, Gibbs, and for a short time, Hendrick, joined in. And the banning of testing, while it made sense economically, was another thing that was, and continues to be, not very good for competition, becuase it means that if a teams gets behind, that they have almost no way of catching up, barring a miracle, such as the one Penske found this year. On the flipside, I thought the "one engine" rule would be a disaster, and it really hasn't been. It's done exactly what it was designed to do, and was to eliminate special qualifying engines, as well as limit what teams would do to the engines for qualifying, so NASCAR made the right call here. Though I strongly disagree with the gear ratio rule, though I also understand why NASCAR put such a rule in place. but I think a better idea would be to let the teams run whatever gear ratio they want to run, and mandate a limit on the amount of RPM's that an engine can run, depending on the track, similar to what the IRL did in 1997 or '98, and that has contributed to an incredible string of engine reliability in the IndyCar series. And by the way, fellow posters, I believe there are several steps to evaluating a driver's career. There are wins, championships, crown jewel wins, longevity, and versatility. Of course, championships have been cheapened by the Chase, the crown jewels have been somewhat cheapened, also by the Chase, though not as much, since not all the teams put a high amount emphasis on those races, since none of them actually take place in the Chase, which is why NASCAR needs to start the Chase with either the Southern 500 at Darlington in prime time or the Brickyard 400. (Ever wonder why Jimmie Johnson rarely is a factor in either the Daytona 500 or the Southern 500 these days?) But the other three measuring sticks, wins, versatility, and longevity, will forever be unchanged in terms of importance. 118. Spen posted: 10.10.2011 - 1:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Bronco, the word from the original post was *if* Mark gets another top-ten this year. Rusty vs. Bill: I'm a *huge* awesome Bill fan. I've been cheering for him since 1979. But even I can't fully give this one to Bill. At the end of it all, Rusty had more wins, and a much longer period of relevence. Now, if Rusty had joined Junior Johnson's sinking ship, and then tried to become an owner/driver, and Bill had gotten a steady ride at Penske, then it would have been a different story. But I don't personally think championships are the number one measuring stick either. Fireball Roberts and Rex White have a similar win total. White has a championship. Which one is still remembered today? For me, the first test of a driver's legacy is win total. Followed closely by, in no particular order, number of different tracks won at, adaptability to changes in teams, crew chiefs, manufacturers, etc, ability to stay competitive for a long period of time, and overall career consistency. Then how they did in championship battles. Then various other stats like laps led, poles, and other miscellaneous accomplishments. Major wins included there. 119. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 1:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And by the way, as I mentioned, even though the top eight drivers are within 20 points of the lead, I believe only four of them can win the title, and one of them is NOT point leader Carl Edwards. The four are Jimmie Johnson, the favorite, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, and Brad Keselowski, and Kenseth may be knocked out by Martinsville, but we'll see. Edwards and eighth-place Kyle Busch are too prone to mistakes, Kurt Busch (sixth) is too hot-headed, and Tony Stewart (seventh) is just not running strong enough. And because Roush doesn't put hardly any emphasis on his short track program, that effects both Edwards and Matt Kenseth. Brad Keselowski's undoing may be his, and his team's lack of experience. That would leave Harvick and Johnson, and don't think for a moment that Johnson and his Hendrick teammates have forgotten the shenannigans that took place at Richmond that ruined Jeff Gordon's season. Johnson and his HMS teammates would love to do nothing more than deny RCR a title for what happened at Richmond in the last race before the Chase. 120. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 1:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Spen, your point about Fireball Roberts vs. Rex White is exactly my point about championships vs. crown jewel wins. But I disagree with your point about Bill Elliott vs. Rusty Wallace. when both were front runners at the same time, Elliott, more often than not, got the better of it. Remember that Elliott got his Brickyard win at Rusty's expense. And more importantly, accoring to most here, he also got his lone championship at Rusty's expense. But then, nobody here remembers that. Elliott did have that black hole from 1993-2000 where he went winless, but he was an owner-driver for most of those seasons, so bringing up those seasons would be unfair to Elliott. When Elliott got in a good car in 2001, it took a while for things to click, but when they did, Elliott was just as tough as ever. And that big win at Indy in 2002 was a reminder of why Elliott was so good in big races, and why Rusty was not. Elliott was calm in the big moments, while Rusty was tense (remember Rusty throwing away the 1999 Daytona 500 when he had the best car). If Elliott had been with a contending team in those eight years, he would have far more wins than Rusty, though a lot of that was his own doing. 121. Anonymous posted: 10.10.2011 - 2:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) cjs3872, You shouldn't just mention Kyle Busch without counting his pit crew for folding under pressure. If it is just the driver of the 18 car declining during chase time, how do you explain the pit crew doing better during the first 26 races of this year compare to the 4 chase races. That team usually loses anywhere from 2 to 5 spots for pit stops under caution when everyone takes 4 tires. I remembered Espn last week even mention Kyle's pit crew crew had the worse pit stop average of all the chase teams. Winning races and championships is depends on the whole team doing well besides the driver. The closest thing to the exception to the rule was the 48 team's pit crew last before they got replaced by the 24 the team's pit crew when Jeff Gordon was off the title picture in the chase. 122. Anonymous posted: 10.10.2011 - 3:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) the only fun races to watch anymore are the road courses and dega/tona. i cant believe i called myself a nascar fan for so many years. the state of the sport is so bad right now, seriously. so many things wrong and it's only getting worse. there's other racing series out there, ones that you can watch without falling asleep. but i mean it's just so funny to me personally, why do i even bother. i usually just watch the last few laps of cup races now but even that's bland and rigged. 123. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 3:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yes, Anonymous (#121), the meltdown of JGR's #18 car is definately a team effort, but I believe that even if their pit crew was up to championship standards, Kyle Busch's temper, much like his brother's, would cause him to constanly fail in the big situations. I also wonder if not running the last three Nationwide races, which like the rest of the schedule, are companion races to the Cup events, is having an adverse effect on Busch. Remember that running the Nationwide race on the same track as the Cup race gives the drivers doing double duty a free 200-300 mile practice session, so not having that extra track time may be working against him. Unlike Busch, both Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski are running both races, and I think that the extra track time is definately helping both of those drivers, and it's showing. 124. Spen posted: 10.10.2011 - 3:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "but he was an owner-driver for most of those seasons, so bringing up those seasons would be unfair to Elliott" Didn't stop Ricky Rudd. Or Geoff Bodine. Heck, Dave Marcis managed one win as an owner-driver (admitidly, a mjaor fluke). Now, Bill's story might have been different if he hadn't broken his leg in the Talladega wreck just when it seemed like his new team was starting to click, but we're judging based on what happened, not on what-ifs. Speaking of Ricky Rudd, which win do you think gets remembered more often by the average fan: His fuel milage win in the Brickyard 400 in '97, or his Martinsville win in '98? 125. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.10.2011 - 3:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And now a post from the negative people: "i cant believe i called myself a nascar fan for so many years." Yeah, why did you stop? For some unearthly pathetic reason? "the state of the sport is so bad right now, seriously." Yep NASCAR is died, lets move on with our lives everyone. "so many things wrong and it's only getting worse." Yep, BF&crew, sponsers, media and fans. Did i miss anything? "there's other racing series out there, ones that you can watch without falling asleep." If its so "boring" then why are you here telling us about it? "but i mean it's just so funny to me personally, why do i even bother." Yeah why do you bother, to make your life harder? "i usually just watch the last few laps of cup races now but even that's bland and rigged." If its "bland and rigged" why to you turn the damn TV? Geez, and the head people choose to listen to this crap. Ok, i'm done everyone can move on with their day and happy posting. *note, contains elements of sarcasism, as well as being serious* 126. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 4:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well, Spen, most people remember Ricky Rudd, not for any individual race wins that he may have had, but rather for his guts and determination, which was sampled not only by that win at Martinsville you mentioned, but also that win he had at Richmond in 1984 two weeks after his horrific crash in the Busch Clash of 1984. As for race wins, obviously the Brickyard tops them all, as that win dwarfs any of his other wins. Ironically, that win marked the beginning of the end for his racing team. Remember that he also won an IROC title (1992) without actually ever winning any race that he competed in that series, the only driver ever to win an IROC championship without ever winning a race in IROC. As for Geoff Bodine, let's remember that his first win as an owner-driver was the All-Star Race in 1994, but let's also remember that most of his success as an owner-driver occurred due to the tire war in 1994. When Hoosier tires had an advantage over Goodyears that year, he decimated the field, even lapping the entire field at North Wilkesboro, the last time that has happened in a Cup race, to this day. Let us also remember that the team he bought was not long removed from actually winning a championship and still had much of the personnel from that championship year (1992), including crew chief Paul Andrews. Another thing, and I've brought this up numerous times when comparing the driving styles of Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., but I think it also applies here. Bill Elliott was a conservative driver, and he was never the kind to take risks on the track. But he was a driver that everyone that raced against him could trust. Let us also remember that if Dale Earnhardt hadn't had his crash late in the race, that Elliott would definately have won the Daytona 500 in 1997, which would have been his third Daytona 500 win, and would have made him the first owner-driver since Richard Petty in 1981 to win the Daytona 500. He also dominated the first half of the Southern 500 that same year, so Elliott definately had his moments as an owner-driver. Things just never worked out in the correct way for him to win any races. 127. GDR posted: 10.10.2011 - 4:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I'm not understanding how what happened at Richmond (which was nothing) ruined the 24's season. Did that cause them to start sucking in the Chase or blow a motor at Kansas? 128. Curran posted: 10.10.2011 - 5:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The rest of the field better hope the Talladega gods are sick of Jimmie winning the championship because short of them smacking the 48 team down in an incident beyond their control it's very difficult to envision a scenario where someone other then Jimmie is hoisting the trophy at Homestead in six weeks. 129. Kinetic posted: 10.10.2011 - 5:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) But cjs, many people on here stated that running the Nationwide races was a distraction for Kyle(Even though it doesn't seem to be a distraction for Carl or Brad). He hasn't run any Nationwide races since the start of the chase and his team is still not performing. And his so called temper hasn't presented itself either. JGR is just way down right now. Not sure if it's because of the engine swap situation, or JGR being conservative with their motors or what. Something's up. 130. Anonymous posted: 10.10.2011 - 5:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) cjs3872, You shouldn't have mention the 1999 Daytona 500 as a race Rusty gave away a first place. I think you need to the youtube video of Jeff passing Rusty Wallace. Rusty Wallace was forced to get off the lift or move up late in the 1999 Daytona 500 because if he didn't someone was going get hurt or killed because Jeff Gordon's pass. Jeff Gordon tried to go below the yellow line, but Ricky Rudd was already not up to speed compare to the lead cars. If Rusty didn't lift or move, Jeff Gordon full speed would have got into Ricky Rudd and caused a pile up. 131. Anonymous posted: 10.10.2011 - 5:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I always wish Rusty didn't move up in that spot(as long as nobody got hurt). It would have resulted in one of the most memerable moments in Nascar history. 132. 00andJoe posted: 10.10.2011 - 6:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Charlotte entry list is out. 47 cars: -Robby Gordon is currently listed in the #7. -Bayne in the #21 -Geoff Bodine in the #35 -Wise in the #37 -Yeley in the #37 -Kvapil in the #55 -Derrike Cope in the #75 Dodge No T.J. Bell this week. 133. Watto posted: 10.10.2011 - 6:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Remember, the one thing about the marquee events that are in line with the battle for the championship is that those events will expose weaknesses, especially the inability to seal the deal." I'm a little different in my opinions. I mean, if you look at Daytona, it's so luck-based that Rusty Wallace never winning the Daytona 500 speaks to me more about circumstance than his ability to seal the deal. I look at Rusty as a guy who did better at "driver tracks" simply because of his style. I don't think he succumbed to the pressure. "To the general sporting fan in this country, a win in one of the crown jewels will always mean more than any championship ever could, because it is the big events that the general sporting fan identifies with." About that; when you say general sporting fan, do you mean people who aren't diehard NASCAR fans? Like, more casual fans? I associate Matt Kenseth more with the 2003 championship than his 2009 Daytona 500 victory. "And I'm not sure about Rusty, but I would, in fact, trade a championship for a Daytona 500 win, because a Daytona 500 win, no matter by whom, makes you a part of the sport's legacy forever." Yet winning a championship doesn't? I rank a championship being FAR more important than winning the Daytona 500. Look at Michael Waltrip and Derrike Cope. They would carry FAR more credibility with a championship rather than a Daytona 500 win. I look at guys who are great across the board, and I honestly think that most knowledgeable fans feel the same way. And you're DEFINITELY a knowledgeable fan, so I'm not disregarding your opinion, but rather I feel like that thought isn't in the majority. 134. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.10.2011 - 6:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Banning testing: another horrible idea." I agree. Another thing I would add to this is that it is making it tougher for rookies to make an impact. Drivers have to get their experience in a trial by fire, in Cup races, looking bad at first, then getting it. "Where does everyone think the other two Hendrick cars will finish in the chase. Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon of course." Jeff has a lot of competitive pride, so he won't throw in the towel. The most distressing thing I see is that they don't have the week in week out speed as some others. As somebody mentioned they have been inconsistent on speed all year. I see about a 7th. As for June, I think Newman may pass him for 10th, putting him back to 11th. I think Denny has a firm grasp on 12th. " There are wins, championships, crown jewel wins, longevity, and versatility." Mine goes: championships, wins, versatility, longevity, and crown jewels. "Now, if Rusty had joined Junior Johnson's sinking ship, and then tried to become an owner/driver, and Bill had gotten a steady ride at Penske, then it would have been a different story." Let's not forget the team he won his championship for, Blue Max, which he drove for from '86 through '90 was a financially troubled organization from day 1 back in 1983 with Tim Richmond driving (that cool as hell red and gold Old Milwuakee Pontiac, one of my favorite paint schemes ever). It hasn't always been peaches and creme for Rusty. But you are right, Bill made a huge mistake going the owner/driver route, and it cost him badly. "Fireball Roberts and Rex White have a similar win total. White has a championship. Which one is still remembered today?" Now that era is a little different. Back then, the championship was barely an afterthought. It was about win total then. I'm not sure any of the drivers from NASCAR's beginning through the mid 60s even knew how the championship was figured. "when both were front runners at the same time, Elliott, more often than not, got the better of it." I disagree. Rusty didn't get into a top ride until 1986. Bill has the edge from '86-'88, But Rusty took hold from '89-'91. Bill jumped ahead in '92, but Rusty held the edge through 2002, usually by a large margain. And let's not forget, Rusty had two tires and Bill had 4 in that '02 Brickyard race that Bill passed him in for the win. "Speaking of Ricky Rudd, which win do you think gets remembered more often by the average fan: His fuel milage win in the Brickyard 400 in '97, or his Martinsville win in '98?" I'd say, as cjs alluded to, winning the '84 Richmond race WITH HIS EYES DUCT TAPED OPEN!! That is just freaking cool and the epitome of desire. Next would be the '98 Martinsville race where they had to peel his melted body out of the car in victory lane and his winner's interview was done lying down. Third would probably be his other Richmond win where Harvick turned him dead sideways, he somehow saved it, and put the bump and run on the Earnhardt Wannabe to win it showing who the true baddest SOB in NASCAR is. Seriously, don't get in a fight with the Rooster (had he beat the hell out of Rusty after Dover in '01 like he wanted to, and probably would have were it not the first race after the terrorist attacks, that would be his most remembered moment unless they had let Harvick try to fight him at Richmond in '03, that would have been the shortest and most memorable fight since Tyson vs Spinks). And his next most famous moment is probably AND BOTH OF THEM SPIN!!!!!!!!! I'm gonna go puke now. And yes, he was by far the best of modern owner/drivers (excluding Kulwicki, he was on his own level). He won in 5 consecutive years in his own stuff. "As for Geoff Bodine, he decimated the field, even lapping the entire field at North Wilkesboro" I was at that race. Let's never speak of it again. 135. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.10.2011 - 6:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Amen Watto. Let's also not forget, Rusty should have won the '95 Brickyard 400, but two cars wrecked on pit road in front of him on the last pit stops allowing Earnhardt to get in front of him, at which point he became the first (but FAR from the last) notable victim of the two words that makes every NASCAR fan cringe: Aero Push. Had that happened in '94 he would have blown past Dale and drove off into the sunset. 136. Watto posted: 10.10.2011 - 6:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "You shouldn't just mention Kyle Busch without counting his pit crew for folding under pressure. If it is just the driver of the 18 car declining during chase time, how do you explain the pit crew doing better during the first 26 races of this year compare to the 4 chase races." Kind of ironic, don't you think? Kyle Busch's pit crew has consistently been the fastest for the last couple of years while he's been at Gibbs, and that includes Chase races. But, they struggled a little bit in sections during this year's Chase, and suddenly the crew is what's holding him back. The crew got Kyle a LOT of wins, maybe things are just evening themselves out a little bit... 137. 18fan posted: 10.10.2011 - 8:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kyle will be back in the Nationwide car at Charlotte. We will see if that impacts his Cup performance or not, I don't think it will significantly because JGR as a whole has lost a lot of speed, interestingly, ever since Kyle won Michigan. If they were running like the #4 car is running right now they'd be right there with the 99, 48, 29, 17, and 2, not around Tony and Kurt but ever since they won Michigan the 18 team has been the 6th-9th best team out there, not a top 3-4 team like they were for most of the season. 138. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 9:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) GDR, what happened at Richmond, while minor in itself, except for how it happened, seems to have put the #24 team into a state of shock, from which it hasn't yet recovered. And you never know how a team will respond to an incident like that, and it has adversely affectred the #24 team greatly. Anonymous (#130), as for the 1999 Daytona 500, remember that Rusty Wallace's car was slowing down a bit anyway, due to bad pit strategy, as he never got back up with the leaders after he was passed, so Gordon would, in my estimation, have gotten by Rusty anyway. There was no way Rusty was ever going to win that race the was the last 15 laps were playing out. That's why I said that Rusty (and his team) threw away the 1999 Daytona 500, not the pass Gordon put on him. And the move Gordon put on Rusty was the exact same one he put on Bill Elliott two years earlier, the only exception being that there was a slower car on the apron when he passed Rusty, where there wasn't one that I remember when he passed Bill. And also remember that in each of Gordon's three Coca-Cola 600 victories, Rusty finished second, two of them (1994, '98) being agonizing losses. And Watto, Rusty is hardly the only big name driver that has been unable to seal the deal. Does the name Mark Martin mean anything? He had the 2007 Daytona 500 locked up, and somehow found a way to giftwrap it to Kevin Harvick. Then there was the way he lost the Brickyard 400 in 2009, choosing the wrong lane to restart in and handing that race to Jimmie Johnson as a result. Then there are those five second-place finishes in the points without ever wining a title, and he had chances to win at least two, if not three of them, and that doesn't count 1997, when he finished less than 30 points behind Gordon, but in third place. Then there are the cases of Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch, today's versions of Martin and Wallace when it comes to the inability to seal the deal. And DSFF, the Blue Max Racing team, with which Rusty won the title in 1989, actually had a checkered history, dating back to when the late M.C. Anderson owned that team. I just watched the 1978 Daytona 500, and that team, with Buddy Baker driving had a lock on that race when bad luck intervened twice in the last 30 laps, first with a cut tire from the track coming apart, then with a blown engine with just five laps remaining. Then there was Benny Parsons, who might very well have won his second championship in 1980 (he had won it in 1973), instead of Dale Earnhardt, but internal problems within that team led him to leave and join Bud Moore's team for a forgettable 1981 season, which he didn't even finish with Moore. Cale Yarborough joined that team in 1981, replacing Parsons, and had two successful season there, but when Anderson wanted to rejoin the rank of car owners wanting to run for the championship, Yarborough declined and left. Anderson then sold the team to Raymond Beadle, who hired Tim Richmond away from Jim Stacy, who was seemingly happy with Richmond. And big events like the Daytona 500 will test one's ability to come in big in the pressure situations. This year's race was a classic example of drivers making mistakes when under fire, and the guy that won making no such errors, as Trevor Bayne won the first major NASCAR race in which he's had a serious chance to win, including Nationwide races. As the old saying goes, "the best you can do is put yourself in a position to win, and circumstance will determine the rest". Richard Petty made that remark, and it's so true, but circumstances include mistakes made in the heat of battle, often times by drivers that buckle under when the pressure is highest. Say what you want about Bayne, and I've gotten on him many times for not being aggressive enough, but in that race, his was the coolest head on the track, and that won the race for him. There are many ways to win. Sometimes it's through aggression, other times it's patience, and still other times it's through just letting the field wear itself out, and drivers have to adjust to what kind of race it's going to be. 139. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.10.2011 - 10:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The thing with Rusty and the Daytona 500 is that superspeedway racing was always a weakness of his. He never won a single race at Daytona or Dega. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, he had just one Top 5 at Dega. His best run there was probably '93 when he led a lot and finished 6th while in the process of violently flipping. He also never won a qualifying race at Daytona and won a single Bud Shootout. He is like Mark and Rudd, they just never figured those tracks out. None of them ever won at Daytona, and only Mark has a pair of Dega wins. Another really good driver that was weak at the superspeedways was Darrell. He got some wins at Dega, but he freely admits he never felt comfortable at Daytona. He never won the summer race and finally got the Daytona 500 on fuel mileage. It is just a totally different animal. A good modern equivalent: Kenseth. He got a Daytona 500 win in the rain, but those two tracks have never been kind to him. 140. Spen posted: 10.10.2011 - 11:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) DSFF: "Back then, the championship was barely an afterthought. It was about win total then." Quite true. So here's a more modern example: Bobby Labonte or Ricky Rudd? Sure, Bobby's got the championship, and way more crown jewel wins, but who had the better overall career, and will probably be better remembered years from now? 141. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 11:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Actually, DSFF, Mark got the restrictor plate tracks figured out well enough to win the spring race at Talladega twice in three years, including setting the existing all-time 500-mile NASCAR record of over 188 MPH in his 1997 win in that race, though you are accurate in saying that Wallace and Rudd never figured out Daytona and Talladega, though Benny Parsons was very good at those tracks, and only won one race combined at those tracks, and only got that because David Pearson tangled with Cale Yarborough late in the 1975 Daytona 500 with that race in hand, so having those races figured out and actually winning them are two completely different things. Parsons actually has one of the greatest finishing records in Daytona 500 history with eight total top five finishes, including a record four consecutive finishes of third or better from 1975-'78. And Darrell Waltrip, though he didn't lead that many laps at Daytona, did finish third in the Daytona 500 three times in a row from 1984-'86, as well as finishing second in the 1979 race, despite having a sick engine all day. He might also have won the 1978 race if he hadn't been caught up in the lap 61 crash when Richard Petty hadn't cut his left rear tire while leading. Not to mention that he had the only car capable of beating Bobby Allison in the 1988 event, but suffered late-race engine trouble. Darrell Waltrip just simply had terrible luck at Daytona, even worse than the renowned bad luck that Earnhardt had in trying to win the Daytona 500. Mark Martin has has numerous chances to win the Daytona 500, most notably in 2007, but was never able to finish the job, and Matt Kenseth has had more chances to win a RP race outside of that win in the 2009 Daytona 500. And remember that not only did Rusty never win a qualifying race at Daytona, but neither did Mark Martin. In fact, no Roush Racing car has ever won a qualifying race at Daytona since he first attempted the Daytona 500 in 1988. Yet, Elliott Sadler won two qualifying races, and Earl Balmer (1966) and Coo Coo Marlin (1973) even won one qualifying race. In fact, Kurt Busch's qualifying race victory this year was Roger Penske's first since bobby Allison won his qualifier in 1975 in an AMC Matador. 142. cjs3872 posted: 10.10.2011 - 11:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Spen, I think Bobby Labonte will be more remembered than Rudd. They've actually had pretty equal careers, but Labonte has a Brickyard 400 win, a Coca-Cola 600 win, a Southern 500 win, as well as a championship.Rrudd has only a Brickyard win to his record among big races. Rudd was more of a short track and road race expert, much like Labonte's older brother Terry, while Bobby Labonte was better on more different tracks, though Atlanta was easily his best track when he was in his prime, with six of his 21 wins coming there. 143. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.11.2011 - 12:06 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Another really good driver that was weak at the superspeedways was Darrell. He got some wins at Dega, but he freely admits he never felt comfortable at Daytona. He never won the summer race and finally got the Daytona 500 on fuel mileage. It is just a totally different animal." Mikey got that "skill" set. DW got short tracks, RCs and Ovals, Mikey got RP. Seems to balence itself out now doesn't it? lol 144. 00andJoe posted: 10.11.2011 - 1:36 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Another thing to think about comparing Bobby and Ricky, is their teams. Rudd's days with Hendrick were before Hendrick became superteam-numero-uno, while his time with Yates was at the point where that team was starting to circle the drain. Ricky's team affiliation will be the #10, his own car...while Bobby was with Gibbs, and put them on the map, as it were. 145. cjs3872 posted: 10.11.2011 - 5:22 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) 00andJoe, Ricky Rudd's affiliation with the #10 goes deeper than you think. not only was that his number when he was an owner-driver, that was also the number he ran when he started in Cup in 1975. Back then, he ran for a man named Bill Champion, and Champion ran the #10 in those days, so Rudd's affiliation with the number #10 actually goes back to the mid 1970s. when he ran for his father Al's team, he used the #22. Another number he was affiliated with, in fact he ended his career with it, was the #88, which he not only ran with Robert Yates in 2007, but he had his breakthrough season with it in 1981, the one year he drove for DiGard Racing, who just happened to have Yates as the engine builder. Rudd's relationship with Yates was such, that when he had to fold his own team, it was Yates that rejuvenated his career in 2000, and he scored his last three wins for Yates. Rudd was also the last competitve driver the Wood Brothers had, though he never actually won there, he had several close calls, including second place finishes at Kansas, Sonoma, and even Auto Club Speedway. Had he retired after the 2005 season, he might be better remembered, but after taking a year off, he returned to Yates in 2007 to replace Dale Jarrett, his teammate there from 2000-'02, but that was an unmitigated disaster, as Roush had effectively gutted the organization, as neither Rudd nor rookie David Gilliland were competitve, except at the restrictor plate tracks, where Rudd was never comfortable to begin with. 146. cjs3872 posted: 10.11.2011 - 5:27 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) And 00andJoe, it was Dale Jarrett that put Gibbs on the map, not Bobby Labonte. That's the way it is when you win the Daytona 500, as Jarrett did with Gibbs in 1993. That Daytona 500 win was Gibbs' first-ever NASCAR win, and ironically, he's not won the Daytona 500 since then. Jarrett also won the fall race at Charlotte in 1994 dirving for Gibbs, the teams's first intermediate track win, helping to build the intermediate program for which Gibbs became known when Labonte drove for him, and was at his most successful, especially from 1997-2000. Ironically though, Gibbs, with all his success on intermediate tracks, has never won the All-Star Race, though he's finished second in it about four times. 147. Spen posted: 10.11.2011 - 8:48 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Actually, Bill Champion was Ricky's uncle. 148. Scott B posted: 10.11.2011 - 10:48 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Another Charlotte entry note, Hermie Sadler in the #71 for the first time since the spring race at Martinsville. Regular driver Andy Lally moves to a second TRG entry (#77). TRG plans to do double entries for the rest of the season, swapping drivers depending on who has the better chance of giving the main #71 car a good finish. They are trying to hold the 35th position in points, and the #38 has been using the same strategy to try to close the gap, switching Yeley and Kvapil in the #38 and the #55. 149. 00andJoe posted: 10.11.2011 - 1:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This just in: Dollar General will be sponsoring the #20 next year for 10 to 12 races. Home Depot delenda est? 150. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.11.2011 - 2:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Bobby Labonte or Ricky Rudd? Sure, Bobby's got the championship, and way more crown jewel wins, but who had the better overall career" Let's look at the checklist: -Championships: Bobby 1, Ricky 0. Advantage Bobby in the most important category. -Wins: Ricky 23, Bobby 21. Slight advantage to Rudd. -Versatility: Rudd by a mile. Bobby has one short track win, and none on road courses. 9 (exactly 1/3) have come on 1.5 milers, with an additional 3 coming at Michigan and another 3 at Pocono. He has one plate win. Rudd, on the other hand has 6 road course wins (2 at each of the 3), as well as quite a few at the short tracks in his home state of Virginia at Martinsville and Richmond (1 at the old half mile and 1 at the new 3/4 miler). He has quite a few on the 1 milers at Dover, Rockingham, Loudon, and Phoenix. He also has wins at Darlington (1.366 miles), Atlanta (1.5 miles), Michigan (2 miles), Pocono and Indy (2.5 miles). All he's missing is a superspeedway win. Longevity: Rudd by a mile. Won his first race in '83 (after a very respectable but winless '81), and his last in '02. The only dry spell happened late in his career with 3 fruitless seasons with the Wood Brothers who were washed up by 1990, and his ill fated comback with the corpse of RYR. Bobby won his first race in '95 and last in '03. Hasn't been a factor since. Crown jewels: Bobby has 3 ('95 World 600, '00 Brickyard 400 and Southern 500), Rudd has 1 ('97 Brickyard 400). Overall, I give the edge to Rudd even though Bobby has the championship. If Bobby has 2 or 3 Winston Cups, I'd give it to him, but Rudd beats him badly in longevity and versatility. I guess this somewhat highlights the need for more categories. Of course the biggest is the driver's situation. For example, Alan Kulwicki. He may only have 5 wins and a championship, but considering he did that as an independant in an era where many bigger names tried that route, and thus were able to get better sponsor deals, and still fell way short, anybody who says Alan isn't a legend doesn't know what they are talking about. Plus, we must consider people who lifted their organization's profile. Best example: Earnhardt. He made slightly less than 1/4 of RCR's starts (a number that will go down every week). But he has 40% of their Top 10s and Poles (odd considering he sucked at qualifying), over half of their Top 5s, more than 2/3 of their wins and laps led, and 100% of their championships and Top 2 points finishes. Bringing it back to Rudd vs Labonte, all of Bobby's success came with JGR. They were somewhat of a floundering organization when he got their despite DALE JARRETT'S GONNA WIN THE DAYTONA 500!!!!! and the Top 5 points finish in '93. He won 3 times in '95, flounder himself a bit in '96 and '97, and had a great stretch from '98-'01. So he deserves a lot of credit for that. But it was still for one organization that wnet on to bigger and better things with Tony. Ricky, meanwhile, won RCR's first races before they hired Dale and ruled the sport, won quite a bit for a declining Bud Moore team, won all of Kenny Bernstein's legitimate victories, won 4 times during HMS' mediocre Lumina Years, leaving a year before Chevy got the new Monte Carlo and they immediately won 4 in a row with Gordon and Terry (he had to regret that in the back of his mind), was the second best start-up owner/driver of the modern era winning quite a bit in his own car, then won for RYR when they were really good. So yeah, I think Rudd was better. 151. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.11.2011 - 2:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Roger Penske's first since bobby Allison won his qualifier in 1975 in an AMC Matador." Now if you want to talk versatility, in terms of tracks won at, winning for different organizations, and winning in different car makes, that is the guy. 152. cjs3872 posted: 10.11.2011 - 3:41 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Actually, DSFF, he was very respecatble with the Wood Brothers, as he was their last truly competitve driver to date. Sure he never won there, but he contended several times and was probably unlucky not to win for the Woods (especially the 2004 Kansas race). And Bud Moore's team was not yet in decline during Rudd's tenure there. Moore's decline really started when Geoff Bodine left late in 1993. And even then, Lake Speed had some very good runs with Moore, with current Wood Brothers crew chief Donnie Wingo calling the shots along with Moore. Even Wally Dallenbach had some good runs with Moore, especially in the 1996 Daytona 500, where he was responsible for pushing Dale Jarrett by Dale Earnhardt, where he stayed. Dallenbach wound up sixth. The end for Moore effectively came in 1996 when Ford, which had been sponsoring him since 1985, with the exception of 1988, when their Motorcraft sponsorship was an associate sponsor for Bill Elliott's championship winning car, left to join Robert Yates Racing. And Wingo's and Motorcraft's association with Moore made it ironic when Trevor Bayne pulled the Wood Brothers' car into victory lane in the Daytona 500, with Moore's (Motorcraft) old sponsor AND crew chief (Donnie Wingo) there for the ride. It made it seem that, like in 1978 with Bobby Allison, Bud Moore was a car owner for the Daytona 500 win this year, along with the Wood Brothers. As for your comparisons of Ricky Rudd's and Bobby Labonte's careers, Bobby Labonte won at all the big tracks that Rudd won at, while Rudd was more like Terry Labonte than he was Terry's younger brother Bobby. And the only real advantage that I see that Rudd has on the younger Labonte is longevity, though Labonte's career isn't yet over, it may as well be. Labonte's days as a potential top-tier driver effectively ended with the final lap of the 2005 Coca-Cola 600, when he let Jimmie Johnson steal the win from him. Sure, Rudd won more short track races than Labonte did, but for quite a number of years, short tracks and road courses were the only tracks that Rudd even stood a chance of winning at. Labonte had a chance to win at far more tracks than Rudd, which is why he, and not Rudd, is a NASCAR champion. Rudd would NEVER have won the championship that Terry Labonte won in 1996, as he was never as good at the number of tracks that Terry Labonte was good at. And I don't think Rudd was ever the team player that Labonte was. Why do you think that Hendrick's emergence as the top team almost coincided with Terry Labonte's arrival in 1994? From 1990-'93, the four years that Rudd drove for HMS, the team won just six times in Luminas. Well guess what. In 1994, with the same kind of cars (Luminas), HMS won five times (three by Terry Labonte in the #5 car, which Rudd never won more than once in a single season in), and the #25 car had it's best points finish since 1986, even though it didn't win that year. And the only tangible change was Labonte replacing Rudd in the #5 car. By the way, HMS won eight times the year before Rudd got there, several of which also came in Luminas, six of which belonged to Darrell Waltrip. When Rudd got there in 1990, Darrell Waltrip went winless, and then there was that incident when Rudd and Scrhader crashed at Martinsville running 1-2. 153. Spen posted: 10.11.2011 - 4:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) There's also adaptability to changing teams and/or crew cheifs. Bobby got all of his wins with Gibbs, and all but two of them with Jimmy Makar. Ricky won with six different teams, and at least eight crew cheifs. Heck, he won with three different crew chiefs as an owner/driver alone.(And the only one he had with that team for a significant length of time without winning was Fatback McSwain. Who he'd later get three wins for at Yates.) And DSFF, that's the reason why Bobby Allison is exhibit A in the case for championships not being the number one career definer. 154. LordLowe posted: 10.11.2011 - 4:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hey DSFF which Driver is better Ricky Rudd or Dale Jr and I think we both know the answer to this 155. Jocke Persson posted: 10.11.2011 - 4:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "#85. NicoRosbergFan" Do you really think Massa is a wimp? 156. NicoRosbergFan posted: 10.11.2011 - 5:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) JockePersson: Yes, I do. 157. Talon64 posted: 10.11.2011 - 5:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jimmie Johnson picked up his 55th career Sprint Cup victory and 2nd of 2011. It's the 10th consecutive season he's had multiple wins, although 2 would be a career low (3 wins in each of his first two seasons, 2002 and 2003). "In addition to tying Rusty (a big deal, since Jimmie is by no means guaranteed catching Earnhardt on the all-time win list) Jimmie also tied Jeff Gordon's record of ten consecutive 20 top-10 seasons today. I'm almost certain he'll break that." He's got 20 more top 10's than the next driver during the streak (223, vs. Jeff Gordon with 203). His top 10 % is .6299, which ranks him 10th all time (among drivers with at least 100 starts). It's also his 9th consecutive season with at least 13 top 5's (141 in that span is 16 more than the next, Jeff Gordon with 125). "and the fifth season where he led more than 1000 laps." 5th straight, but 6th time in 10 seasons. He's just 148 behind Kyle Busch for the most this year, and with Martinsville and Phoenix coming up and Kyle not running that great it seems like a sure thing that Jimmie will lead the series in laps led for a 4th straight year. The last driver to lead the series in laps led for that many years in a row was Dale Earnhardt, 5 in a row from 1986 to 1990. Jimmie also surpassed 12,000 career laps led, ranking him 12th all time. Jimmie joins Greg Biffle and Tony Stewart as the only drivers to win twice at Kansas. Kasey Kahne got his best finish of the season in 2nd, his 5th top 5 of the year which is the most ever by a Red Bull Racing driver in a season (Brian Vickers had 4 in 2009). It's also the 4th straight year and 6th time in 8 seasons he's had at least 10 top 10's. Kahne's scored the 5th most points so far in the Chase with 2 top 5's in 4 races. But this was his first top 5 in 9 Kansas starts (17.0 avg fin, 2 poles). Brad Keselowski got his 10th top 5 in 83 career starts, but 9 have come in the last 21 races and 7 in the last 10; he and Carl Edwards are the only 2 drivers with 3 top 5's in the first 4 Chase races, and he's tied with Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon for 3rd in podium finishes this year with 8. He scored the most points at Kansas this year, as he and Carl Edwards were the only 2 drivers to finish in the top 5 in both races (10.0 avg fin in 4 career Kansas starts). Matt Kenseth has back-to-back top 5's for the first time the 4th and 5th races of the year, Bristol and Fontana, back in March. He just needs 1 more top 5 to reach 10 in a season for the first time since 2007. It's just Matt's 3rd top 5 in 12 Kansas starts (18.0 avg fin), but his 3rd straight top 10 there. Carl Edwards picked up his series-leading 15th top 5 and 21st top 10 of 2011, his 7th consecutive top 10 in which he's scored the most points of anyone (276, Brad K. 2nd with 268). It's his 5th straight top 10 at Kansas and 4th top 5 in 9 career starts there (10.7 avg fin). Carl managed a top 5 despite a 87.5 driver rating; only Marcos Ambrose (76.7) had a worse DR among the top 11 finishers in the race. Kevin Harvick got his 5th top 10 in the last 6 races, with the other finish being 12th. Of his 5 top 10's at Kansas, 4 of them are 6th place finishes (1 top 5, 13.6 avg fin in 12 starts). Clint Bowyer got his 3rd top 10 in the last 4 races, after just 1 in the previous 10. It's his 3rd top 10 in 7 career starts at his home track (12.0 avg fin) but first in the last 5 races. After going 6 straight races without a top 10, Greg Biffle has 2 in the last 3 races. But it's his 6th straight top 10 and 10th straight finish of 12th or better at Kansas (8.3 avg fin in 11 career starts). Marcos Ambrose has 10 top 10's for the first time in 3 full seasons in Cup (12 in his first 2 combined). It's his 2nd straight top 10, after going 6 straight without one. It's his first top 10 in 5 Kansas starts (23.8 avg fin). Mark Martin now has at least 10 top 10's for a 24th consecutive season in Cup (including partial seasons in 2007 and 2008 when he still managed 11 in each). He has 425 top 10's in that stretch, the most of any driver, and Jeff Gordon (393) and Rusty Wallace (303) are the only other drivers with at least 300. It's Mark's 5th top 10 in 12 Kansas starts (13.1 avg fin). Kyle Busch now has just 2 top 10's in the last 7 races, and has scored just the 9th most points so far in the Chase (8th amongst Chase drivers, 29 fewer than points leader Carl Edwards). Landon Cassill got just his 3rd top 20 finish of the year, and his 6th lead lap finish. 158. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.11.2011 - 5:43 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jimmie Johnson made an apperence on JRIB today. See ONLY Jim Rome cares about NASCAR and Jimmie has made the most apperences in his show. Too bad the rest of ESPN doesn't give a damn. Is was brought up on the fourm that would Jimmie not win #6 be good for NASCAR. My Answer to that is: Y-E-S However i don't blame Jimmie for his run, i don't blame NASCAR (even tho your system sucks), don't blame media or fans (shocking i know). I blame everyone else for his run. There are 42 other guys out there and when it comes Chase there are 11 others besides Jimmie. Its there job to beat him and for the past 5 years they haven't done that. Don't hate the Champ, don't hate the rules makers, hate the other players for sucking at their jobs. 159. Scott B posted: 10.11.2011 - 5:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Talon64 wrote: "Landon Cassill got just his 3rd top 20 finish of the year, and his 6th lead lap finish." It also the 7th race of the season where he led laps, including both visits to Kansas. In small steps, he's making progress. Remember, this is a kid who was doing start & parks as recently as early this season. 160. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.11.2011 - 6:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "And DSFF, that's the reason why Bobby Allison is exhibit A in the case for championships not being the number one career definer." Yeah. Like I said, I think circumstances have to be the first thing looked at. Early in his career he had promising rides with Mario Rossi and Holman Moody fall out from under him due to them going out of business. Then he never got along with Junior Johnson, Waddell Wilson (at Ranier), and DiGard even though he won his Winston Cup with them. He got along with The Captain, but couldn't find good reliability with those Matadors (plus they were freaking ugly). Ditto for Bud Moore and his Fords. Then again, maybe being a racing vegabond suited him best. Either way, he is in my Top 2 all time. Plus his son Davey was on his way to a legendary career before tragically dying. "The last driver to lead the series in laps led for that many years in a row was Dale Earnhardt, 5 in a row from 1986 to 1990." His laps led totals in those seasons were riDONKulous. "Don't hate the Champ, don't hate the rules makers, hate the other players for sucking at their jobs." I've always said we can't blame JJ nor can we discount anything he has accomplished. The 48 team is like an NFL team that is specifically designed to win in January. And I agree the others deserve blame for not being good enough to beat them. But I think we can blame the rules makers too. This system really sucks. 161. Watto posted: 10.11.2011 - 6:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "He had the 2007 Daytona 500 locked up, and somehow found a way to giftwrap it to Kevin Harvick." How did he giftwrap it though? Harvick got an insane draft down the backstretch, and Mark was along for the ride. Daytona has so little to do with driver input and so much to do with luck. I agree that there are many drivers unable to seal the deal, but I don't look at a lack of wins at Daytona or Talladega as "unable to seal the deal". DSFF made a good point about that Indy race when Rusty was on 2 tires compared to 4. I mean, it has everything to do with whether he's good at that track + how good the car is, in my opinion. 162. BON GORDON posted: 10.12.2011 - 12:18 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I would like to give my opinion on a few things that have been mentioned. First of all Ricky Rudd is a much better driver than Bobby Labonte. Yes Bobby Labonte won a championship and a Brickyard and a Darlington race but Ricky Rudd won more races, poles, top 5, top tens, etc. Rudd was also an amazing road course/short track driver. Dont forget about the Brickyard 400. Or how tough he was. His eyes were taped open at Richmond and he won a week or so after a horrific crash at Daytona. What about Martinsville in 1998 in the hot weather and holding off a hard charging Jeff Gordon or Dover in 1997 holding off Mark Martin. God Ricky Rudd is a great driver. However i agree that Bobby Labonte will be remembered more than Ricky Rudd not only for his championship but because of his brother Texas Terry and his championships as well. The Labonte brothers are the only brothers to win championships but im sure you all knew that... As far as Bill Elliott vs. Rusty Wallace i think this is a lot closer. For Elliott fans you can say he has the winston million win in 1985. He was arguably the greatest driver from like 1983-1991. He has two Daytona 500 wins and in my opinion is far better at superspeedway races at Daytona/Talladega than Rusty. Even if his equipment was far better than everyone elses in the 1980s. He also won the Brickyard 400 in 2002. Now Rusty has more wins (55 vs.44). He never won a Brickyard or a 500 but was close. Rusty was much better than Bill from 1993-2001. Yes Bill owned his own team but thats ashame and a dumb move on Bills part...i think. To me Rusty was a better road course racer and arguably the greatest short track racer of all-time. In my eyes ole Rusty Wallace is better than Bill Elliott. I dont know why but to me winning the Big Races is awesome but it doesnt make you a better driver. Overall wins championships top 5s top 10s and longevity make you a great driver. They both have that but Rusty's stats are better. Im a stats guy sorry guys. Put Rusty Wallace in his prime up against Bill Elliott in his prime and im taking Wallace to win it. 163. BON GORDON posted: 10.12.2011 - 12:22 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Im gonna get ripped apart... 164. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.12.2011 - 2:55 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Now, if Rusty had joined Junior Johnson's sinking ship, and then tried to become an owner/driver, and Bill had gotten a steady ride at Penske, then it would have been a different story." While Penske was at the time, overall better than the Junior Johnson team Bill drove for (save for 1992 when Bill almost won the championship in a Ford dominated year), as well as the #94 team Bill drove for and owned himself, they weren't always reliable in terms of engines and other mechanical things. Rusty blew a lot of engines during his time driving for them (I would know, I followed Rusty more than any other driver until he retired). Towards the end of his career, engines started to become more reliable in NASCAR. But you are right in the sense that Penske Racing is certainly a steady team with lots of job security. As far as the Rudd vs Bobby Labonte debate, I believe that Ricky is the better driver overall despite not having a championship to his name, and that I always liked Bobby more (though I have nothing against Ricky and respect him a lot). Championships, while they are important in discussion about how good a driver is, doesn't exactly tell the whole story of their career. Is anyone honestly going to tell me they think Terry Labonte was better than Bobby Allison because he won more championships? Ricky won quite a bit of races with different teams (including six as an owner/driver), while Bobby got all of his wins with JGR and the #18 (and only two of those wins came without Jimmy Makar). This weighs a lot in the versatality department, and because of this I rank Ricky ahead. I also rank Ricky ahead in longetivity: his first win came in 1983, his last came in 2002. So he had a 19 year span of winning races, only going winless in '99 and '00 during that time. Bobby's first win came in 1995, and his last came in 2003. He had an 8 year span of winning races, never going winless in that time period, but again you have to factor that he was with the same team the whole time while Ricky did a lot of shuffling. Plus his span of winning races in the sport lasted only half as long as Ricky's. Advantage: Rudd 165. NicoRosbergFan posted: 10.12.2011 - 5:04 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Remember guys, Joe Gibbs also dumped Labonte by the side of the road even though (quite hysterically), he was replaced by Yeley, who Gibbs (again laughing hysterically) thought would be better. Same with Logano, bad numbers for supposedly the next big thing. I understand the Rudd is better than Labonte, but don't forget that Labonte also during his winning period (95-03), he averaged over two wins a year before the rift with Gibbs started. During Rudd's winning period (83-02), he averaged just a little over 1 win a year; Rudd, however, never got a real shot at a good ride. HE made Hendrick special when he took the inconsistent 4 win a year team that blew so ofter that it only finished at the best 5th in points and got that team a 2nd place finish in 1991. Quite amazing actually. Even late in his career (03-05), Rudd got screwed out of a few wins, some by fuel mileage (03 Loudon), and one by lapped traffic when he was .5 seconds a lap faster (05 Fall Martinsville) and he still finished 12th in a mutilated car. Raw driving talent and titles: Labonte Longevity, foxiness, and versatility: Rudd. Overall I personally give Labonte the advantage cause I have two family members who are fans of the Labonte brothers, and I remember Labonte holding the Winston Cup like it was yesterday. I'm prejudiced. Rudd, however, was MY personal favorite driver after only Gordo (I mean the Tide Ride). Using fairness,I give the advantage to Rudd because of the versatility. Without Rudd, a some of these teams would have washed away (specifically Childress and Woods. Rudd: 1 Labonte: 0.9 Fireball Roberts: 2 :) 166. DaleJrFan posted: 10.12.2011 - 8:40 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I still think Rick Hendrick doesn't want Dale Jr. to win. If he did Dale Jr. would have cars as good as Jimmie and would run in the top 5 week in and out. Rick wants Jimmie to win the championship and won't sacrafice that to help Jr. win. I got a bad feeling with Kasey Kahne comming over next year it will be like 2009 and 2010 for Dale Jr. Rick will probably give him the same garbage he did those 2 years and Dale Jr. will be lucky to finish top 20 in points. I wonder what Rick has against Dale Jr. 167. cjs3872 posted: 10.12.2011 - 10:29 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Watto, all Martin had to do was to ease up in front of Harvick, and the momentum from Harvick would have pushed Martin to the win. In a similar situation, Jeff Gordon, or Dale Earnhardt (Sr. or Jr.), or Jimmie Johnson, or a number of other top drivers would have sealed that hole, but Martin didn't. That's why I say he giftwrapped that victory to Harvick. As for Bobby Labonte dropping out of favor with Joe Gibbs, that really started in 2004 when Labonte was right behind Jimmie Johnson at the spring race at Darlington that year, but would not get aggressive with Johnson, even on the final lap, and there were people in the Gibbs hierarchy that were not very happy with Labonte's lack of aggression, but as I've already noted, the clincher came when Labonte basically let Johnson get on his outside on the final lap and steal the Coca-Cola 600. Gibbs knew then that Labonte's days as a top driver were done and decided at that moment that Labonte would not be brought back for 2006. And DaleJrFan, it's not that Hendrick doesn't want Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to win. In fact, I believe the exact opposite is true. It's just that, and no Earnhardt fan is ever willing to believe this, but Dale, Jr. just isn't a good enough driver to win any more, nor is he focused, and that, in my mind, will never change. It's just that simple, and the proof is in the putting. Remember that Earnhardt, Jr. was seemingly heading toward a championship and the career that many thought, but in 2004, two things happened. First, there was that major fire in a sports car race that has was about to run in Sonoma during an off-weekend for the Cup series. But Earnhardt, Jr.'s career was efectively torpedoed by the gear ratio rule that NASCAR put in place for 2005. Remember that Dale, Jr. won six times in 2004, but his team was one of those that ran insanely low gear ratios that year, along with Hendrick. But when NASCAR instituted the gear ratio rule in 2005, that took away the advantage that DEI and HMS had. A crew chief change didn't help either, and the plain truth is that Dale, Jr. doesn't have the advantage that he had that year, which is why he isn't contending for wins any more. Since that 2004 season, he's won only three times, and only one of them, the 2006 spring race at Richmond, was taken through sheer performance. The others, the 2005 race at Chicago and the 2008 June race at Michigan, were won through pit strategy. And remember that, with the exception of Martinsville, all of Dale, Jr.'s close calls this year in terms of nearly winning were through fuel mileage, not performance. A lot of people thought that Dale, Jr. would win after those close calls, but I felt his good finishes earlier in the year were "fool's gold" to begin with, as he ran back in the pack in most of those races, and only got up front through pit strategy and fuel mileage. And NicoRosbergFan, your point about Rudd from 2003-'05 is why I think that Ricky Rudd was, to this day, the last truly competitve driver that the Wood Brothers have had, including their current driver, Trevor Bayne, who just happened to luck into the Daytona 500, much like Benny Parsons did in 1975, when the Wood Brothers' driver that day, threw that race away (by tangling with Cale Yarborough in traffic) and gave that win to Parsons. 168. BON GORDON posted: 10.12.2011 - 11:11 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Saying that Rick Hendrick doesnt want Dale Jr. to win is rediculous. Come on. I 100% agree that he is no longer focused and has very little desire. Hes in good equipment but he needs a crew chief that understood him like tony sr. did and thats another problem. Dale Jr. is a good driver but in my eyes hes more in it for money or fame or whatever but it isnt to win. I think if he could win a race or two and have a consistent season he would get confidence back and maybe it would be different. 169. Sean posted: 10.12.2011 - 12:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Here we go again. "And Bud Moore's team was not yet in decline during Rudd's tenure there. Moore's decline really started when Geoff Bodine left late in 1993." Apparently we have different things in mind when we use the word "decline", because you also argued previously that Rusty Wallace, Dale Earnhardt, Bill Elliott, and Geoff Bodine weren't declining when Jeff Gordon became prominent. Those drivers all peaked in the late '80s/early '90s and WERE all declining from their peak by the time Gordon became a superstar (even if they were still capable of winning races; just because you're still winning doesn't mean you're not declining - is Jeff Gordon the same driver he was in 1998? Not quite). Even though the Bud Moore team still won a few races with Morgan Shepherd and Geoff Bodine, their decline started much earlier than that. I'd say it started in 1981 with Benny Parsons (who totally lost his consistency that year), Dale Earnhardt in 1982-83 (who was even less consistent), and Rudd in 1984-87 (who was consistent, but often not competitive for victories, and I don't think it's for the reason you think). Oh yeah, they were still winning every year, but they didn't quite have what they had in the '60s Joe Weatherly/Billy Wade or '70s Bobby Allison years. Hence, decline. EVEN if you say the team wasn't declining under Parsons/Earnhardt/Rudd, at LEAST you have to admit it started its decline in 1988 with Brett Bodine, who took the team from a perennial winning threat to barely being able to score top five finishes in the ride. Yes, Shepherd and G. Bodine won later and Shepherd was consistent in the car, but the team was no longer expected to win as it had been in the Parsons/Earnhardt/Rudd years. The Bud Moore team started its decline WAY earlier than 1993, even if it didn't become completely uncompetitive until Dick Trickle's year there in 1995. "As for your comparisons of Ricky Rudd's and Bobby Labonte's careers, Bobby Labonte won at all the big tracks that Rudd won at, while Rudd was more like Terry Labonte than he was Terry's younger brother Bobby." I guess this is the crux of our argument. Is winning on superspeedways or winning on short tracks/road courses a greater indicator of driving talent? You seem to favor superspeedways and feel that because they have a greater shot at being marquee, failure to perform at them is a failure to see the deal. I could turn this right back at you and say that B. Labonte was rarely able to seal the deal because he did not have a stellar short track or road course record or really a stellar record anywhere except the cookie-cutter tracks. So ultimately I guess this comes down to you believing that superspeedways are the best measure of talent. I strongly disagree. I think intermediate superspeedways and plate tracks are the best measure of equipment strength, and tracks shorter than 1.5 miles, the road courses, and I'll grant Pocono and Indianapolis (which are their own animals and do have something to do with talent) are the best measures of talent. Let's face it, even though B. Labonte did have wins on some of the talent tracks, he was known for his many wins at Atlanta, Charlotte, and Michigan (probably close to half his total wins). Rudd was far more balanced than that, and even if he wasn't, the tracks he won at were far more impressive. Not to mention Rudd battling adversity by winning at Martinsville in the extreme heat (probably the third most impressive performance battling adversity in that era behind only Earnhardt leading the most laps at Watkins Glen two weeks after cracking his sternum and Irvan leading the most laps at Phoenix wearing an eye patch). B. Labonte never quite battled adversity like that, which also matters to me. The main deal that prevented Rudd from winning many more races on the intermediate tracks and plate tracks is that I think despite being with a lot of big name teams, he had the misfortune of signing with them at the wrong times when their equipment was weaker (no fault of his). I'll make this argument later. "Sure, Rudd won more short track races than Labonte did, but for quite a number of years, short tracks and road courses were the only tracks that Rudd even stood a chance of winning at. Labonte had a chance to win at far more tracks than Rudd, which is why he, and not Rudd, is a NASCAR champion. Rudd would NEVER have won the championship that Terry Labonte won in 1996, as he was never as good at the number of tracks that Terry Labonte was good at." Like now. Superspeedways have largely been determined by equipment strength for freaking ever (and I'll point out in many of the years Rudd was in his prime Bill Elliott was sweeping up on the superspeedways). I just think his equipment for almost his entire career was less strong than the teams he was with would indicate. DiGard? A strong team but Rudd was still developing. Richard Childress? Rather uncompetitive until he won the first races for the team, THEN Earnhardt made it a powerhouse. Bud Moore? Team was already in decline (in my opinion). Kenny Bernstein? Team was never all that good. Rick Hendrick? Team just didn't figure out the Chevrolet Lumina very well. I DON'T blame him for not winning more with Hendrick. His points finishes were fine enough, 2nd to Earnhardt in 1991, and leading all the Chevies in points in '92 (Chevy's worst year ever; he beat Earnhardt, Wallace, and Irvan that year, who dominated the next two seasons). Owner-driver? Second best to Kulwicki, as above. Robert Yates? Probably the best equipment he ever had and he did start being more competitive in intermediate races. Wood Brothers? WAY in decline. Seriously, the reason Rudd didn't win more superspeedway races was that although he was with a bunch of major teams, he was with them at the wrong times when they were down on horsepower. Blaming Rudd for not winning races requiring stronger equipment would be like blaming Kasey Kahne for not being able to do the same (now, NEXT YEAR Kahne will have no excuse). I think the Hendrick team got stronger in the mid-'90s due to Jeff Gordon and I think Rudd could have won the 1996 title in the #5 by more than T. Labonte. (Not that either of them should have been anywhere near Gordon in points anyway with many fewer wins and no greater consistency). "And I don't think Rudd was ever the team player that Labonte was." On the other hand, I agree with this to an extent. He and Jeff Gordon REALLY didn't get along well at Hendrick. He got fired by Yates for not deciding what he wanted to do the following season soon enough (though I blame Yates here and think that's in a long list of crappy things Yates has done to his drivers starting with firing Ernie Irvan essentially for getting into a barroom brawl). Rudd was a lot more obnoxious on the track than people give him credit for (thinking of the 1994 fall Charlotte race, where he hooked Gordon into the wall in a ridiculously dangerous manner). But still, I think he was a better driver than either Labonte brother based on where he was winning. "By the way, HMS won eight times the year before Rudd got there, several of which also came in Luminas, six of which belonged to Darrell Waltrip." That is your best argument, but still I think it's silly to say Rudd underperformed when he was second in points in '91 and led all the Chevies in '92. He won all four seasons and finished in the top ten in points all four seasons. Just because he wasn't as strong as some of the even more legendary drivers Hendrick has had (Waltrip, Gordon, Johnson) shouldn't be a reason to discredit him. Would you discredit Terry Labonte for "underachieving" with the Junior Johnson team because he didn't come close to Waltrip's results in the #11? "I also rank Ricky ahead in longetivity: his first win came in 1983, his last came in 2002. So he had a 19 year span of winning races, only going winless in '99 and '00 during that time. Bobby's first win came in 1995, and his last came in 2003. He had an 8 year span of winning races, never going winless in that time period, but again you have to factor that he was with the same team the whole time while Ricky did a lot of shuffling. Plus his span of winning races in the sport lasted only half as long as Ricky's." This is my main argument. The sport changed a hell of a lot from 1983 to 2002, a lot more than it did from 1995 to 2003. Rudd had more longevity, more versatility, battled more adversity, had far more team instability (BL did everything with one team and pretty much one crew chief. That's fine if you have a level of success like Jimmie Johnson does, but when you're a far lesser champion? Ehhhh...) I'd take about 15 past non-champions over B. Labonte, to be quite honest (at least). 170. Sean posted: 10.12.2011 - 12:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Another thing I rate highly that most others don't mention is whether a driver was arguably the best at a given discipline at any time. Rudd was arguably the best road course driver in his prime, which leads me to rate him far more highly than either Labonte brother, neither of whom was arguably the best driver in any discipline. B. Labonte's best discipline was cookie-cutters, but J. Gordon, Jarrett, and Martin were all more successful at them at the very same time. Rudd was on an equal par with Irvan and Martin and R. Wallace on the road courses, and road course success matters far more than intermediate success to me. I might even rate Sterling Marlin higher than Bobby Labonte because as unimportant as I tend to find plate races, he arguably WAS the best plate driver in his prime, while B. Labonte wasn't close to the best at anything. (I also think B. Labonte couldn't have finished third in the points in the #4 OR the #40 and I think Marlin probably would have had a few more top five points finishes than B. Labonte, although he might not have won a title). 171. Sean posted: 10.12.2011 - 12:54 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Within reason of course. I wouldn't make the argument for Robby Gordon as one of the best Cup drivers at any time despite being one of the top road course drivers in his prime because he was usually completely invisible on ovals. I do think Robby had one of the top raw talents at the time, which he never harnessed. 172. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.12.2011 - 2:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "don't think it will significantly because JGR as a whole has lost a lot of speed, interestingly, ever since Kyle won Michigan." You are right 18fan, and that got me to thinking. After Michigan the 18 and Kyle were clear championship favorites due to their speed. They dominated low banked intermediate Kentucky, might have won Pocono had he chose the outside lane on that final restart, would have won Watkins Glen had he not made the exact same mistake road course kings Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart made there in 2007 (Turn 1 at the Glen doesn't get the credit it deserves as being possibly the toughest turn in NASCAR), then ran off with Michigan. But Michigan was the first race Denny Hamlin ran with the TRD motors and the new chassis modifications that had to be made to accomodate those new engines. At the same track he got his only win at this year, and won 2 of the previous 3 at, he ran like a box of rocks. And quite frankly he hasn't run worth a shit since. This brings me to two points. First off, JGR announced those are the engines they will be using next year. Are they possibly putting too much attention towards the TRD deal since that is what they will be using going forward and Kyle's JGR motors will be shelved at the end of the season? Denny's very poor performances in that package have to be concerning, do you think Kyle is possibly on the back burner now? And secondly, with different motors and chassis construction, Denny and Kyle can't be able to share many notes. I feel this is having a bad effect. Remember, from 2009 to present, a big part of JGR's rise has been the note sharing between Denny and Kyle. It has seen Denny, formerly a short and flat track specialist, become a consistent threat on the intermediates from mid '09 until he began using TRD motors. It also saw Kyle, who struggled on shorter flat tracks in '08 except Richmond become a consistent threat at places like Martinsville and Pocono which had previously been bad tracks for him. Do you think not having anyone to share notes with is hurting the 18? Obviously Logano is useless, so Kyle is pretty much on his own. Like you have mentioned, I have been surprised by his recent lack of speed at his usual strongholds like Bristol, Richmond, and Dover. I was also surprised he didn't run good at the low banked intermediates Chicago and Kansas after dominating Kentucky and Michigan. I think the TRD deal is mostly responsible. I know their pit crew suddenly can't do a stop without screwing up, but the speed just hasn't been there either. But I do have to give Kyle credit for not calling them out publically. He has handled it well. Who knows, maybe he is starting to get it. 173. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.12.2011 - 2:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Rudd was a lot more obnoxious on the track than people give him credit for (thinking of the 1994 fall Charlotte race, where he hooked Gordon into the wall in a ridiculously dangerous manner)." I'm glad somebody mentioned this. This was a major issue with Ricky for a while. I didn't want to bring it up because, being an Earnhardt fan, it would seem hypocritical plus the bitterness from the AND BOTH OF THEM SPIN!!!!!!! incident (I was gonna make a joke about Rudd and Labonte being similar in that they both cost Dale a Winston Cup, Bobby in 2000 by beating him and Rudd in 1989 by the aforementioned incident). Much is made nowadays about the infamous 1991 Sears Point race. Rudd spun Davey coming to the white flag, and when he came back to the flagstand, he was shown the black flag and Davey was shown the checkers. Some people even call it "The Rudd Screwjob". Some rumors are out there today that is was to appease Ford which had struggled out of the gate. Remember, this was the same Ford team that had made a mockery of the two big May races at Charlotte, leading every single lap of The Winston and well over half of the Coca Cola 600. The fact is Ricky had been involved many incidents prior to that, including a certain incident two years earlier at a certain short track in North Carolina that had an effect on the championship. He also spun Sterling at the end of the 1990 Bristol race, leading Sterling to run right into Ricky's trailer after chasing him through the infield as well as many other incidents. That was NASCAR's way of saying "enough is enough". And of course what he did to Jeff in '94 was one of the worst things ever. Jeff never touched him, got passed him, and Rudd just drove right up his ass and turned him right into the wall ON THE STRAIGHTAWAY destroying both cars. And his interview afterwards was totally ridiculous, ranking alongside about 50 Kyle Busch interviews, JJ saying he was just trying to "break the draft" this year at Pocono, Robby Gordon denying he threw that debris out of his window at Atlanta in '06 when video clearly showed it, and Dale saying he didn't mean to wreck Darrell at Richmond in '86. So the question is why did they never do that to Dale? Because he was way above that, in his own league. He got the star treatment. Besides, NASCAR kinda tried to, but failed. In '87 they sent him to the end of the line at the Old Richmond Fairgrounds track (notoriously tough to pass at) for racing Darrell down pit road even though there were no speed limits then. He won the race anyways. Then they gave him a bullshit rough driving penalty at the '93 Coca Cola 600 when he never even touched Greg Sacks. He made his lap up, retook the lead, won, and rubbed NASCAR's face in it afterwards. 174. cjs3872 posted: 10.12.2011 - 2:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sean, Junior Johnson's team was already in decline BEFORE Darrell Waltrip and Neil Bonnett left after 1986. In his first four years driving for Junior, Waltrip either led or was tied for the series lead in victories, but even he struggled in his final two years, struggling to win three races in each of his last two years there, though one was a championship year (1985). And Terry Labonte was never going to be a big winner anyway, as that wasn't his style. Labonte was a conservaitve driver, much like Benny Parsons was, or as Clint Bowyer, and several of the up-and-coming drivers are now (Regan Smith, Landon Cassill, Trevor Bayne, etc.). Terry's style didn't lend itself to win lots of of races like Waltrip (who had become conservative himself by the mid-80s) and Cale Yarborough did in Junior's cars. And Rudd didn't underperform while he was at Hendrick, as they had fallen behind, even losing a team to Darrell Waltrip in 1991, but his personality didn't allow HMS to flourish in those years like it should have. Remember that his lack of team spirit undermined his and Dale Jarrett's efforts at Robert Yates Racing a decade later. 175. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.12.2011 - 3:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Anbody But Jimmie fans, there is hope. He is going to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, so maybe the SI cover jinx will take hold. It definitely cause a jinx with this cover: http://lockerz.com/s/146371107 176. Lordlowe posted: 10.12.2011 - 4:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Speaking of Ricky Rudd I wonder where he is now it seems like he has vanished off the face of the earth 177. Talon64 posted: 10.12.2011 - 4:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I also rank Ricky ahead in longetivity: his first win came in 1983, his last came in 2002. So he had a 19 year span of winning races, only going winless in '99 and '00 during that time. Bobby's first win came in 1995, and his last came in 2003. He had an 8 year span of winning races, never going winless in that time period, but again you have to factor that he was with the same team the whole time while Ricky did a lot of shuffling. Plus his span of winning races in the sport lasted only half as long as Ricky's." That's probably the biggest factor in me agreeing that Rudd's better than Bobby. In fact, Bobby was only 39 when he won his last race at Homestead back in 2003, while Rudd was 45 when he won at Infineon in 2002. 2006, when Bobby was 42 and in his first year with Petty Enterprises, was about the last year that he was still capable of contending for a win (I still remember the Atlanta race where he flew out to a big lead at the start of the race before his engine blew). For Rudd you could argue it as late as 2005 when he was 48 (finished 2nd at Sonoma). On something of a related note, from 1995 to 2004 Bobby Labonte had a 14.4 avg fin, ranking him 7th over that stretch. Since 2005 his average finish has been a lowly 24.2, ranking him 30th. 178. 18fan posted: 10.12.2011 - 6:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) DSFF, another thing that's interesting to me about the 18 team right now is that their qualifying speed is as good as it has been all year and maybe as good as it's ever been since Kyle started driving that car, but their race speed is way off. Charlotte will be the true test of where that team is since Kyle has scored by far more points than anybody else since he joined JGR.(1000 points for him vs. 875 points for second place Kasey Kahne) He also has a top 8 finish in every race he's run at Charlotte for JGR except for this year's Coke 600 after he crashed. 179. Eric posted: 10.12.2011 - 6:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Lordlowe, Ricky Rudd actually is a voter of the Nascar Hall of Fame. Nothing else is known about him since he retired. 180. Talon64 posted: 10.12.2011 - 8:34 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Rankings/Milestones (more of them) after this race: Kasey Kahne's 15th career runner-up finish ties him with Ryan Newman and Speedy Thompson for 49th all time. His 54th career top 5 ties him with Tiny Lund and Curtis Turner for 63rd all time. Matt Kenseth's 110th career top 5 ties him with Rex White for 29th all time. Carl Edwards' 85th career top 5 ties him with Kevin Harvick for 40th all time. Greg Biffle's 122nd career top 10 ties him with Fireball Roberts for 55th all time. His 8th career pole ties him with 5 others for 64th all time, and he moved into 38th all time in career laps led with 4,713. RPM teammates Marcos Ambrose and AJ Allmendinger are now tied in career top 10's with 23 each (T-174th all time). Matt Kenseth moved ahead of Jeff Burton into 28th all time in career laps led with 6,442. 181. cjs3872 posted: 10.12.2011 - 8:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well Eric, Rudd certainly would have a good idea who to vote for, since he's driven against all the greats, dating back to the Pearson-Petty-Yarborough-Allison era, and that includes many of today's top drivers, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Carl Edwards. He seems to be a big fan of Kasey Kahne, as well. So Rudd actually has objectivity when voting for drivers over the last 40 years, and the same goes for car owners, since he drive for the likes of Childress, Hendrick, Kenny Bernstein, Robert Yates, DiGard, Junie Donlavey, and of course, Bud Moore, the sole first car owner in the Hall of Fame. Maybe one reason Rudd drove for so many car owners was because he rubbed them the wrong way. And Sean, he was definately not the best road course racer when he was in his prime. Have you ever heard of a man named Tim Richmond? He was head and shoulders above anyone else when it came to road racing in NASCAR during that period when guys like Rudd, Darrell Waltrip, and Terry Labonte were in their prime. Certainly Rudd was one of the best, but he wasn't the best as long as Tim Richmond was around. After all, Richmond won twice at Riverside for Jim Stacy in 1982. That should say it all right there. Though it was fitting that Rudd's final victory was at a road course, at Sonoma in 2002, though he got that through a huge stroke of luck. He would never have won that race if Jerry Nadeau had not broken a transmission on the next-to-last lap while leading in a Petty Enterprises car. 182. cjs3872 posted: 10.12.2011 - 8:41 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Talon64, I keep a running total of NASCAR's all-time leaders in several statistical categories on a word document. They would be wins (all drivers), pole positions (everyone with 3 are listed, with those with 2 in an auxilary section), starts (top 50 all-time and ties), top 5s (top 50 all-time and ties), top 10s (top 50 all-time and ties), laps led (top 120 all-time plus an auxiliary section for active drivers not in the top 120 all-time), and a page for active drivers (wins, poles, and starts by active drivers with at least 200 career starts, with special scetions for active drivers with one pole, and career starts by active drivers who have not yet reached the 200 mark). All that is done on a five-page document. 183. Sean posted: 10.12.2011 - 9:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I was talking about the 1988-1991 period, when he and Rusty largely dominated the road course races (after Tim Richmond's career ended). I was not trying to argue that he was the best road racer over his entire prime... Obviously, Gordon was the best in the late '90s as well. 184. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.12.2011 - 10:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Within reason of course. I wouldn't make the argument for Robby Gordon as one of the best Cup drivers at any time despite being one of the top road course drivers in his prime because he was usually completely invisible on ovals. I do think Robby had one of the top raw talents at the time, which he never harnessed." I agree. But even Robby has had some good runs at places like AMS (several times), PIR (won a CART race there), NHIS (won his first race there), Darlington (finish 4th in 2004), Richmond (his 2003 finish there is the stuff of legend and won his first N'wide race there). Yes he was basically a back packer on most ovals but if you include plate races (which ovals btw :-P) he was more of a shadow then being invisible. btw finishing top-20 for Robby on an oval i would concider a "good run." 185. Jocke Persson posted: 10.12.2011 - 10:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #182 You don't have to keep doing your word-document thingy, those stats are on this website already. 186. cjs3872 posted: 10.12.2011 - 10:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) In fact, those stats are almost entirely based on info from this website. I also do a "driver performance" chart twice a year for drivers with at least 10 wins. Currently, there are 57 drivers that qualify, and there won;t likely be any more for quite a while, since Jamie McMurray is the closest active driver with six wins, and nobody else has more than four. however, there are differences, most notably in pole positions, which concern the Daytona 500 up to 1971, when drivers got pole positions for two races if he won the Daytona 500 pole from 1964-'71 and one pole if he qualified second, since the qualifying races counted as official races back then. This site does not recognize those extra pole positions, but I do. Sean, I consider the prime of Rudd's career to have been from about 1985-'92, though he did have some very good years after that. And Richmond did race in those years. But you're right about how he and Rusty Wallace both took up the baton from Richmond on the road courses in the late 80s, winning seven consecutive races between them from 1987-'90, though they split them as each one of them denied the other a road course sweep for any one year. And by the way, all of Robby's good oval runs came while driving for Richard Childress, though his lone pole position came in the final race of the original Atlanta layout while driving for SabCo in 1997. Robby's biggest problem was that he is/was as combustible as the man who brought him into big-time auto racing in 1993, with apologies to Junie Donlavey and Chip Ganassi. That man's name, of course, is A.J. Foyt. 187. 00andJoe posted: 10.13.2011 - 12:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Owners' standings by best finishing team car (no Chase): 1. Hendrick, 1234 2. Roush, 1213 3. Gibbs, 1188 4. Childress, 1150 5. Penske, 1143 6. Stewart-Haas, 1058 7. Petty, 971 8. Red Bull 941 9. Earnhardt-Ganassi, 916 10. MWR, 865 11. Furniture Row, 698 12. JTG-Daughtery, 603 13. Front Row, 549 14. Phoenix, 532 15. Baldwin, 426 16. Germain, 415 17. Stoddard, 413 18. TRG, 393 19. Robby Gordon, 303 20. Wood Brothers, 260 21. Gunselman, 166 22. Whitney, 139 23. Parsons, 121 24. NEMCO, 117 25. Inception, 76 26. Leavine, 47 27. Rusty Wallace, 24 28. Falk, 20 29. Curb, 18 30. K-Automotive, 9 188. 00andJoe posted: 10.13.2011 - 1:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I still think Rick Hendrick doesn't want Dale Jr. to win. If he did Dale Jr. would have cars as good as Jimmie and would run in the top 5 week in and out. Rick wants Jimmie to win the championship and won't sacrafice that to help Jr. win." Not Rick, no. Now, if you replace "Rick Hendrick" in the above sentence with "Chad Knaus"... On the subject of the Great Gibbs Meltdown, it's funny (in a sad kind of way) how everyone's been expecting Kyle to melt down in the chase...but it's looking more and more like -Kyle- will be just fine*, but his -team- is melting down around him.... * Until he can't handle the meltdown any more and snaps, which is likely - and, really, will we be able to blame him? 189. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.13.2011 - 3:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And now for this week's (late) update on Denny's run towards history. As we all know, Brian Vickers set the low water mark in the history books in 2009 as he followed up the momentum from his surprising run into the cha$e by averaging a finish of 23.7 throughout the last 10. After 4 races that year, he was right on his history re-writing pace with an average finish of 23.75. Last we left Denny, his average finish was 26th through 3 races. Following a 16th place run here, he is in danger of falling behind the historic curve, as his average finish has risen to 23.5. If he keeps up these mediocre runs and quits having trouble, he will miss his shot at history. But if he misses that bit of history, he can still write his name in the history books. He can become the first person in NASCAR history to finish last in the cha$e twice. If he can hang on to 12th place this year to add to his last place in '07, then we can witness history. This has been a difficult award to win, which would make it all the more historic. Jeremy Mayfield almost made this history in the first two years of the cha$e. He stunk the joint out in '04, and was on a great historic pace in '05, once again taking the incredible momentum of an unlikely run into the cha$e and turning it into a string of bad runs. But Kurt Busch staged one of the greatest, most historic comebacks ever by managing to get himself suspended in the last two races BY HIS OWN TEAM, following up a year of contentious contract squabbling by being incredibly obnoxious to a police officer who pulled him over for speeding. A true piece of history. Of course June also has a chance at the history books this year, possibly adding to his '08 last place finish. 190. 00andJoe posted: 10.13.2011 - 5:02 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Charlotte update: the #60 has withdrawn (again). 191. Talon64 posted: 10.13.2011 - 5:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Talon64, I keep a running total of NASCAR's all-time leaders in several statistical categories on a word document. They would be wins (all drivers), pole positions (everyone with 3 are listed, with those with 2 in an auxilary section), starts (top 50 all-time and ties), top 5s (top 50 all-time and ties), top 10s (top 50 all-time and ties), laps led (top 120 all-time plus an auxiliary section for active drivers not in the top 120 all-time), and a page for active drivers (wins, poles, and starts by active drivers with at least 200 career starts, with special scetions for active drivers with one pole, and career starts by active drivers who have not yet reached the 200 mark). All that is done on a five-page document." Neat. "#182 You don't have to keep doing your word-document thingy, those stats are on this website already." I'd think it'd be easier for him to go to his own record-keeping to look up all time stats than having to look things up on the site. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a procrastinator with a small hint of ADD, so I've got some things I've tried to put together like all the combined loop data for every driver in 2010 that I never finished. I wish the site would compile the loop data for every driver in a season (since loop data was implemented), since I don't know anyplace else that does it. And I'd give the road course nod to Tim Richmond over Ricky Rudd; 5 wins in 16 starts vs. 6 in 55 for Rudd. Richmond's still ranked in the top 10 all time in road course wins (T-7th with Gurney and Darrell Waltrip). Also, Richmond led 315 of the 1420 laps he completed on road courses, 22%. Rudd led 340 of 4760. btw, Bobby Allison is the only driver in Cup to lead over 1000 career laps on the road courses (6 wins). Richard Petty's 2nd with 885 (6), Gurney 3rd with 696 (5), and Jeff Gordon's 4th and the leading active driver with 670 (9). 192. 00andJoe posted: 10.13.2011 - 6:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Charlotte update: appears #75-Cope withdrew. 46 cars to qualify. 193. Red posted: 10.14.2011 - 9:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I've got some things I've tried to put together like all the combined loop data for every driver in 2010 that I never finished." I have the race-by-race Driver Ratings for every full-time driver since 2005 loaded into Excel, so if you ever want that information, just ask! Here are the Driver Ratings thru 30 races in 2011: 1) Ky Busch 107.4 2) Johnson 101.7 3) Edwards 99.8 4) Gordon 98.2 5) Ku Busch 97.7 6) Kenseth 96.9 7) Harvick 92.6 8) Stewart 90.7 9) Hamlin 88.8 10) Newman 88.3 11) Kahne 88.2 12) Keselowski 87.9 13) Bowyer 87.8 14) Biffle 86.5 15) Junior 83.9 16) Truex 81.3 17) Menard 79.0 18) Ragan 78.9 19) Dinger 78.4 20) Montoya 77.9 21) Martin 77.6 22) Burton 76.5 23) Ambrose 76.0 24) Logano 74.6 25) Smith 72.5 26) McMurray 71.8 27) Vickers 69.9 28) Reutimann 67.9 29) Labonte 60.5 The average for the 29 full-time teams is 84.1, just as a frame of reference. 194. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.15.2011 - 5:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Denny Hamlin's 2011 cha$e run indeed reminds me of the stinker that Brian Vickers put up in 2009. Of course Denny can be excused from an off year or two seeing as he has a reputation of winning races, but one can't help but wonder if losing last year's championship has taken its toll on Denny. He self-destructed at Phoenix enough as it is, taking a water bottle that was offered to him after the race and throwing it in frustration. 195. the_man posted: 11.24.2011 - 9:31 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) David Ragan on a 20th place finish: "We made a lot of adjustments throughout the day and at the end of the race we had a top 10 to top-15 car depending on our balance. We just weren't lucky today. We missed getting the lucky dog a couple of times and the chips just didn't fall our way. When you're back there 10th to 20th you need a couple lucky breaks and we just didn't get them. We could have gotten a top 10 out of it, but it just wasn't our day." 196. Robert Nelson posted: 07.13.2012 - 12:49 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) F1 points Kyle Busch 254 Carl Edwards 248 Jimmie Johnson 237 F1 points Chase Brad Keselowski 52 Jimmie Johnson 47 Carl Edwards 43 F1 points real life Chase Tony Stewart 50 Jimmie Johnson 47 Carl Edwards 43 197. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 08.07.2015 - 10:25 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Owner Update #98 Richard Childressv (It was mainly a RCR entry and with no help from Curb beside sponsorship) Austin Dillon will make his Sprint Cup debut later this year at either Kansas in October or Phoenix in November in a car built by his grandfather's Richard Childress Racing. Team co-owner Mike Curb, owner of Curb Records, was a lieutenant governor under Reagan as well as co-chairman of Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. The team for Dillon will get its car from RCR, an engine from Earnhardt Childress Racing and will use Dillon's RCR crew that fields his car in the Camping World Truck Series.(Scene Daily)(3-28-2011) 198. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 08.07.2015 - 10:26 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) *#98 Richard Childress 199. Altracing posted: 12.31.2020 - 8:45 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) First overtime finish at Kansas in the cup series. 200. JSPorts posted: 12.31.2020 - 9:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) There have now been 4 overtime finishes at Kansas: 2011 fall, 2015 fall and both 2019 races. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: