|| *Comments on the 2011 Bank of America 500:* View the most recent comment <#268> | Post a comment <#post> 1. 00andJoe posted: 10.13.2011 - 10:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #46 sponsor: Red Line Oil 2. cjs3872 posted: 10.13.2011 - 11:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Tony Stewart, who by his own admission is a poor qualifier, takes the pole as a battle of notoriously poor qualifiers sweep the front row (though Matt Kenseth has greatly improved his qualifying efforts this year). Though Stewart took the pole, Fords took the next four positions. Hendrick's slow qualifying year (if you don't count the Stewart-Haas cars) continues, though they were slightly better as a group as they have been, with Mark Martin and Dale Eanhradt, Jr. posting runs of 13th and 15th. By the way, Martin and Jimmie Johnson are each trying to become the first-ever four-time winner of this event. Along with Martin and Johnson, Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough have also won this race three times, but no one has ever won it four times. Trevor Bayne posted his best non-RP qualifying run of the year, qualifying tenth. Of course, we know he won't stay there very long, as his goal with the #21 car is just to finish races with the car in one piece, doing so in about 20th-25th position most of the time, with occasional runs in the teens. By the way, he's driving a car painted just like the one that Tiny Lund won the team's first Daytona 500 in 1963 in. hope you saw the car qualify, because you won't see the car hardly at all during the race, unless it's in trouble. Remember that he ran a car with a wild paint job in August at Michigan, but it was never shown even once in the race. his qualifying run was definately the biggest surprise among seven Fords in the top 12, even though the Woods obviously still know how to set up a car for Charlotte after all these years. At least with Bayne qualifying, that means there will be one fewer non-exempt car starting-and parking. Speaking of start-and-parks for this race, I anticipate there will be about six of them, possibly as many as eight if both TRG cars and the #13 car do so. The cars expected, at least by me, to start-and-park, are the number 7, 30, 55, 66, 77, and 87 cars. If I'm right, there will be 37 cars actually attempting to race Saturday night. Also, Jeff Gordon was predictibly disapointing in qualifying 23rd, though that's basically where he practiced. The emotional letdown this team has had since the episode at Richmond is astounding, and apparently continuing. By the way, if you're looking for a darkhorse for this race, look for David Ragan, Joey Logano, or Paul Menard to possibly do well on Saturday nught. 3. BON GORDON posted: 10.13.2011 - 11:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Happy that Stewart won the pole however it just seems like pole winners dont do well especially at Lowes. Man im just hoping for something to go right for Jeff Gordon but so far he hasnt liked his car and said that they were off. Of course! Qualifying wasnt very good for him either. Im fairly sure that Lowes #48 will be leading a lot saturday night, look out for Kahne, Edwards, Kyle Busch, and Keselowski as well. I predicted Jeff Gordon to finish 4th but i think he will need a special strategy for that to happen cause when Jeff is off in qualifying hes probably gonna be off in the race as well. So disappointed with team #24. What a shame. 4. BON GORDON posted: 10.13.2011 - 11:41 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And im not buying that richmond crap either. They brought a conservative setup to Chicagoland and instead of finishing around 13th (which isnt great either) they had to save fuel and still ran out. Jeff hasnt been good at Dover in a couple years and blew an engine at Kansas. Its has nothing to do with Harvick/Menard at Richmond. Gordon needs to be better in the chase PERIOD! Gordons actual finishes in chase: Chicagoland: 24th New Hampshire: 4th Dover: 12th Kansas: 34th Where he shouldve finished: Chicagoland: 13th New Hampshire: 1st Dover: 12th Kansas: 3rd His point standings would be a lot better if luck would go his way one time. 5. AlmirolaFan88 posted: 10.14.2011 - 12:37 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Scott Speed DNQ's for the first time in 11 attempts. 6. potatosalad48 posted: 10.14.2011 - 1:54 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hermie Sadler and Robby Gordon drove completely pink cars in honor of breast cancer awareness month. All the Hendrick cars ran special paint schemes in honor of Chevrolet's 100th anniversary. 7. Spen posted: 10.14.2011 - 3:20 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cjs: With the #60 not being in the field, I fully expect Mears to park this week. The #71 should go the distance. 8. Anonymous posted: 10.14.2011 - 6:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) If I hear someone passing judgment on Trevor Bayne again I will scream bloody murder. You can't rail someone just cause he drives a crapbox. 9. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.14.2011 - 8:54 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hopefully it will be a good night for both the RPM boys. With Ambrose coming off back to back top tens, I'm hoping he'll be able to put together a good run. 10. cjs3872 posted: 10.14.2011 - 12:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The thing is, Anonymous (#8), that the Wood Brothers car would not be able to stay in the top ten, no matter who's driving it. Bayne is actually capable of being more competitve than most in that car in recent years, really since Ricky Rudd drove the car, as he ran in and around the top 15 at Las Vegas early in the year before a speeding penalty got him a lap down. And he's had other flashes in that car on non-RP tracks. In fact, he's suited more to the Cup car than the Nationwide car anyway. It's just that the Woods just want someone that will finish races and Bayne fits that bill perfectly. As conservative as I think Bayne is, at least as far as taking risks on the track, and that's what I judge conservativeness or aggressiveness on, the Woods have always been a far MORE conservative team, going back to the days of David Pearson and Neil Bonnett. Remember that Bill Elliott had far superior qualifying runs in that car than Bayne has had, and he couldn't keep the car in the top 15-20 either. Also, if you're right Spen, that would make it seven start-and-parks, leaving 36 cars to actually race on Saturday night. 11. 00andJoe posted: 10.14.2011 - 12:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Could anyone else who watched qualifying make out what the sponsor on the #37 was? All I could tell was "Aqua (something)". Note to Larry Gunselman and Max Q Motorsports: Silver or white sponsor-name decals on a white car under the lights do NOT work! 12. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.14.2011 - 12:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) What will JJ's points lead be at the end of this race? 13. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.14.2011 - 12:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dollar General announces they will sponsor the #20 Cup car next year for 1/3 of the races. Seriously, could the participants on that team be any less enthusiastic about working with Joey? From JGR and Home Depot openly courting Carl heavily for that ride to Zippy openly pondering a reunion with Tony Stewart over at SHR (which would be great for both IMO), to Home Depot saying "sure, you can have that car for 1/3 of the season". It has been an ugly year. If Joey finally gets it next year, JGR will officially be geniuses for sticking it out with him when just about everyone has been telling them to give it up with him, and Joey will go down as having overcome a mountain of adversity. But if not, people will be lining up to say "I told you so" (I've already pre-ordered my place in that line). How many more beatings can that team take? How much more obvious can it be that it is a situation that isn't working? How much more apathy can be heaped on the team that was seen as a pillar of strength within the past 5 years? They are basically throwing away yet another season. How can 2012 be successful for that team? With that much doubt within its own ranks, it is simply doomed already. Joey can't be driving that car as hard as he can. How could he? If he wrecks, his stock within his own team will fall even further. Plus the success this year of fellow "2009 beakout star" Brad Keselowski has to be weighing on him. Considering Brad's 2010 was worse than any year Joey has had yet only makes it worse. I actually feel bad for Joey. Ever since he was 15, he has been shoved in our faces as the "positively can't miss" rising star by his obnoxious stage Dad, Tom Logano who spent over $1 million making sure Joey never had any competition on the track, by Mark Martin who proclaimed Joey would light the NASCAR world on fire when he turned 18 and would do so earlier if it weren't for the age limit (no pressure kid!), and then by the NASCAR media who wanted to jump on his bandwagon immediately so they could say they have been there the whole time when he inevitably became a Cup superstar. Problem is, that hasn't happened, but now all those other people have too much invested to pull the plug now, even though I have never seen a situation that was screaming "pull the plug, for the love of God, pull the plug NOW!" for as long as this situation has. And you can't blame Joey for going along with the hype. He was a teenager being told how great he was. What teenager wouldn't just eat that up? Best case scenario: a complete house cleaning of the #20 team. Zippy bolts to reunite with Smoke (the same combo that totally psyched out JJ and the 48 team in '05 and damn near caused them to break up before their run ever started) and the longtime #20 crew members get re-assigned. Then he is no longer "Joey sitting in Tony's seat" which is an enormous pressure. This is already one of the saddest stories I have seen that hasn't involved the word "tragedy" and it is only getting worse. 14. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.14.2011 - 1:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Also, rumor has it Steve Addington will leave Penske at the end of the year. Can you blame him? Having to listen to KuBu go on and on every single week about how much of a piece of shit his car is, how bad Steve's adjustments are, how much the pit crew sucks, I would have done knocked his lights out by now. And before these last two years, he had two years with KyBu telling him the same thing. That has to be grating, and it has to be tough to keep a team's spirits up when they know they are going to be blasted all Sunday. That really sucks for Penske. He has been a huge part of their turnaround. Brad has been singing his praises ever since Steve showed up, giving him a lot of credit for the note sharing he did with Paul Wolfe that helped get the #2 team from two steps below mediocre to a championship contender. If he goes, it will be a blow to Penske. And I think this will continue to be a fly in the ointment for Penske and the #2 team. They all need that #22 team to be strong because both teams need each other to be as strong as they can. But Kurt keeps running off crew chiefs. Pat Tryson left two years ago, and it is rumored Addington will do the same. I know in the heat of the moment drivers can be very abrasive over the radio. But Kurt goes WAY over the edge in my opinion. Nobody, not even his brother, is as hateful towards his team. Until he learns to tone it down, that organization may be doomed to wild ups and downs. I know this is ironic considering it was one of thaose hateful rants at the first Richmond race that led to the much needed engineering changes that set Brad's season on fire, but there has to be a line. And Kurt is WAY past that. 15. Eric posted: 10.14.2011 - 1:43 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) cjs3872, You shouldn't blame Jeff Gordon qualifying effort on the the episode at Richmond a first place if you look at Jeff's history at Charlotte Motor Speedway. While Jeff won 5 points races at Charlotte Motor Speedway, he had nights that he was off at Charlotte and he is extremely streaky at that track. He is either or hot cold at that track. Charlotte always been hot or cold track for him if you don't look at his all star race resume at Charlotte. Jeff is currently on his 4 cold streak for points races at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Here is Jeff's cold streaks at Charlotte Motor Speedway for points races: Fall 1994 Charlotte Motor Speedway to fall 1996 - 4 finishes of 28th or worst in that 5 points race stretch. 1999 Coco Cola 600 to fall 2001 - Jeff had a 1 points win, but had 4 points race finishes of 16th or worst that that 6 race stretch. 2004 Coco Cola 600 to 2007 Coco Cola 600 - 6 finishes of 24th or worst in that 7 race stretch. Jeff currently has a 2 race streak of 20th or worse at Charlotte dating back fall of 2010 and appears to be on a cold streak on that track as result. 16. Eric posted: 10.14.2011 - 1:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) cjs3872, I hope you understood why I can't count all star races at Charlotte due to the fact they are exhibition races in a way and don't give points to the driver for the championship. It is very hard to compare any Driver to Jeff Gordon at Charlotte in terms of being that streaky at that place if you don't count all star races there. 17. Eric posted: 10.14.2011 - 2:07 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) In terms of Joey Logano, I don't see him back in the 20 car after 2012. The kid really got rushed and I don't know what happened to him after the end of last year to the start of this season. Cup teams need to take notice what happened to Joey before Casey Atwood version 3.0 happens. 18. cjs3872 posted: 10.14.2011 - 2:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I'm not blaming the qualifying effort that Jeff Gordon had on the episode at Richmond. What I'm saying is that the #24 team has just not been the same in the month since what happened at Richmond. They put so much effort into winning that race, especially after that great win they had at Atlanta, that losing the race at Richmond the way they did, caused a huge letdown, and the team has yet to recover from that, and may not for the rest of the season. And Eric, by "Casey Atwood 3.0", do you mean Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. or Trevor Bayne, do you have in mind other than those two, or is that a generel comment about bringing someone up before they're ready? And by the way, what choice did Gibbs have after Stewart bolted. After all, he couldn't have a repeat of the Jason Leffler disaster of 2005, when Leffler was a catastrophic failure in Gibbs' #11 car. He could not afford a repeat of that for his #20 car. So while Logano hasn't set the world on fire, and has been a slight disappointment, he hasn't been a disaster either. It may be a case of hiring a driver in Logano that may just be too conservative, and doesn't run his car hard enough. 19. Cooper posted: 10.14.2011 - 3:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "13. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.14.11 - 12:56 pm" Maybe, this is the wrong way to look at race car drivers, but I compare them to shares in a stock. A stock will periodically move up, and periodically move down, but will head in a designed direction over time. Much like a stock, there are factors outside a companies range that will affect it. The driver is the stock and the owner is the company. The better a company does financially, the better a stock will do, and that is currently true with JGR and Joseph (Yes, it's time to lose the kid friendly name and use your real name). JGR is currently headed in the downward direction. They've basically scrapped their engine program, the people who won their 3 championships are long gone, and the sport continues to change into a technological series which is not favourable to JGR. This is where I view Joseph Logano as a company and a stock... 2006/2007: The company develops from a small store to a growing chain of stores that gains a lot of followers and customers. Joey dominates lower series with money and rich connections. 2008: The small company is now available on the stock exchange and is the hottest commodity. Joey shows flashes of brilliance in the Nationwide Series and he is the next big thing. STOCK: BUY 2009: The company gets greedy. They open more locations and change their direction, customers become uninterested. Joey moves from the Nationwide Series to the Cup Series with limited experience. STOCK: SELL 2010: The company stabilizes and learns what they're good at it, people come back. Joey benefits from a year of experience and adjusts to the Cup Series. STOCK: BUY 2011: People realize the product sucks and realize their are other competitors better. Joey gets crushed, while other young drivers excel. STOCK: SELL SELL SELL And obviously Home Depot wants out. They want to keep their relationship with JGR, but they don't want "HIM". Basically this is when the coaches son quarterback is awful but no one has the guts to say it. Home Depot should've cut their losses and jumped ship. P.S. Casey Atwood was more talented then Joseph and we seen what happened to him. P.S. Finishing 25th in 2011 is virtually finishing 35th in 2001. P.S. Joseph Logano has already made 30 MORE STARTS than Casey Atwood did. P.S. Since 2009 Joseph has had 4% of the Wins at JGR, 18% of the Top 5's at JGR, and 23% of the Top 10's at JGR. Shakes Head. 20. Anonymous posted: 10.14.2011 - 3:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) cjs3872, What I meant by "Casey Atwood 3.0" is a general statement with young drivers that had success in lower series, but were rushed up to cup due to Hype and flopped as a cup driver as a result. 21. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.14.2011 - 3:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think Joey's tenure in the #20 has been much worse than a "slight disappointment". There are many factors to consider. First off, there is the "Sliced Bread" factor. Everyone expected him to be, at the very least, what Brad K is now. I think people realized he was being pushed too soon and predicted struggles in '09. But 3 years in, he was expected to have long since joined his teammates as week in week out threats. That is a big reason why Home Depot, one of the biggest paying sponsors in NASCAR, went along with this. I kind of touched on my other points. One is the organization factor. Kyle and Denny have been simply brilliant over the past 3 years. Sure they have had their cold spells, like the one Denny is on right now, or Kyle's Summer of Despair in '09, but overall, in the last 3 years, they may have been the 2nd and 3rd most impressive drivers behind JJ. Joey has consistenly lagged WAY behind. Then there is the #20 team factor. Maybe it is a case of bad chemistry, but the fact is that is a 2 time champion team with one of the best crew chiefs. He should have done better by now. The fact that Home Depot, a major presence in NASCAR since 1999 just agreed to give up 1/3 of their season says something. I don't think it is an economic issue either. And then there is the fact that he has simply made no progress. I've been one of the biggest preachers of rookies not being able to make immediate impacts due to the COT which relates to nothing else and the testing ban. He had that impressive run of Top 10s towards the end of last year which made me think "OK, he's got it now". But this season has seen him right back where he was. Granted not everyone will have the instant "0 to 60" development Brad has had since Kurt's Richmond tirade, but we needed to see more by now. That is why I feel it is more than a "slight disappointment". When everyone involved is as unenthusiastic as they are on the #20 right now, once one of the proudest teams of the past 15 years, that is leaning pretty heavily towards "disaster". 22. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.14.2011 - 3:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cooper, that is actually an excellent way of looking at it. Again, I don't put all the blame on Joey. In fact, I don't put most of the blame on Joey. He was just kind of along for the ride while people around him (his Dad, the media, Mark, JGR) turned him into a product that he simply was not (the next big thing). And yes, JGR is definitely in a downturn related to their engine situation and all the fallout from that that I detailed on the Kansas page (btw, yet another reason to sell Logano's stock, he'll be in TRD engines next year). And one thing I'd like to add: At least they didn't let Casey Atwood stick around in Cup and continue to flounder for season after season. Maybe if they had, he would have eventually got it, but he failed to impress immediately at the peak of the "rookies can make an immediate impact era" (Smoke in '99, Kenseth and June in '00, Harvick in '01, JJ and Newman in '02) and was banished from his ride at the end of '01 initially (from a true Evernham car) then at the end of '02 (in the pathetic Jim Smith satellite car) with the "damaged goods" label. I just think the time is now to make some hard decisions about Joey. 23. Talon64 posted: 10.14.2011 - 5:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Tony Stewart won his 13th career pole, 1st of 2011 and 4th for SHR. It's not the first time Tony's started 1st at Charlotte, as he had the pole due to points in the 2002 fall race. The pole comes despite Tony averaging a career-worst 19.7 start coming into this weekend's race (the pole bumps it up to 19.1, still his worst ever). Matt Kenseth starts on the front row for the 4th time this season, his most in a year; he'd only had 9 front row starts prior to this year (400 races), and his 15.7 avg start is his best since 2006. Carl Edwards qualifies in the top 5 for the 11th time this year, and leads the series with a 10.1 avg start. This is AJ Allmendinger's 4th top 5 start of 2011, and his first that isn't 2nd. Greg Biffle has 5 straight top 10 starts. Brad Keselowski's the worst qualifying Chase driver in 26th, his first start outside of the top 20 in the last 13 races (26th back at Daytona). 24. 00andJoe posted: 10.14.2011 - 5:41 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "The fact that Home Depot, a major presence in NASCAR since 1999 just agreed to give up 1/3 of their season says something." I think the folks at the Depot finally cottoned on to what we've been saying here all along: Joey does -not- speak to their market base. -At all.- GameStop is the perfect sponsor for Logano: he's young, he's hip, and he's totally at home on the couch in front of the TV with a game controller in his hand. Heck, I can think of several other companies that would be good fits for him: RadioShack, Pepsi, Domino's Pizza even (you gotta have pizza for gaming, right?). But he's not the do-it-yourself/home-improvement type at all, and even Dollar General is a "force to fit". Carl Edwards, regardless of what you think of him, -is- the Home Depot type. Ditto for Clint Bowyer (it would have profited both JGR and Clint if the former had ditched Joey and waved Home Depot's cash under the latter's nose, as opposed to *gag**choke**wheeze* MWR). But Joey is such a bad fit that Home Depot is willing to surrender the Home Improvement Racing Wars to Lowe's and Menard's without much of a fight... 25. cjs3872 posted: 10.14.2011 - 5:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Thanks for the clarification on "Casey Atwood 3.0", Eric. The reason I consider Joey Logano a "slight" disappointment is that he, #1, had to take over the #20 car about year before he was ready. Again, Joe Gibbs would have like to have waited for one more year, but Stewart's departure, combined with the lack of available talent, gave him no choice but to put Logano in the car a year early, because of what happened with the #11 team in 2005, and the disastrous year with Jason Leffler. Another reason that Logano has been disappointing, especially for long-time fans of the #20 Joe Gibbs car, is that Logano comes off as a very conservative driver, which is the direct opposite of the way his predecessor drove that car. That factor also hinders good results, because he doesn't generally take the chances that Stewart took. He's also a guy that can be pushed around, again inverse of Stewart. nobody took advantage of that #20 car when Stewart was driving it, but just about everyone that wants to can take advantage of the #20 now. Another reason I don't consider Logano a huge disappointment yet is the fact that, quite frankly, the media overhyped him as the next superstar. And sometimes that takes years to happen. A prime example is that of Johnny Rutherford. When he came up in about 1962 or '63, everyone thought Rutherford would be the next superstar. Early on, he proved such hype was warranted, winning one of the Daytona 500 qualifying races for Smokey Yunick, who had an eye for talent. (In fact his qualifying race victory stands to this day as the only one ever in the Cup series for a #13 car.) But then he suffered setbacks. In 1964, he was in the crash that killed Dave MacDonald (who drove a Wood Brothers car painted just like the being run this week in 1963) and Eddie Sachs. Then he got hurt in an infamous crash at Eldora Speedway in 1966 that made the cover of Time Magazine. And although he nearly won the pole for the 1970 Indianapolis 500 driving a car for Pat Patrick, he really didn't become a superstar in racing until McLaren hired him in 1973. In the next eight years, all but one of which was spent driving for McLaren, he won three Indianapolis 500 pole positions, three Indianapolis 500, including being the first to win that race twice from the pole (1976, '80 for Jim Hall), and never finished lower than fourth in the championship standings, including his 1980 championship and three consecutive runner-up finishes from 1974-'76. His final victory in the 1986 Michigan 500 made him the only driver ever to win four different 500-mile IndyCar races. The moral of this story is that superstardom in racing sometimes takes much longer for some than it does others, and maybe Joey Logano is one of those drivers. Sometimes it comes fast, but other times it can takes a decade, or perhaps even longer, if it comes at all. 26. TaterRacing posted: 10.14.2011 - 6:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 25 comments (26 now) and the race isn't until tomorrow night... 27. Cooper posted: 10.14.2011 - 7:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I'm looking forward to the race Saturday. I enjoy Charlotte more than the other 1.5 mile tracks (except Atlanta) and frankly the racing hasn't been that bad lately. Also, being on a Saturday I won't have to flip the channels between NASCAR and Pro Football. On top of that, I have a feeling that the race tomorrow is going to be crazy (Richmond crazy). Maybe other people do as well considering the amount of comments. For the first time in a long time, I feel an excitement within the sport and that will only grow as the season winds down. Sorry for being tough on Jospeh Logano, but I've had to listen to a bunch of obnoxious fans claiming he was the greatest for the last 4 years. My as well get my jabs in now. 28. TheTruthâ?¢ posted: 10.14.2011 - 9:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "If I hear someone passing judgment on Trevor Bayne again I will scream bloody murder. You can't rail someone just cause he drives a crapbox." True, but you can compare how people run driving the same crapboxes that he does.. 29. 00andJoe posted: 10.14.2011 - 10:43 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 1.5 mile track ratings: Atlanta Homestead Charlotte . . . . . . . . Everywhere else 30. cjs3872 posted: 10.14.2011 - 10:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And it looks like he's got a better chance of staying in the #21 than he did a couple of weeks ago, especially if he races the way he did late in the NNS race at Charlotte, going from eighth to third and actually pushing Carl Edwards to the win. And by the way, he did absolutely nothing wrong in that incident with Joey Logano, despite Logano complaining aoubt it, and the way he claims that Bayne has been racing him, and even bringing up the situation with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. After all, this is the same guy (Logano) that said after getting wrecked by Kevin Harvick in an absolutely Earnhardt-esque move at Pocono last year, that Harvick's wife wore the firesuit in the family, so Logano's comments about the way Bayne raced him are at least the second absolutely ridiculous comment he's made about another driver. And by the way, Logano took the air from Bayne's car when Bayne tries to pass him about 15 laps earlier (which was about 25 to go), and Bayne didn't crash. Maybe he wasn't as authoritative about it as Bayne was later, but with nine laps to go, you've got to occasionally make moves you ordinarily wouldn't make, and Bayne made such a move. Logano's comments about the way Bayne raced him were like crying over spilt milk, and I think some of the other veterans may be starting to get tired of Logano's act when something goes wrong. 31. Mr X posted: 10.15.2011 - 12:09 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Most of what needs to be said about Joseph Logano has already been said. DSFF, thats clever comparing drivers to stock, and Joseph really didn't do anything wrong to create the situation he is in. He just took the oppertunities he was given by Tom Logano, and Joe Gibbs, like any of us probably would have. I believe he can drive pretty well, late in 2010 he proved that, he ran in the top 5 on a weekly basis, however I agree that he definetly lacks agression. He's proven that he can run near the front but nothing more. I don't think that its a stretch to say that most of his success in the lower divisions were at least as much car as it was driver. I do think that Joseph has some of it in him but with his current driving style he needs a car light years ahead of the competition, and these days in the NSCS that car doesn't exist. Unless Joey changes his driving style I don't know that there is a team he can win with, because he's not getting the most out of the car. Even if he changed his style, and regained his confidence(which must be shattered at this point) I still don't believe he could be anything more then just another driver. He isn't either of his teammates, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, or Tony Stewart. IMO he would fall in the middle, not the best, better then others. He is 105 races into his career, 106 after this weekend, he had a "win," 14 top 5's, 29 top 10's which is really only decent, but what seals the deal for me regarding to his lack of agression is his pathetic measly 147 total laps led in his career. All this from a driver who was considered to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Many other drivers were already famous and showed similar talent to Logano before they got to the Cup division. Here are some stats for some other talented drivers in their first 105 starts. Jeff Gordon in his first 105 races up to the 1996 Miller 500 in June at Dover. 13 wins, 39 top 5's, 57 top 10's, and a bit more substantial 4420 laps led. Aswell as the 1995 title, holding off none other the Dale Earnhardt. Denny Hamlin in his first 105 races up to the 2008 Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond in September. 4 wins, 29 top 5's, 55 top 10's, and 2048 laps led. Clint Bowyer in his first 105 races up to the 2008 Tums QuikPak 500 at Martinsville in October. 2 wins, 14 top 5's, 43 top 10's, and 651 laps led. Clint most likely won't match these numbers in his next 105 races at MWR. Martin Truex Jr. in his first 105 races up to the 2008 Sharpie 500 at Bristol in August. 1 win, 12 top 5's, 27 top 10's, and 639 laps led. Kyle Busch in his first 105 races up to the 2007 Sylvania 300 at Loudon in September. 4 wins, 26 top 5's, 46 top 10's, and 1228 laps led. Carl Edwards in his first 105 races up to the 2007 Brickyard 400 in July. 5 wins, 29 top 5's, 50 top 10's, and 774 laps led. Kasey Kahne in his first 105 races up to the 2006 Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 at Atlanta in October. 7 wins, 29 top 5's, 39 top 10's, and 1774 laps led. Jamie McMurray in his first 105 races up to the 2005 Sylvania 300 at Loudon in September. 1 win, 19 top 5's, 46 top 10's, and 442 laps led. Greg Biffle in his first 105 races up to the 2005 Sylvania 300 at Loudon in September. 8 wins, 18 top 5's, 30 top 10's, and 1540 laps led. Jimmie Johnson in his first 105 races up to the 2004 Banquet 400 at Kansas in October. 10 wins, 35 top 5's, 58 top 10's, and 2551 laps led. Ryan Newman in his first 105 races up to the 2004 Pop Secret 500 at Fontana in September. 10 wins, 41 top 5's, 57 top 10's, and 2326 laps led. Kevin Harvick in his first 105 races up to the 2003 Pop Secret 400 at Rockingham in November. 4 wins, 21 top 5's, 41 top 10's, and 1110 laps led. Kurt Busch in his first 105 races up to the 2003 Sylvania 300 at Loudon in September. 8 wins, 23 top 5's, 37 top 10's, and 1622 laps led. Matt Kenseth in first 105 races up to the 2002 Protection One 400 at Kansas in September. 5 wins, 19 top 5's, 38 top 10's, and 858 laps led. Dale Earnhardt Jr. in his first 105 races up to the 2002 EA Sports 500 at Talladega in October. 7 wins, 20 top 5's, 33 top 10's, and 2101 laps led. Tony Stewart in his first 105 races up to the 2002 Daytona 500. 12 wins, 39 top 5's, 66 top 10's, and 2904 laps led. All these drivers did at least as good as Joey has done to this point, and most of them weren't driving for a team thats won 2 titles, and over 30 races, with a proven crew chief in Greg Zipadelli. Most of these drivers weren't just 18, however most of these drivers weren't well known before they got here, and if they were they made some noise when they did. 32. 18fan posted: 10.15.2011 - 12:50 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Clint Bowyer will drop to the rear after crashing in Happy Hour and according to jayski Kyle Busch will drop to the rear due to an engine change. 33. 00andJoe posted: 10.15.2011 - 3:53 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Meanwhile, haven't seen this commented on yet: a new team announced at Charlotte, going to be running the #93 for a few races this year and "10-15" next year. Owner is from Argentina, and the driver is...Grant Enfinger. 34. Spen posted: 10.15.2011 - 6:53 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Because those stats got me curious, here's the all-time records for a driver's first 105 races: Most wins: Herb Thomas, 23 Most top 5's: Dick Rathmann, 62 (Dick Hutcherson had 64 in 103 starts) Most top 10's: James Hylton, 81 Most lead laps: Fred Lorenzen, 6809 Incidentally, Logano hasn't quite equaled the laps led total that *Robert Pressley* had at this point of his career. But hey, at least he's had a better start than Michael Waltrip! Then again, it's hard to get much worse than one top five, six top tens, and fifteen lead laps. 35. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Mr X, not to mention that Logano seems to have an attitude problem, which was exposed in his post-race interview. His comments about Trevor Bayne, mentioning his situation and his lack of performance to that of his Roush Racing teammate Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. were totally uncalled for, especially in light of his own under-performance. And he also seems to be making a semi-habit of making Kyle Busch unhappy with him during the race, as he did last night as well. As I've also mentioned, that's the second time he's made snide comments like that about another driver,the other, of course being his "firesuit in the family" comments about the Harvicks at Pocono last year. You just wonder how much more of that Joe Gibbs is willing to take from an under-performing driver, especially about someone who is more like the car owner that Logano is likely ever to be. But this particular situation may underline something more distressing at Joe Gibbs Racing, and that's the lack of leadership ther since Tony Stewart left at the end of the 2008 season. But Logano's comments are likely to make other drivers increasingly unhappy with a driver that is getting a reputation as a primadonna, more than Kyle Busch ever has. At least Busch has credentials. And Logano will likely never have a moment that united the sport, brief as it was, that Bayne had in winning the Daytona 500. After all, that moment brought both Glen Wood and Richard Petty into the same victory lane for the first time, except for the two occasions that Kyle Petty won for the Wood Brothers. Not to mention that virtually every driver came to see Bayne and the Woods in victory lane that day that wasn't out of the race. And those same drivers offered a helping hand to Bayne when he was in the hospital when he battle his illness. When and if Bayne gets his first Nationwide Series win, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the teams lined up to congratulate him, as popular as he's become with the other drivers. I'm not sure, based on his actions over the last 18 months, that Logano would ever get the same treatment from the other drivers. 36. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:26 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I kinda feel bad about somewhat sticking up for Joseph Logano (love it) pointing the finger at others for his struggles. Seems like he is good at that himself. I didn't watch the NWide race, but I found his post race interview online as well as the highlights of his crash (100% his fault) and could only shake my head. I stand by saying he was made out to be something he wasn't (a good driver) by others, but we can see now through a series of incidents including last night that he has a terrible attitude, just your typical spoiled rich kid. "But Logano's comments are likely to make other drivers increasingly unhappy with a driver that is getting a reputation as a primadonna, more than Kyle Busch ever has. At least Busch has credentials." True. But at least Kyle's attitude comes from the fact that he hates losing and is at times unable to show any sportsmanship in the face of a disappointing loss. Joseph's attitude seems to come from purely a sense of entitlement stemming from having everything handed to him on a silver platter his whole racing career, first from the worst NASCAR Dad ever, Tom Logano, and then from JGR giving him equipment light years ahead of everyone else in the lower Series. Since everyone has great equipment in Cup, and since JGR's once untouchable NWide cars have been caught up to and passed by Roush and Penske, he is being exposed, having competition for the first time, and he doesn't like it. It like he is saying "you can't race me, I am Joseph Logano, Sliced Bread, NASCAR's unquestioned next superstar, you should just be happy to be on track with me". Kyle has shown that "just be happy to be on the track with me" attitude in the past, but like you said, he has the credentials. "His comments about Trevor Bayne, mentioning his situation and his lack of performance to that of his Roush Racing teammate Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. were totally uncalled for, especially in light of his own under-performance." Exactly, that is the ultimate irony. As I said, since Joseph's arrival in '09, Kyle and Denny have been the 2nd and 3rd best drivers overall during that stretch behind only future legend currently in his prime JJ. Yet while those two have been battling to be the sport's top driver, Joseph has been battling for 20th in points with drivers from teams with much lesser equipment like RPM and MWR. He has no room to talk about underachieving in reference to your teammates at all. He is the poster child for that. He isn't even close. "He is 105 races into his career, 106 after this weekend, he had a "win," 14 top 5's, 29 top 10's which is really only decent, but what seals the deal for me regarding to his lack of agression is his pathetic measly 147 total laps led in his career." That is the thing, he hasn't really come close to a true win. He is WAY behind. He hasn't caught up to his talented teammates the way Brad has with Kurt. That shows what he should be doing at this point in his career. But he simply doesn't have it in him. "Joseph really didn't do anything wrong to create the situation he is in. He just took the oppertunities he was given by Tom Logano, and Joe Gibbs, like any of us probably would have." And I agree. I still blame those two entities a lot (and give some blame to Mark Martin for building him up so much when he was just 15 years old) for focusing more on what he could bring to them instead of taking an objective look at what he truly was. A driver that is not Cup caliber. BTW, the stocks idea was Cooper's, not mine. He gets the credit for that. "And by the way, he did absolutely nothing wrong in that incident with Joey Logano" Absolutely. That is hard racing in the last few laps. The way Joseph feels he should have just rolled over for him is ridiculous. He needs to realize that, although he did win the Daytona 500, Trevor is still an NWide driver. I hate Cup guys who expect the NWide guys to just be happy they are in the Cup guy's personal exhibition, and applaud the NWide guys who race them hard and are unapologetic about it (although I was already on Brad's bandwagon since mid '07, him refusing to roll over for Denny at this track in the '08 NWide race, refusing to be pushed around, then being totally unapologetic about it afterwards pretty much sealed it for me as his fan). Joseph needs to just go back to the Late Model races where his rich Daddy can give him cars way ahead of his competition's and he can go back to being untouched. "I think some of the other veterans may be starting to get tired of Logano's act when something goes wrong." Actually, they have been tired of it. That is a big reason Harvick dumped him twice last year, and Biffle has taken delight in roughing Joseph up. Newman also was very displeased when Joseph spun him out, then complained Ryan was racing him too hard. Overall, Joseph really needs to spend the off season taking a hard look at himself heading into 2012. It is amazing he has made it this far in that car (yet another sign of the bone dry talent pipeline into NASCAR) and he has really damaged it. He needs to change his attitude. He needs to realize he is not special, he just happened to born into a wealthy family. He is not the greatest thing since sliced bread, and the people in NASCAR owe him NOTHING. He needs to put his nose to the grindstone and do some work out there. And he needs to realize that, if it doesn't work out, he will go down as having the most lopsided hype to results ratio ever in NASCAR. 37. Spen posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:39 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The good news for him is, he can't hold that title for very long. Once Danica's in Cup, we'll see how far the hype/results ratio can *really* be stretched. 38. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I'm looking forward to the race Saturday." Me too. Hell, when it looked like Brad might have one of the cars to beat in practice, I seriously considered finding some cheap tickets and going tonight to CMS for the first time in over 5 years, since the '06 Coke 600. When that race was over, and I awoke from my coma, I swore off going back until the racing improved (that was the first race with the new pavement after the Levigation disaster and the 5 and 1/2 hour '05 Coke 600 which I was also at). The thought of going back and watching good racing and Brad doing well really intrigued me. But since Brad said on Twitter he is a little unsure about his car, it could go either way, I'll stay put and await Martinsville (watch Brad win tonight and me kick my own ass). "For the first time in a long time, I feel an excitement within the sport and that will only grow as the season winds down." Same here. At this point in the last few years I have just wanted it to end. But now there is a lot of excitement surrounding it. I'm sure for me personally a ton of this has to do with Brad's rise to stardom after me openly wondering if he would ever even finish in the Top 20 in points as recently as 5 months ago. Even a seemingly inevitable 6th straight title for JJ hasn't dampened my spirits. It's just nice to see so many contenders. We've had a parity this year that we haven't seen in a long time. Seven different organizations have at least one driver, most more than one, that could win any week. HMS (JJ, Gordon), Roush (Kenseth, Carl, Biff), Penske (Brad, KuBu), JGR (KyBu), RCR (Harvick), and even the folding Red Bull team (Kasey). Throw in the totally unpredictable nature of these races and the tons of surprise winners we have had, and there is a lot to look forward to. "Also, being on a Saturday I won't have to flip the channels between NASCAR and Pro Football." I know what you mean. For me, flipping back and forth between watching the race and watching the Panthers lose has been kinda tough. "according to jayski Kyle Busch will drop to the rear due to an engine change." Jeez. Never thought I'd say this, but I kinda feel bad for Kyle. JGR could not have picked a worst time to shelf their engine program and devote a lot of their attention towards the next season when Kyle still has an outside shot at the Cup. The team has really let him down in this cha$e. Now watch him show his ass and make me regret saying that. 39. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:49 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Once Danica's in Cup, we'll see how far the hype/results ratio can *really* be stretched." True, but then again, I don't think anyone is expecting her to post really good results. They just expect her to show up, be involved in racy commercials, and maybe not totally embarrass herself on track. With Joseph, people really expected him to be a bonafied contender. That was his hype, that was gonna take the sport over. But Danica will definitely shatter the attention vs actually being a threat on track ratio that June has held for the past 4 years. 40. Cooper posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:31 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) So who's going to step up to the plate tonight and cement themselves as a contender? Edwards? Harvick? Nobody? If Jimmie walks onto his home turf, and delivers another ass kicking with basically no resistance I'll be disappointed. These teams can't allow Jimmie to build more momentum. Even if it's lap 10, you can't let him pass you. You need to race the #48 hard every lap. Show them that you're not going to fold. Force the #48 to make a mistake. That's the only way to defeat that juggernaut. The problem is, who is aggressive enough to take on a 5-time champion? Hopefully we'll find out tonight. 41. 00andJoe posted: 10.15.2011 - 1:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "And he needs to realize that, if it doesn't work out, he will go down as having the most lopsided hype to results ratio ever in NASCAR." More lopsided than Kenny Irwin's? 42. bigbender posted: 10.15.2011 - 1:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well Johnson can be taken out all they need to do is just put him into the wall 43. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 2:12 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) No DSFF, the reason that Harvick dumped him twice last year, and that Biffle roughed him up was that they believed Logano was soft and could be pushed around. In fact, Harvick has dumped Bayne twice this year, and possibly for the same reason. Definaltely the incident betweenthsoe two in the NNS race at Loudon was a case of intimidation. The second one, which was at Richmond, may have been a case of payback. Actually, getting roughed up by Harvick is much like getting roughed up by his predecessor, Dale Earnhardt, Sr. was, and that would be a badge of honor. The post-race incident between Logano and ryan Newman may have been another sign of immaturity, but Newman saying that Logano raced him too hard is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, because I can't think of five drivers in the Cup series that race harder on every lap than Newman does. And there are rumors that even Greg Zipadelli, Logano's crew chief may want to leave the only crew chief job he has ever had. And doesn't it seem strange that most of the guys that Logano has had problems with have won the Daytona 500? Harvick, Newman, and now Trevor Bayne. And Greg Biffle nearly won that event last year. After all, while Logano seems to have a positive spirit, there has always seemed to be something fishy about him, while Harvick, Biffle, and Newman have never been accused of being "Mr. Personality" (Newman probably being the closest of the three). On the other hand, Bayne seems to be the second coming of Benny Parsons, both on the track, and away from it as well, as his personality off the track reminds me of Parsons just as much as the way he races on the track. Parsons was a guy that anybody who raced against him could trust as much as anyone else they raced against, as Benny was a fair racer, but one that couuld race hard when the situation demanded it. Just ask Darrell Waltrip about the 1980 World 600 at Charlotte for the prime example of this. He thought he had that race in the bag, but Parsons, not known for racing aggressively, battled Waltrip tooth-and-nail, and eventually, it was Parsons that came out the winner, denying Waltrip a third consecutive 600 win. It would be 25 years before anyone (Jimmie Johnson) would actually win NASCAR's longest race three consecutive times (2003-'05). 44. 18fan posted: 10.15.2011 - 3:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I thought Joey said Ryan was racing Joey too hard, not the other way around. 45. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 3:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) No 18fan, if I remember right, Ryan was complaining that Joey was racing him too hard. After all, it was Newman that spun out in that incident at Michigan last year. But again, Ryan Newman complaining that anyone is racing him too hard is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, because nobody in my opinion over the last decade has raced others harder on every lap than Newman has, not even Kyle Busch. 46. TheTruthâ?¢ posted: 10.15.2011 - 5:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) It actually was Joey complaining of Ryan racing too hard. Joey spun him out, and then instead of manning up and apologizing for it, he went to Newman to complain about how hard he races, at which point Newman got on the defense for obvious reasons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY9xx5IpFmk Joey's interview is 1:00 in 47. Watto posted: 10.15.2011 - 5:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "On the other hand, Bayne seems to be the second coming of Benny Parsons, both on the track, and away from it as well, as his personality off the track reminds me of Parsons just as much as the way he races on the track. Parsons was a guy that anybody who raced against him could trust as much as anyone else they raced against, as Benny was a fair racer, but one that couuld race hard when the situation demanded it." I don't consider Trevor Bayne to be a driver that people could really trust in hard racing situations. Benny is very different from my vantage point. 48. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.15.2011 - 6:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) If you ask me, I think Brad Keselowski was completely ready for the Cup Series by the time 2009 ended. After all, running only a part-time schedule that year for HMS, he won Talladega and finished 7th at tough Darlington. Penske's insist on sticking with engineering for their setups until post-Richmond 2011, and Brad's team not being able to gain any progress until then plays a BIG part in his struggles at first with Penske. I find it pretty hard to believe a driver can just improve from running 20th to running in the top 5 every week overnight. Although he qualified 26th, I have a good feeling about Brad tonight judging from practice. As for Joey Logano, I agree, he is running out of time. Despite showing improvement for some time, he never really made it stick the way Brad K has this year. His comment last night about Trevor Bayne lagging compared to Ricky Stenhouse was totally ridiculous, especially since he himself is lagging BADLY behind Kyle and Denny in CUP, and not to mention, Trevor has only made a handful of Cup starts and in my mind, has a much more legitimate win than Joey. I think he just feels entitled, just like every other rich kid snob you meet at school, work, etc. 49. LordLowe posted: 10.15.2011 - 6:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Wonder what is going to happen tonight here at charlotte 50. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The most exciting studio in sports? Ugh. They can't be serious. 51. bigbender posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think they are DSFF I think they are 52. TeamPlayersBlue posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:16 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Wow, people actually watch the ESPN/ABC pre race show? 53. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Usually I don't, but I have nothing better to do until the race. I just can't believe Rusty is so bad on TV. I thought he would be a slam dunk. 54. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Not to mention, RCRandPenskeGuy, that Bayne's victory was in the Daytona 500 for the legendary Wood Brothers. And Watto, I compare Bayne to Parsons, not just because of their knack of getting to the finish of races, and he, like Parsons, is not likely to win very many of them, but also their personality off the track seem to me to be similar. You can't completely trust ANYONE in a late-race situation anyway, but Bayne to me, seems to be more trustworthy than most, especially among the younger set. After all, he could have gone three wide on the final restart with the run he had, and might have made it, but that would have risked a big wreck, so he decided to push Carl Edwards to the win instead. To me, NOT pushing the issue there, even though it would've been with a teammate, is intelligent racing. Sometimes, a driver must make the decision not to go, even when they want to go, as hard a decision as that is, especially with five laps to go in a race, especially if that driver has not yet won in the series, and is feeling the pressure to. 55. bigbender posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Rusty hasn't been a slam dunk on commentary he has been a major flop 56. Watto posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Sometimes, a driver must make the decision not to go, even when they want to go, as hard a decision as that is, especially with five laps to go in a race, especially if that driver has not yet won in the series, and is feeling the pressure to." I totally agree. You don't fair too well poking your nose into holes that tend to close up quick. Gotta know when to back out :) 57. Cooper posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) That was the longest National Anthem in the history of the world. Had to be at least 4 minutes long. My God... 58. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well, if nothing else, Trevor gives a good invocation. That national anthem was too long though. Reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons at that minor league game. 59. bigbender posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) alright lets go racing now 60. Cooper posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Invocation was good. Trevor has that "Cool Religious" vibe, not the "I carry my bible everywhere" vibe. The engine command is getting out of control. Just stand up to the mic and deliver. No need to thank the next door neighbor. Let's go Racing! 61. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Anybody else's picture getting choppy every now and then? 62. Lordlowe posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) no not mine 63. Lordlowe posted: 10.15.2011 - 7:59 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) okay now I am getting frustrated 64. Mr X posted: 10.15.2011 - 8:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Trevor Bayne's car looks awesome, if only they had chosen this weekend to tribute Ned Jarrett on the 6 car. 65. stone cold posted: 10.15.2011 - 8:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) hello anyone home 66. Anonymous posted: 10.15.2011 - 8:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Chase contenders about to be put a lap down, here comes a debris caution. 67. Spen posted: 10.15.2011 - 8:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sara Evans just got knocked off from my list of decent singers. I'm getting extremely sick of singers treating the national anthem as if it were an American Idol audition. 68. bigbender posted: 10.15.2011 - 8:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) just knock jimmie johnson out of the race 69. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 8:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Never been glad to see one of NASCAR's bullshit cautions. Seriously, Brad needs to pick it up. 70. 00andJoe posted: 10.15.2011 - 8:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The first caution was legit. The fans, however, are idiots. Looked like a crushed soda can square in the middle of the groove in turn 1. >=( 71. Cooper posted: 10.15.2011 - 8:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I'm glad these races are 500 miles long, because Brad will need every single mile to get a good finish tonight. But this is why I like long races, it gives the drivers and teams some time to make adjustments. Just remember the most important rule this year... "When in doubt, STAY OUT!" 72. Anonymous posted: 10.15.2011 - 8:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "63. 00andJoe" I wouldn't really call that "square in the groove", it was down on the inside BEFORE the entry of turn 1, below the painted white (lane marking) lines. You don't ever see a car down there, because to make a proper entry to the corner, they're right out at the wall before turning in. 73. bigbender posted: 10.15.2011 - 9:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Its kenseth out in front bestwick not harvick you dummy 74. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 9:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Alright Brad and Paul, you won't get many more lucky breaks. Get it fixed now. 75. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.15.2011 - 9:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Go Marcos! Having a great race so far and they haven't even mentioned him yet! 76. 00andJoe posted: 10.15.2011 - 9:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I wouldn't really call that "square in the groove", it was down on the inside BEFORE the entry of turn 1, below the painted white (lane marking) lines." Yes, but still well up above the -yellow- line, and well in-play. Verdict: good. Debris Cautions Watch: 1. LEGIT - hunk of metal (soda can?) turn 1 2. ????? 3. LEGIT - spray of metal (three cars bouncing off each other) turn 4 77. Cooper posted: 10.15.2011 - 9:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "73. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.11 - 9:13 pm" Doesn't look good...So disappointing. 78. jabber1990 posted: 10.15.2011 - 9:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I heard a lady sing the national anthem today, she had a voice but she stretched out EVERY vowel I tried to watch like 30 or so laps of the race, while my friends watched My Little Pony, I actually watched that instead of the race, plus there were like 3 commerical breaks in 22 minutes 79. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.15.2011 - 9:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) So Brad hasn't run good at all tonight? So far this night has been pretty disappointing, then. Just now tuned in to the race, and Brad's running 22nd. Hopefully Paul has something up his sleeve strategy-wise so Brad can get up front and make it stick. 80. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.15.2011 - 9:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) BTW, shout out to Trevor Bayne (another favorite of mine). He's running pretty good tonight for the Woods. 81. OldSchoolNascarDude posted: 10.15.2011 - 9:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The tire situation tonight is very similar to the conditions that were in the Kentucky race from earlier this season. 82. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And now his good run comes to an end... 83. Red posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) In nearly 15 years of watching NASCAR, this is the first time I've ever turned a race off before the finish. The combination of rock hard tires, aero-sensitive cars, and racing at night is producing one of the most boring races I've ever seen in my life. Every car is running the same speed, there's no side-by-side racing, and track position is EVERYTHING. Just pathetic. 84. Mr X posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This to me is just another night race that shouldn't be. Maybe if this race were in hot sunny conditions the groove wouldv'e expanded off the bottom. The tire is slowing down, however everyone is running around the bottom, and thusly nobody can pass. If there are 43 cars on the track, every crew chief could ask their driver how tight the car was on a scale of 0 to 42. The leader will say 0, 2nd place will say 1, 3rd will say 2, and so on. I don't know how NASCAR can feel good about putting on these kinds of races all the time. Wouldn't surprise me at all to see a fuel mileage win tonight. Just like Kentucky and Las Vegas. 85. Mr X posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) That was quite a dumb thing for Andy Petree to say, he said that Kasey Kahne runs well in night races at Charlotte. Every race since 2003 has happened at night at Charlotte, and Kasey's rookie year was 2004. Other then that the broadcast is fine, not that they have anything to talk about. Nothing is happening. 86. hurkadurka posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Really Mr. X? That's just a little nitpicky man. Oh no, he added the word night when all of them finish at night now! Some of these Charlotte races that Kasey has run in have started in the day, anyway. Noting that he runs well at night here isn't all that dumb. We know what he meant. 87. jabber1990 posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) question, the 2002 bank of america 500, was that race meant to be run at night? or did it just happpen to be that way I ask because I noticed that every race since then has been ran at night did the success cause it to change to night? 88. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) jabber1990, the 2002 Fall race was rain-delayed, which is why it finished at night. It was supposed to be run during the day. 89. Cooper posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The 2002 race in which Jamie McMurray won, had been delayed by rain I believe. It was supposed to be a day race. 90. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Damn am I glad I stayed home! This has been very disappointing. Can't race here. 91. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:34 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Caution for THAT? In the middle of green flag stops? You've got to be joking. 92. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And how the hell can Greg Biffle be getting the free pass when Ambrose is in front of him? 93. Cooper posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) What was the caution for? I changed the channel for a minute and comeback to see my driver getting screwed over for a second time because of a damn caution... Stop short pitting Paul! 94. Red posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "This to me is just another night race that shouldn't be. Maybe if this race were in hot sunny conditions the groove wouldv'e expanded off the bottom." That's exactly what I think. If the cars were sliding around on a slick track, we wouldn't have same problems with aero-push and guys could actually race side-by-side. The races at Chicago and Kansas were far better, almost certainly because they were run during the day. I don't think any races should be run at night other than the short tracks and the Firecracker 400, since handling doesn't matter at Daytona anyway. 95. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) It's probably good that I haven't seen a lot of this race, because it hasn't been good from the parts that I have seen. Also, KyBusch and Kenseth have pretty much stayed where they are the whole time I've been watching (1-2), with Kahne not trailing far behind. 96. Mr X posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) So where was the clean up crew for whatever fluid Dave Blaney was apparently dropping? 97. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think it's hilarious that they're putting 100% of the blame onto David Ragan for that. "96. Mr X posted: 10.15.11 - 10:42 pm So where was the clean up crew for whatever fluid Dave Blaney was apparently dropping?" I highly doubt that there was any fluid at all. If there is a small oil leak dripping onto the exhaust manifold, it will burn the oil creating the smoke that we saw from the back of the car, but there won't actually be any fluid dropped on the racetrack whatsoever. I've only been saying this for how long now? NASCAR has an itchy trigger finger over that caution button and half the time they don't wait to see if a caution is really necessary (for example, when a car gets sideways and then recovers, but they've already thrown the caution). 98. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) That's David Ragan for ya. Jeff Gordon is wrong, that wasn't his fault. What an awful race. 99. TeamPlayersBlue posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Seems ESPN has ordered a blackout of the 9 Team and Marcos Ambrose, running top 10 all night yet have hardly ever seen him on the screen. And Why did Biffle get the Lucky Dog when he was behind Ambrose? 100. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Remember my point in an earlier post about knowing when NOT to make a move, as I mentioned in regards to Trevor Bayne NOT forcing the issue on Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch in the final restart in the Nationwide race. Well, David Ragan on the lap 292 restart showed exactly what I was talking about. He made the same move that Bayne didn't make, and it cost himself, along with Jeff Gordon, and Kasey Kahne. Another REALLY dumb move by Ragan, and it involved two other lead lap cars, one of which is IN THE CHASE. hopefully, Roush now reailzes this and puts either Bayne or Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. in that car to finish the season, but we know that will never happen. Remember that the Nationwide Series has the next TWO weekends off. If this was not proof that Roush needs to cut bait with Ragan, I don't know what is. Not to mention that Trevor Bayne gave the Wood brothers their best run at Charlotte in about 20 years. If not for faulty pitwork, Bayne might very well have at least contended for the victory in this race. Bayne is now showing everyone just why Roush hired him, as I predicted last Christmas that Bayne would be the next driver of the #6 car next year, not realizing the sponsorship problems that Roush would have. 101. 18fan posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yeah, David Ragan proves again why his time is up at Roush definitely and maybe in Cup for good. 102. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cooper, that caution that set up the incident with the 4,6,and 24 cars was for potential oil from the #36 car. 103. TeamPlayersBlue posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Good god I hope the 2013 car produces better racing at intermediate tracks, NASCAR has become the DTM of Oval Racing. 104. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I would like to clarify my earlier post: Ragan certainly was the major contributing factor to that incident, but Jeff Gordon was running way too low for a 3-wide situation. It's possible that he wasn't aware that the #6 was down there and so drove as if it was only 2-wide. He isn't to blame for the crash, but as he said when he came over the radio, perhaps he mightn't have been involved if he was to be running a more appropriate line. 105. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 10:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And TeamPlayersBlue, the reason the #9 has not been seen is very simple. He's not in the Chase. It's as simple as that. I didn't see very much of the #21 car of Trevor Bayne either, and that's a shame, because until he had his fuel problem, Banye was unquestionably the story of the race to me, given how storied a tradition the Wood Brothers have had, as well as it being so long since they've been a legitimate contender at Charlotte. 106. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well, that's going to make the points chase a bit more interesting. 107. LordLowe posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS 108. Schroeder51 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) I just saw the most beautiful sight I ever saw in my life. I sure hope Jimmie wrecks a few more times after this! 109. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jimmie Johnson just crashed in the second turn trying to get by Newman. Is his bid for a sixth consecutive title now over? 110. DaleJrFan20 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I rarely wish for someone to wreck... ...this felt good... 111. Chase Miller posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Man, I think he hit harder than me. Ouch. 112. Schroeder51 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) ...Probably not, but we can hope right? 113. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Schroeder51, that's a totally idiotic comment you just made. You should never, never want someone to crash, especially a head-on crash like this, because you never know what kind of injuries he might have. as it is, he's shaken up a bit, so he might have suffered at least a minor concussion. 114. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:07 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) CJS, despite being down in the points, I still thought he would win the title this year. After tonight? I'm not quite as confident... Also, Marcos Ambrose was the fastest car on the track the previous green flag stop and will be restarting on the outside of the second row. Come on Marcos! 115. 18fan posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Matt has the best car right now, so I think he's in good shape if he can clear Kyle on the restart. 116. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Good thing for JJ this is the post Earnhardt era. 11 years ago? That would have been fatal. 117. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Best three cars are #17, #18 and #9, although we haven't really been able to see what the #4 has. I think he's too far back in the pack to make an impact. 118. TeamPlayersBlue posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Ambrose winning would be the only thing that saves this race. I hate Johnson, but I certainly dont like watching people cheer at potentially serious head on crashes. 119. Bronco posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 116, now 117 comments before the race results are out, wow. 120. Schroeder51 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I apologize, I didn't mean for that come out so malevolent-my bad. I should have thought before I typed that. 121. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:16 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) How is Brad 16th? Junk all night and pitted too early twice. 122. Cooper posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I've seen many crashes like Jimmie's that were career and/or life ending. I'm glad the sport is so much safer. If Jimmie Johnson a 5-Time champion can't make a clean pass because of the aerodynamics then changes HAVE to be made. This is ridiculous. 123. Schroeder51 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Wow, I feel like a disgraceful person now. 124. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "116, now 117 comments before the race results are out, wow." LOL, this has to be a record. I don't think we've ever had this many posts on a race before the checkered flag flew. Brad K 16th? That will actually be a good finish for him if he holds on, considering all he's gone through tonight. It'll be nice to see Kenseth win even though he's not in mathematical title contention. 125. 18fan posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) At least the best car at the end of the race went to victory lane. Congrats to Matt and the 17 team. I was very impressed with Kyle and the #18 team for coming from last to 2nd and showing flashes of what they were earlier in the season. I was expecting a mediocre run tonight but they ran great and, most importantly, the pit crew performed solidly tonight. 126. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Matt Kenseth showed just why I picked him to win the championship before the Chase began, as I believed that he would not make any mistakes, while others would either make mistakes or drive each oter too hard. Though my picks for second (Johnson) and third (Gordon) look absolutely terrible. 127. Schroeder51 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hey DaleSrFan, I think Denny Hamlin is going to miss his shot at history altogether. I think it looks like he might finish ahead of Jeff Gordon. 128. jabber1990 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) was Kyle crying at the end of the race? 129. Spen posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:30 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yay for Matt! While I may hate "clean air rules", it does make it very satisfying when someone actually does make a green flag pass for the lead. I think we can safely rule out Jimmie, Kurt, Brad and Tony. Matt's my best hope. Though it will all come down to whoever gets through 'Dega. 130. Spen posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) By the way, does anyone know who won the "celebrity all-star race"? 131. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) My mistake, I thought Matt was further behind in points than he is. He truly does race quietly and efficiently (although he was also one of my championship picks, if you read the comments on the Chicagoland page). Denny Hamlin actually had a good finish tonight. If he has too many decent races, he could indeed be in danger of losing his shot to tie Jeremy Mayfield's '04 and Brian Vickers' '09 cha$e seasons, but the highest he'll finish is 11th, in my opinion. Jeff Gordon has just had poor luck and might fall to 12th if he keeps having bad days. 132. Bronco posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "If Jimmie Johnson a 5-Time champion can't make a clean pass because of the aerodynamics then changes HAVE to be made. This is ridiculous." Cooper, its got nothing to do with aerodynamics. Looking at the replay, Jimmie had the car saved, but at the last second corrected to the right and shot him up into the wall. He should have let the car spin itself out away from the racing groove, kinda how Brad did in the NW yesterday, although Brad was already slowed down some and wasn't battling for position. Jimmie has made some pretty incredible saves over the years so I'm shocked that he couldn't catch this one. In fact, he spun in this very same race last year and kept it to the inside and finished 3rd that night. 133. Jarrett88fan posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) One minute after the #48 car slammed the turn two wall I thought of this: Cue the (moronic, know nothing about NASCAR) sports writers writing off Jimmie Johnson's championship chances (AGAIN!!!!) this season. It is quite possible that in five weeks, said pundits, writers, etc. will eat crow yet again... This race had terrible areo sensitive racing conditions tonight. 134. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Helluva job by Matt, Jimmy, and the Killer Bees (I don't care what color their uniforms are) tonight. I hope he can win the title. I am happy for Matt winning, but sad for NASCAR as a whole. Just a horrible race. 135. 00andJoe posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) *sees all the comments about the race being boring* ...huh, I actually thought it was pretty good - all the way through... Also just one word about Jimmie: OUCH. He looked fit as a fiddle coming out of the care center, but the truth of the tale will be getting out of bed tomorrow morning. 136. cjs3872 posted: 10.15.2011 - 11:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) By the way, for people who remember the history of the sport, how great was it to see the #21 and #43 cars racing with both of them competitively running up front, at least in the top ten, as brief as it was. (And the #21 outran the #43 until Bayne had his fuel problem). If that didn't bring back memories of the good old days, especially with how well the #21 ran, I'm not sure what would. With the #21 entered at Talladega at this moment, wouldn't it be something it Bayne and Allmendinger got hooked up in a two-car draft, and both of them wound up front, or if it happened during next year's Daytona 500, if Bayne's still driving the #21 car. That really would be a story for those that remember the old days, when the #43, driven by Richard Petty, and the #21, driven by guys like Cale Yarborough, A.J. Foyt, Neil Bonnett, Donnie Allison, and most notably, David Pearson, battled for victories. Let's remember that, until this year's Daytona 500, the Wood Brothers' #21 car last won at Bristol in the spring of 2001. Who finished second? The #43 car, of course, with John Andretti at the wheel. By the way, Bayne passed Allmendinger at that time by using the air from the front of his car to get Allmendinger loose. 137. 18fan posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:01 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The clean air issue in my opinion is the only reason Kyle led Matt for so long. Matt was clearly faster on the run before the final pit stops but couldn't get by Kyle and finally did get by on the last run by making Kyle try to take his line away and Matt just drove underneath him and took the lead. I had a really strong feeling that Matt would win when he just drove around the outside of Carl. Great drives by both Matt and Kyle. With Kyle starting last and qualifying 25th before going to the back, I didn't have a lot of confidence going into the race but this run was good. They weren't as good as any of the Roush cars and it seemed to me, although I could be wrong on this, that the Roush cars seemed to be slightly faster in a straight line than everybody else. 138. Eric posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:03 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jimmie Johnson is a lucky driver after tonight's crash in terms of having safety barriers and a hand and neck restraint device. I said that because of what I remembered at being at the Milwaukee Mile on the day former Busch series driver Jeff Krogh suffered a head injury that left him in a coma for a month from final practice crash back in 1999. What I saw the Milwaukee Mile at the time in 1999 was true as other NASCAR races at NASCAR tracks at the time for cup, Nationwide, and truck series in terms of no safer barriers at race tracks, and no head and neck restraints. 139. 1995z71 posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:05 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) What a BORING race. Dale Jarrett has one of the hardest jobs in the world, spending 4 hours talking about this boring crap of races lately. Talladega better be good! 140. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:10 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) 18fan, what makes you think that Kenseth wasn't just waiting for the right time to pounce. Kenseth races a lot like David Pearson did. He will wait and wait and wait until you give him an opportunity, and he won't make mistakes either. I think that Kenseth could have run Busch harder when they were battling for the lead, if he really wanted to, but he decided to wait until the time was right to make his move. In the year that the Wood Brothers returned to some sense of prominence in the sport, and in their best run at Charlotte in about 20 years before fuel problems dropped them to a 31st place finish (Bayne ran much better in this race than Stenhouse did in the 600 in May, but just didn't get the finish he deserved), it's fitting that today's answer to David Pearson, the Woods' most identifiable driver, won the race in the same fashion that Pearson got many of his 105 victories. Not by charging, but but simply waiting out his competition, and when Kenseth decided the time was right to make his move, he made it, and did so quite easily, and went on from there to victory. 141. 18fan posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I don't deny that Matt might have been waiting around, but in a race like this that at that point had seen few cautions, that was a little more dangerous of a tactic than normally. Matt did have the luxury of the best pit crew in the business to fall back on. I'm not going into conspiracies or whether or not the debris cautions were legit, but at least twice a caution came out in the middle of a green-flag pit stop sequence. 142. potatosalad48 posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:34 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Man the hit by Johnson is the hardest hit I've ever seen him take, even worse than the one in the Busch car at Watkins Glen in 2000. Glad he's ok. 143. Bronco posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:35 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jamie McMurray won this race last year after starting 27th. This year he finished where he started, 2 laps down. Best finish of the season for JJ Yeley. First time Kahne has three straight top 5s since California-Las Vegas-Atlanta in 2006. All HMS cars except the #48 were awful today. The #5 has a wheel hub issue, the #24 was off and got taken out, the #88 has a loose LR wheel and the #48 crashed. Kyle leads the most laps in this race for the second straight year but still has to settle for 2nd. Things are looking good for Carl to win the championship. I feel a lot better about his chances at Talladega next weekend since has improved a ton at the RP tracks since he flipped into the fence in 2009. Martinsville is cause for concern, and Phoenix is a wildcard, but he should be solid at Texas and Homestead. He is currently riding 8 consecutive top 10 finishes. Thank goodness Talladega is next week. And hopefully we will see a race like we did last year rather than 2x2 crap. 144. 18fan posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:36 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The penalty for loose lug nuts was Greg Biffle's 15th penalty of the season. I think it would've been an in-house battle for the win between Kenseth and Biffle without Biffle's penalty. 145. 00andJoe posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:39 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I'm not going into conspiracies or whether or not the debris cautions were legit, but at least twice a caution came out in the middle of a green-flag pit stop sequence. " First time: car stopped on track. Second time: car blowing an engine with oil probably on track. 146. 18fan posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I forgot that the only times the green flag stops were interrupted by cautions were Bayne's stopped car and Blaney's blown engine. For some reason I thought a debris caution came out during a green-flag pit stop sequence. 147. 00andJoe posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) #16 sponsor: 3M "Give Kids A Smile" (missing start quote) #66 sponsor: We'll Never Forget You Teddy 148. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:48 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) And Bronco, if it is like last year at Talladega, there may only be 10-15 cars that finish the race, minus rolling wrecks, because I think there will be about 25-30 cars involved in wrecks, at least. Personally, I prefer the two-by-two style of drafting, because I think it's much safer, because the field spreads out, and there's little to no blocking. And about the lack of vision, that's been a problem for many years, dating back probably to the mid-1990s. If you remember the Firecracker 400 this past July, it was a safe race until the end, when most of the field got caught up in wrecks, which happened when most of the field was in one bunch. When the field was spread out, the racing was sane. The only problem I have at the restrictor plate tracks these days is the ungodly slow qualifying speeds, and NASCAR can change that by simply allowing the teams to run a larger plate during qualifying, which would allow them to run speeds that would be more in line with what they'll run in the race. As it is now, you may see them run as much as 20 MPH faster i nthe race than in qualifications. 149. Eric posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:56 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) It was not great race at all if you want to see passing. Kyle Busch did a lot of passing on the track and Matt Kenseth for the lead, but this was an aero push night for racing. My take on the 12 drivers for Talladega. Edwards: very good night for Carl at Charlotte. Talladega is a challenge for him based on his record here. a top 10 is good finish for him here like he did in the spring race here. Harvick: great finish for him. Talladega is a place where he can gain ground on Edwards. Kenseth: Won tonight, but Talladega is going to be a challenge for him. since 2007, Matt hasn't had a top 10 finish there and only 3 top 20 finishes at Talladega in that time frame. Kyle Busch: great race tonight, but Talladega is not a good track for him despite having a win there. A top 10 at Talladega is a must for keeping him close to the point leaders. It really depends on who Kyle drafts with because of what happened to him in the spring with his drafting partner causing him to crash. Stewart: good finish despite his bad luck tonight in terms of pitting when the cautions comes out. Talladega is a good track him before 2009. Since 2009 Tony has 5 Talladega races without a top 10 and he needs to break that streak. Brad: him and Kurt were off tonight and don't know how brad got a 16th place finish. Talladega is a track where Brad could gain some ground since Talladega is a good track for him in his young cup career. If Brad gets in a wreck at Talladega, his championship hopes are gone. Kurt: not a great night and luck to get a 13th place finish. Talladega is a good track for Kurt despite the fact he is stronger at Daytona. Kurt could gain some ground next week, but is in the same spot as Brad for not able to afford a bad finish at Talladega. The problem is would someone want to draft with Kurt because Kurt in the spring at Talladega was not good at drafting and happened again at Daytona for the July race in terms of wrecking the drivers he drafts with. Jimmie Johnson - hard hit, but he isn't out of the chance. Jimmie is traditionally finishes better the fall race at Talladega than the spring race although that is impossible this year since he got a win at Talladega this year. Jimmie could gain some ground in points at Talladega. There hasn't been a driver that did the Talladega sweep on the cup side since Jeff Gordon in 2007. If Jimmie and Dale Jr. work together at Talladega, Jimmie could get a sweep there. Dale Jr: no chance for the championship this year even if he wins at Talladega. He is capable of drafting a chase driver into a win at Talladega. Ryan: no chance at the championship and hasn't finish well at Talladega for the last 3 race there. Jeff Gordon: bo chance at the championship. He may a play factor at Talladega for what driver could the race there based on the fact he is very good there. Denny Hamlin: no chance for the championship. Denny is okay at Talladega, but I don't know about he playing a big role in terms of a drafting at Talladega in terms of getting a driver a win. 150. JP88 posted: 10.16.2011 - 1:01 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) wow...couldn't believe when Johnson wrecked...I thought for sure he was gonna save it. It was nuts cause he had bad breaks all day till the last caution and I was thinking "He's gonna sneak into like a 6th place finish." It just seems like Jimmie is driving too hard this time because the competition caught up. I'm happy he wrecked (wish it wasn't a bad wreck) but I'm glad he's okay as well. 151. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 1:02 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Eric, I think Martinsville is going to be a MUCH bigger challenge for the Roush cars than Talladega is likely to be. Remember that Roush generally puts next-to-no effort into his short track program, so Martinsville is going to be about damage control, tough the same can be said about Kyle Busch there. If Jimmie Johnson is going to make a miracle comeback, it will have to take place at Martinsville, just like it did in 2006. Kevin Harvick may now be the man to beat for the championship, and bring the title back to RCR, where it was basically at home when Dale Earnhardt, Sr. was his driver. And wouldn't that be fitting to end the 10th anniversary season of Earnhardt's death. I'm starting to wonder if the outcome hasn't already been decreed, and if Earnhardt, Sr., from wherever he is, isn't playing a role in Harvick's run to the championship in what was once the #3 car. 152. 18fan posted: 10.16.2011 - 1:05 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Watch for Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin to possibly work together at Talladega. Newman led the most laps in both Daytona races this year with Hamlin as his drafting partner. 153. Anonymous posted: 10.16.2011 - 1:17 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sweet Bleeding Gums Murphy and his 27 minute National Anthem refernece from DSFF. That was only the first stanza, imagine if they'd done all four stanzas. For those who don't know, the Star-Spangled Banner is a poem and has 4 stanzas, but the first one is the only one that is ever performed. 154. Mr X posted: 10.16.2011 - 2:41 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I never saw any fluid or clean up happen after Blaney's engine issues leading me to believe that was NASCAR looking for a reason to bring out the caution. I'm amazed at the reason for Kyle Busch's engine change, stripped head studs, thats brutal, and shouldn't happen if the block, head, and studs were prepped properly. I've never heard of it happening before. Interesting parts failure, and talk about a cheap part screwing up a weekend. 155. LordLowe posted: 10.16.2011 - 3:24 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) One word to describe this race BORING 156. 00andJoe posted: 10.16.2011 - 4:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I never saw any fluid or clean up happen after Blaney's engine issues leading me to believe that was NASCAR looking for a reason to bring out the caution." They don't know there's no fluid until they check. If there's no fluid, no reason to roll the Servicemaster trucks. I'm sure Kasey Kahne would agree better safe than sorry... 157. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:47 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) " If there's no fluid, no reason to roll the Servicemaster trucks." And therefore, no reason to throw a caution. 158. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 7:17 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) But Mr X and M535i, if NASCAR even thinks there might be oil on the track from a blown engine, they MUST throw the caution flag, and as it turned out, there was quite a bit of sta-dry on the backstretch on the restart. However 00andJoe, that had nothing to do with the incident that occurred on the following restart. The reason for that incident was the most idiotic move I've seen on a racetrack in many years when David Ragan foolishly tried a three wide move on Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon, who happen to be two of the most respected drivers in the garage area, one of which (Gordon) is a bonified legend. That's what caused that crash. Again, Ragan could've learned from what Trevor Bayne did (or didn't do) with five laps to go in the Nationwide race the night before. He had a chance to make the exact same move, but chose not to, and while he settled for third as a result instead of possibly winning his first Nationwide race, there were also no wrecked race cars as a result. But then, as another poster said, this IS David Ragan we're talking about. And by the way, Ragan darn near spun out Tony Stewart when Greg Biffle crashed shortly after the incident with Kahne and Gordon. If he hadn't got on the brakes, he would have spun Stewart out at that time and maybe caused a bigger wreck. Roush needs to get Ragan out of the #6 car after Talladega (he seems to be dependable there) and put Stenhouse in at Martinsville to get some Cup experience there (he can't be any worse than Ragan), then put Bayne in the car when the Wood Brothers don't run. After all, the one thing being with the Wood Brothers seems to have taught Bayne is race craft, something Ragan still apparently needs to learn after five years in Cup. 159. Evan posted: 10.16.2011 - 9:59 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) * 2nd win for Kenseth not with DeWalt or with Crown Royal ever since they signed. * 1st top 5 for Marcos Ambrose on an oval. * 1st start for Hermie Sadler since 2003. * worst finish for Jimmie Johnson and he needs a lot to go right now in the Chase for him to win now. 160. NicoRosbergFan posted: 10.16.2011 - 10:25 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) First oval top 5 Ambrose? Look again. See 2011 Vegas and 2009 Fall Bristol Evan. Ambrose has more than 1. 161. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.16.2011 - 10:27 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Lol. Bleeding Gums Murphy. "The bombs bursting, shooting up, popping way up in the air!" Dega is going to be interesting as it relates to the title. Harvick and RCR are always there at the end of those deals. But Kenseth has worked well with David Ragan in this 2x2 style (unforunately Bronco, it sounds like these new rules will have very little impact on the tandem drafting, but I hope I'm wrong) so if David can keep his head on straight (a big question mark) he might not lose too much to the 29. The tandem of Carl and Biff is also a question mark. They could win or wreck each other very easily. Matt and Carl need to put all focus on just finishing Dega. Then comes Martinsville which also plays right into Harvick's wheelhouse. Roush really sucks there. Carl and Matt usually run like crap, then take advantage of the late race craziness to get Top 10s. But they both ran well at Loudon, usually another Roush throwaway. So Harvick seems poised over the next two races, they line up great for him, especially compared to his competition. He needs to strike. With 2 of the last 3 at intermediates, he needs a big lead to win it all (and make me puke). But despite all this, I really like Kenseth for the title. I think he can get good finishes the next two weeks, then strike at his strengths like he did tonight. He has the steadiest hand, the best crew chief of the Top 4, and an incredible chemistry. He drives his own car and doesn't worry about others. And Kyle has shown me a lot from a personality standpoint, not throwing in the towel despite the disappointing first 4 races. Just think there is too much organization turmoil for that team though. But he certainly has the talent if they can minimize distractions. With the last 4 races being Truck companion races, that isn't a good sign. And I am not counting JJ out. First off, I am glad he is alive. That wreck, slinding down towards the apron, hitting it while still correcting to the right, and shooting hard into the outside wall at the dreaded 1 o clock angle hard was Earnhardt in '01 all over again. It gave me chilling flashbacks. It is a tall order to pass that manny people in points, but I put nothing past them. Until Homestead ends and somebody else is holding the trophy, they are factors in my book. As for Brad, he needs a great run at Dega. If not, then the glass slipper breaks. Considering his runs at plate races with Penske, that will be tough. But I still have hope. For at least one more week. 162. Ryan posted: 10.16.2011 - 10:47 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Johnson has survived a few bad crashes like that in his career now. The one at Watkins Glen and now this one... 163. Bronco posted: 10.16.2011 - 11:14 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "* 1st top 5 for Marcos Ambrose on an oval." Hardly, he finished top 5 at the spring Dover race this year, the fall Richmond race last year, and had another one in the Talladega race where Carl flipped into the fence. This is in addition to those mentioned by NRF. Marcos Ambrose has 3 straight top 10s going for him now, which is a career high. "* 1st start for Hermie Sadler since 2003." Lol, he has made plenty of Cup starts since then, including one last year. I don't think Kenseth will survive Talladega next week if past history is any indication. He hasn't had a top 10 finish there since 2006, and although he isn't a bad drafter, he usually just gets shuffled out or wrecked near the end. I'm hoping that Dale Jr doesn't work with Jimmie next week at Talladega, since we all know how they're going to position themselves with 10 to go regardless of who's faster. Also Jimmie just wants to hang out at the back for the first 170 laps and the charge to the front, while Dale is a guy that wants to run up front and lead as much as possible. Much rather see a Jr and Gordon tandem - the best two RP racers in NASCAR drafting together and going for the win, due to the fact they're out of the hunt this year. 164. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.16.2011 - 11:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "The one at Watkins Glen and now this one... " The important thing is that both times the wall gave when he hit it. At the Glen he hit those styrofoam blocks (and sprayed them all over upstate NY) plus had the flimsy barrier behind it give. Same deal in this race. That slow motion replay really shows how much those SAFER walls give. Plus the HANS and seat construction helped a ton this time. If only they had those at the outset of 2001. That was an identical crash to Dale's. Of course he is as much to blame as anyone, he was so stubborn about safety advancements. 165. Bronco posted: 10.16.2011 - 11:44 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) What I said about Matt after Chicago is coming true. That last lap penalty for receiving assistance is going to haunt him whether he wins the championship or not. If it weren't for the penalty, he would be leading the standings now. I like really like the fact that Jimmie didn't have a points lead entering this race like in year's past, resulting in him having to race harder for every position which ended up forcing him into a mistake. 166. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 11:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well remember DSFF, that at Talladega earlier this year that Biffle actually worked with Trevor Bayne, helping Bayne lead five laps, until Bayne had a bad pit stop (which happens frequently due to his low-budget team, it happened again last night), which ended up getting him in a wreck. Ragan and Bayne also worked well together in the Daytona 500, so if the #21 car is entered, which I think it is, he may be a fly in the ointment as to which roush car works with whom, or who would work with Bayne, a single-car team. After all what got him wrecked in the Firecracker was that nobody would work with him, since he had no teammate. and you are right that Biffle and Edwards just don't seem to draft well with each other. Remember the fall race at Talladega in 2008? Not to mention this year's Firecracker. And as for Jimmie Johnson hanging in the back of the pack. Remember that in last year's fall race at Talladega, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson were running 24th and 25th late in the race, and moved from there to first and second in just two laps. The thing is that with no Hendrick cars apparently capable of winning the championship this year, unless something dramatically happens to aid Johnson in the next two weeks, there may be an effort to get either Dale Earnhardt, Jr. or Mark Martin to victory lane among the Hendrick crowd. Especially Martin, since this next week's race at Talladega is probably the last race that Martin will ever have a chance to win. Remember that there was a plan to help Martin win at Daytona in July, but circumstances prevented that from happening. And Bronco, I don't seriously think that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will EVER help Jeff Gordon to win a race there. The built-in rivalry between the two, which started with Gordon and Dale, Sr. would prevent that from ever happening. He would help any other driver in the race, no matter what car or team he's driving for, before he would help Gordon. That, I think is a safe asssumption. Dale, Jr. could never make himself do that. He'd rather help a Gibbs or Roush car win than help Gordon win. 167. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) By the way, I'm hearing that David Ragan might be in the #71 car next year, which is a ride more befitting his skill and judgement level (except for plate races, where he is one of the better drivers), so we may be hearing the last of Ragan as a driver in top-level equipment. Having said that, having a driver like David Ragan and a team like TRG Motorsports running a blue #71 is an absolute insult to Dave Marcis, one of the most underrated drivers in the history of the sport. Marcis never had much, but he helped Rod Osterlind's team become the team with which Dale Earnhardt won his first championship in 1980, from the time the team transitioned from Roger Penske's Mercurys in 1977 to Osterlund's GM cars in 1978. (When Penske sold his team to Osterlund after 1977, both Marcis and the car #2 went with the sale.) When Marcis was with a top-level team, he was as competitve as anybody (remember not only his time with Penske/Osterlund, but also his two years with Nord Krauskopf's #71 K&K Insurance Dodge), so having the mistake-prone Ragan, and he never made a bigger blunder than the one he made last night, and a laughing stock of a team like TRG Motorsports possibly running a blue #71 next year, is a disgrace. For the record, TRG has been running the blue #71 car this year. 168. NazRacePhan posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Thank you Jimmie for posing on the SI cover... the jinx CONTINUES!!!!! ;op 169. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 12:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cooper, as for the command to start engines, I totally agree. What these people who are giving the command need to do, is to look back at the Indianapolis 500 races of the 1960s and '70s, because nobody has, or ever will, give the command to start engines quite like the man who made that phrase famous. I speak, of course, of the legendary Tony Hulman, who by the way, made a surprise trip to the Daytona 500 in 1976, so he got to, on one occasion, see NASCAR's biggest race in person, and he couldn't have picked a better year to go. Hulman, as most every race fan knows, died late in 1977 from cancer. And when Janet Guthrie qualified for the Indianapolis 500 in 1977, everyone wondered what Hulman would say. He said "Lady, and Gentleman, Start Your Engines", so kept the phrase "Gentleman, Start Your Engines" in there, despite the fact there was a woman in the field at Indy that year. By the way, although Hulman popularized that phrase, he was not the first to utter that phrase to start a race, which he did for the first time in 1955. That distinction belongs to three-time Indy winner Wilbur Shaw, who was the man behind Hulman's purchase of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in December of 1945. Hulman, upon purchasing the track from Eddie Rickenbacker, made Shaw the speedway president, and it was Shaw who first uttered that phrase to start the 1946 Indianapolis 500. And DSFF, it would not have been the first time that Bayne gave the invocation. He also did gave the invocation at the spring race at Bristol earlier this year. Actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea to let him and Joe Gibbs alternate doing so most of the time. Who knows, one of them (Bayne) might one day drive for the other one (Gibbs). 170. Mr X posted: 10.16.2011 - 2:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I occasionally agree with playing it safe by throwing a caution but generally the spotters can tell when there is oil on the track, its a streak, you can see it on tv most of the time. Blaney had a mild top end engine failure. With top end valvetrain failures any oil leaks are only minor and the oil is almost always burned away with the hot exhaust before it even gets to the ground. Blaney had minor engine problems, got his car on the appron like the drivers should, put up some thin smoke and likely zero oil. When the bottom end falls out of it or the engine fails in some catastophic way, throwing a rod through the oil pan for example, the all the engine interals, oil included end up on the track. I know NASCAR has got it wrong before(Casey Mears in Dover in June of '04) but Casey spent multiple laps dropping oil, and blind muel could've done a better job of calling that race then NASCAR did, the 600 miler the week prior took only 5 minutes longer to complete then a 400 miler. To me Dave Blaney's engine issue was just NASCAR looking for a caution, if I'm wrong I'll admit it. And this is the second week in a row when a potentially bullshit caution has created more issues on the restart. 171. 00andJoe posted: 10.16.2011 - 2:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "However 00andJoe, that had nothing to do with the incident that occurred on the following restart." Hm? Oh. I was referring to Kahne (I think it was?) getting caught out on a "no-caution oil slick" at Dover a few years back with that comment, not last night's wreck. 172. 00andJoe posted: 10.16.2011 - 2:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Oh, also, query to the Webmaster: Will the results of the Better Half Dash be posted on the site? 173. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 2:59 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Okay, 00andJoe, I was mistaken. What you mentioned was exactly why the caution had to be thrown. Not just Kasey Kahne's accident at Dover while leading (and there were four other cars that also crashed in that incident), or the incident late in the 1980 Southern 500 between David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt, Sr., and Benny Parsons when they all hit an oil slick (from Frank Warren's blown engine, I believe) that led to Terry Labonte's first of two wins in that event. Even Swede Savage's horrific crash in the 1973 Indianapolis 500 was caused when he got in oil from Johnny Rutherford's car (Rutherford had been black flagged for dropping fluid just before Savage crashed, which was most likely oil), though there are some that say the rear wing broke, which would also have cause such a crash. But I misinterpreted what you were talking about when you were talking about Kahne crashing due to oil. I thought you were referring to last night's race. I knew he and four others had crashed in oil at Dover in 2004. And there have been many more examples of drivers crashing in oil. but that's why NASCAR had to throw the caution when Blaney's engine blew, even if there was no oil on the track. If they even suspect there might be oil on the track, the caution flag MUST be thrown. 174. webmaster posted: 10.16.2011 - 3:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Oh, also, query to the Webmaster: Will the results of the Better Half Dash be posted on the site?" Probably tomorrow. 175. Anonymous posted: 10.16.2011 - 4:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "After all what got him wrecked in the Firecracker was that nobody would work with him, since he had no teammate" What got him wrecked in that one was the #2 car getting him out of shape on lap 5. "And Bronco, I don't seriously think that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will EVER help Jeff Gordon to win a race there. The built-in rivalry between the two, which started with Gordon and Dale, Sr. would prevent that from ever happening. He would help any other driver in the race, no matter what car or team he's driving for, before he would help Gordon. That, I think is a safe asssumption. Dale, Jr. could never make himself do that. He'd rather help a Gibbs or Roush car win than help Gordon win." Lol, hardly. How has there been any kind of rivalry between them in the last four years? I don't know how on Earth you can say that Dale Jr wouldn't want Gordon to win over another team's car. "He also did gave the invocation at the spring race at Bristol earlier this year." He did the pledge of allegiance at Bristol, which is different from the invocation I believe. The big question mark next weekend will be the #15 car of Waltrip and who he works with. He has been a sleeper the last couple of RP races although his finishes don't necessarily reflect that. 176. LordLowe posted: 10.16.2011 - 4:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hey anyone see indycar's version of the big one at Las Vegas 177. New 14&88 Fan posted: 10.16.2011 - 4:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) ^Unfortunately yes, everyone needs to pray for Dan Wheldon. 178. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 4:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I then stand corrected on what Bayne did at Bristol before the race. Well, it looks like IndyCar racing has had it's version of the crash that occurred at the 1973 Winston 500 at Talladega. The crash at Talladega that day, which involoved two participants in that year's Indianapolis 500, Bobby Allison and Gordon Johncock, won won the Indy 500 that year, was among other things, a byproduct of a starting field much too large. 60 cars started that race at Talladega that day, where they had previously started 50. 34 cars started the race at Las Vegas, one more than what starts the Indianapolis 500, despite the fact that the track at Las Vegas is one mile shorter. I still think they could start more than 33 at Indy, remembering that the Indy track, due to it's configuration, spreads the field out almost instantly. But the field at Las Vegas was still thightly packed, and unlike when a huge crash occurs at a NASCAR race, where cars are crashing into each oter at the same speed, which is why you rarely, if ever, get any injuries in a huge NASCAR crash, cars were crashing at different speeds. You also had the fact that watching a replay of the crash, I saw at least four cars get airborne, due to the fact that they're open wheel cars. Except for the Geoff Bodine crash in the first NASCAR Truck race at Daytona in 2000, I can't recall in modern times anyone getting seriously hurt in a multi-car NASCAR crash (since the modern restrictor plate era began in 1988) of about that many cars or more. They've been fretting about this kind of crash in IndyCar racing for many on these banked ovals for many years. They had a bad one in Atlanta in about 2000 (I forget the exact year), but even that pales in comparison to what happened. And it's ironic that J.R. Hildebrand appeared to be the most shaken, given the events at Indy that will forever connect him and Dan Wheldon. It's a double shame, since Wheldon was to rejoin Andretti's team next year. It looks like Danica Patrick chose the right time to leave IndyCar racing. And remember that Dario Franchitti tried NASCAR in 2008, in part because of the safer cars NASCAR has, something that Jackie Stewart, who in my mind is the greatest safety advocate in the history of the sport, pointed out numerous times way back in the 1970s. Stewart always said that, if he was in a major crash, that he would rather be in a NASCAR vehicle than any other type of racing car. And he said that in about 1976. And it's just as true today, if not more true than ever. Let's hope for the best, but according to the early reports, it doesn't look good for Wheldon. 179. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.16.2011 - 5:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I'll be the unique and different poster here: I actually like the two-car tandems. Sure, a pack of cars can't race together because of it, but that alone doesn't always equate to an exciting event (see '09 Fall Dega race, although NASCAR played a helping hand in that abomination). 180. Eric posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) It is confirmed that Dan Wheldon is dead. He was a great oval Indy driver. R.I.P. 181. Bronco posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:07 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Marty Reid has just announced Dan's death. 1978-2011 RIP Paul Dana, Greg Moore, Gonzalo Rodriguez, Jeff Krosnoff, Scott Brayton, Jovy Marcelo. They shouldn't even be doing the 5 lap tribute. 182. New 14&88 Fan posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The officals' hearts are in the right place with the five lap tribute, but the best thing to do is just let the drivers go home to their families. Just five months ago we were all shocked and happy for Dan winning the Indy 500 and now we've lost... R.I.P Dan Wheldon and condolences to his family 183. Schroeder51 posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I had the horrible misfortune of watching that race...I feel like some kind of monster what said on here earlier, wow. Don't know what to say. My thoughts go out to the Wheldon family. 184. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This is beyond sad to hear. RIP Dan Wheldon 185. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) So sad. I was just flipping through channels looking for a football game and saw everyone sitting in the pits crying. When I heard it was Dan Wheldon and he had died, I just got that familiar sting of sadness that I knew all too well as a NASCAR fan from 1993 through 2001. May God be with his family and friends. Just 33. God bless you Dan. Personally, I like this 5 lap tribute, I am watching it right now. And it makes JJ's wreck in this race all the more sobering. 186. . posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This is a terribly sad day for the racing world. My thoughts go out to the Wheldon family. RIP Dan Wheldon 187. 00andJoe posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) :( 188. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:57 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Now everybody knows why I've made the comment that nobody should ever root for anyone to crash in a race, for just this reason. And I knew that the situtation was dire when I saw the reaction of the drivers when they were being interviewed. I didn't see the accident live, as I was watching NFL Red Zone, though I was planning to check back for updates on the race. That's how I learned that something had happened. Immediately after checking in, I learned that ABC was scrolling thropugh a list of drivers involved in a crash, then a second list of drivers. when I heard the reaction that J.R. Hildebrand had when he saw Wheldon, I knew that it was dIre, and the sad irony involved there. Ironically, Hildebrand himself is in the hospital at last report. It's just like the story that Ken Schrader told when he saw Dale, Sr. after the last lap crash in the 2001 Daytona 500, and how he turned white as a ghost when he saw Earnhardt, so he knew before anyone else did how dire that situation was. But why ABC ever showed a replay of that crash without knowing the condition of the drivers involved is beyond me, even though they did so just to find out what caused the crash and why it happened. (Legendary racing journalist Brock Yates has recalled a similar situation where ABC showed replays of Don McTavish's fatal accident during the 1969 Permatex 300, the day before the Daytona 500 that year, though it was seen on tape-delay on ABC's Wide World of Sports with Bill Flemming and Chris Ecnonmaki on the call.) And I also wonder what Danica Patrick's reaction is going to be next March when she goes there to run in the Nationwide event for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. After all, I remember, I believe it was A.J. Foyt telling the story about how the first few times he exited turn four in the 1964 Indianapolis 500 after the accident that killed both Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald, and that he wouldn't forget exactly where that accident happened. So obviously, everyone's thoughts, rightly so, is with the Wheldon family, and I wonder what the reaction at Talladega will be like, especially Roger Penske's and Chip Ganassi's, who'll each have two cars in that race. After all, Penske's seen more than his share of tragedy in racing (Revson, Donohue, Greg Moore, who was to drive for Roger in 2000, among numerous others). And Tony Renna was killed in a testing accident while shaking down one of Ganassi's cars in 2003, so it's happened to Chip as well. And I hope that IndyCar retires the number 77, because that's been a bad luck number for most who have driven it. After all, that was Salt Walther's number in 1973 when he had his horrific accident at Indy. And several other drivers have had horrific accidents in car #77 in IndyCar competition as well. And with most of the NASCAR drivers having been friends with Wheldon, as well as numerous other IndyCar drivers, the reaction there, though not as sad as it is in the IndyCar community, will be very sad indeed. And Wheldon sadly becomes, to my knowledge, the first Indianapolis 500 winner since Mark Donohue in 1975 to die in a racing crash. And that occurred on the same day that Tiny Lund had his fatal accident at Talladega, though Donohue survived two more days after his crash. 189. LordLowe posted: 10.16.2011 - 6:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) RIP Dan Wheldon you were taken from us way to soon. Godspeed buddy 190. 00andJoe posted: 10.16.2011 - 7:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) It didn't even take driver reactions for me to know the news was going to be bad - when it takes two hours to say so much as a peep about their condition, you know the news isn't going to be good, alas. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a number of drivers retire, and don't blame them one bit. 191. 12345Dude posted: 10.16.2011 - 7:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I have so much I want to talk about. My dad told me the race was on Sunday. So I missed the race. I'll have to wait till next week, (to start posting on here a lot). I just heard that Dan Wheldon died. I don't really know what to say. I'm at a loss of words. RIP. I know that Dale Earnhardt died 10 years ago. And the man that replaced him (Kevin Harvick) could win the title 10 years after his death. It's just Kevin is such a douch, and a jerk. If he did have any control over it, I would like to see Jeff Burton or Clint Boyer win the title. I don't know just my 2 cents. 192. Cooper posted: 10.16.2011 - 8:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hopefully the NASCAR sanctioning body will allow for a moment of silence at Talladega. The racing community is intertwined all over the world, and we should tribute every driver no matter the series. These drivers are unsung heroes in the sports world. They are the most mentally tough and mentally talented than any other athlete. It's just unfortunate that the sports world only gives the drivers their due in the time of tragedy. 193. DaleSrFanForever posted: 10.16.2011 - 8:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Heartbreaking. I didn't tune until right after they made the announcement, but from what I'm reading it played out a lot like Dale's wreck. The "uh-oh, this might be bad" moment when your heart starts to sink, the shaken driver interview when it sinks even more, when you start trying to convince yourself everything will be ok but deep down you know it isn't, the wait that seems like an eternity with no news, the time in which, as it turns out, they are notifying all the family privately so they don't have to learn their loved one has passed on TV or the Internet, then the kick to the chest. The announcement. The moment you have tried to brace yourself for, but it was no use. I just feel sick for the Indy Car community and fans. Having lived this moment as a NASCAR fan more times than I care to remember (I should have said since 1991, I was watching the race at The Glen when JD McDuffie died, I was only 7 but I still remember it) I don't wish it on anyone. Whether it is finding out they had died in an aviation wreck (Kulwicki, Davey) an untelevised practice (Adam, Irwin), or having to actually watch it then wait it out (JD, Dale) it just hurts. And I hate knowing many people are feeling that right now. I don't know a whole lot about Indy Racing, but I knew Dan Wheldon's name. I knew he was a Series champion and a 2 time Indy 500 winner. I got to watch him win it this year (I was in Charlotte in '05) and although I was feeling bad for JR, I felt happy for Dan after watching his interview when he broke down talking about his good fortune to win that race in face of many adversities such as not having a full time ride (this probably isn't the place for editorial comments, but how was that possible?) and his mother's condition. I can see this is something that is already uniting the motorsports world. It takes a special person to do that, as well as the common bond of living through tragedies in a manner that only race car drivers can truly understand. Dan, you will be missed. And I am praying for his friends and family. 194. 00andJoe posted: 10.16.2011 - 8:54 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) For me, the first real sign was that they tarped the car (Reid's hopeful comments about containing debris notwithstanding - that's not how they do that, they use a "diaper" under a hooked car for that), then, as mentioned, the two-hour wait... 195. irony posted: 10.16.2011 - 9:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I didn't have a good feeling about today's race. I never do about the 1.5 milers but today especially. Too much banking + narrow track + too many cars. I was thinking before the wreck even happened on lap 12 "wow they've made it this far without trouble?" 196. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.16.2011 - 9:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Drivers of yester year and drivers of today (reguardless of racing series) don't get the credit that they deserve by people who don't know racing (or who choose to be ignorent about it). Sooner or later drivers are going to get the respect that they deserve for what they do for a living. I honestly hope we all are around to see it happen. 197. Jarrett88fan posted: 10.16.2011 - 9:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I hope this tragedy alerts people to the great sacrifices drivers of all disciplines undertake when they strap in before a race, event, etc. Talladega should have a silent lap or two before the start of the race as a memorial to Wheldon. 198. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 10:16 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 00andJoe, from what I saw, there were at least two cars tarped, but yes, a tarped car is NEVER a good sign. You knew that Wheldon's was one of the cars that was tarped, just by listening to the drivers, but I don't know what car was the second one that was tarped. I agree that there were too may cars on the track, much as was the case in the 1973 Winston 500 at Talladega when 60 cars started the race. But the problem is that they were running so close, and couldn't get away from each other. Frankly, how an accidnet like this had not happened previously, I don't know. I do realize there was a huge crash at Atlanta in about 1999 or 2000 that involved about 10 cars, but even the crash at the initial start of the 1973 Indianapolis 500 (which also heavily involved a car #77) pales in comparison to this. See, one problem with these cars running so close together is the fact that they're open-wheel cars, and can get launched into the air very easily. We see huge crashes like this in stock car racing frequently (and not just at Daytona and Talladega, as there was a huge crash at Phoenix early this year), but because those cars have enclosed fenders, they can't climb over one another, and at least four cars got airborne, including J.R. Hildebrand and Will Power, and of course, Wheldon. If this had been a stock car race, it's likely that nobody would have gotten injured, because none of the cars would have gotten airborne. Wheldon was probably killed instantly, much like Gordon Smiley was in 1982 when his car got into the catch fencing in the third turn at Indy that year while he was warming up for a qualification attempt. Let's hope that this incident brings about a safe race next weekend at Talladega, and not the mechanical holocaust that I've predicted, with 25-30 cars getting wrecked. And this crash and it's aftermath also proves just how fragile we, as human beings are. And I'm certain everyone involved in that truncated race (it was stopped and cancelled on the 13th lap) will remember this day, and let's hope that when Danica Patrick gets to NASCAR, that she'll teach the NASCAR drivers that they're just as fragile as the rest of the racers around the world, because it sure doesn't look like they think they can get hurt at times. 199. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 10:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And by the way, it now would not surprise me if Tony Stewart and Danica Patrick asked for the number 77 next year for her Cup efforts, if only to carry Wheldon's memory with the number. 200. 00andJoe posted: 10.16.2011 - 10:43 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "nd at least four cars got airborne, including J.R. Hildebrand and Will Power, and of course, Wheldon." I'm pretty sure Pippa Mann's car got launched as well. At the risk of sounding slightly crass, it's a miracle IndyCar only lost one driver in that wreck, IMHO. 201. Bronco posted: 10.16.2011 - 10:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "At the risk of sounding slightly crass, it's a miracle IndyCar only lost one driver in that wreck, IMHO." You're absolutely right. As tragic as losing Wheldon was, it could have been even worse given the scale of the crash. This will be the first Indycar race to have been cancelled since 1999 at Charlotte, when a tire flew into the grandstands and killed 3 fans. Also Dario Franchitti gets his fourth straight championship in years that he has competed in. James Hinchcliffe gets ROTY. The $5 million should be given to Wheldon's family, since that was the only reason that he had entered. 202. cjs3872 posted: 10.16.2011 - 11:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 00andJoe, thanks for identifying the fourth car that got airborne. And you're also right about just one driver being lost in the crash, since if things had turned out differently, both Hildebrand and Power could also have been severely injured, if not worse. Not to mention the other 11 drivers involved in that crash, as many of them suffered very hard licks as well. But the real problems were 34 cars starting on a track one mile shorter than Indy, where only 33 start, though I still they could expand the field to 36, and still be relatively safe, and the fact that the field was so tightly bunched with open-wheel cars. This crash is also a reminder of how smart Brian Barnhardt is in terms of starting the Indianapolis 500 with the field apart, and not enforcing a tighter start, because that's the one really dangerous part of the Indianapolis 500 on the track. Barnhardt's idea of starting the Indianapolis 500 is to, first and foremost, get the field through the first couple of laps. Sometimes they don't, but it's not because the field is too tightly bunched. Also, Dan Wheldon is, any may go down as, the only man ever to win the Indianapolis 500 by leading just the final lap in the race's 100th anniversary (not the 100th running, as that won't take place until 2016). Wheldon, of course, won that race twice, but tragically, will never get the chance to become that race's tenth three-time winner, which I believe he would have had a good shot at, as he would've rejoined Michael Andretti's team. It was with Wheldon in 2005 that Michael Andretti finally got a taste of what winning the Indianapolis 500 is all about, even if it was only as a car owner. Michael was, of course, the greatest IndyCar and Indianapolis 500 driver never to win the big race. Wheldon was one of those charismatic figures that you can build a sport around, much like Richard Petty was for NASCAR, or like A.J. Foyt was in an earlier era of IndyCar racing, though not nearly to that degree. 203. AlmirolaFan88 posted: 10.17.2011 - 1:25 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "They shouldn't even be doing the 5 lap tribute." I agree(ed). Seeing Dario get back into his car with tears streaming down his face......I can't get that image out of my head. I'm sure others felt sick to their stomachs as well. Those 5 laps felt like an eternity. But i'll appreciate the effort, and all the fans that stayed throughout the 2 hour delay. Sure they paid a lot of money to see only 13 laps of racing, but I'm glad they were understanding of the tragedy that was unfolding right infront of their eyes. It was a very surreal situation, no one could have predicted this. I hope anyone that attended gets tickets to a future Las Vegas Cup race, or Banquet tickets or something. Of course my thoughts are still with Dan's family, but i'm seeing this from other perspectives as well. 204. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.17.2011 - 3:46 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Hopefully the NASCAR sanctioning body will allow for a moment of silence at Talladega. The racing community is intertwined all over the world, and we should tribute every driver no matter the series." We're in mourning for Dan down here in Australia. There are many individuals in the V8 Supercar community who knew Dan. May he rest in peace. 205. cjs3872 posted: 10.17.2011 - 7:40 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) In fact, M535i, Not only was Wheldon going to do that race (The Gold Coast 600) next week in Australia, but Mike Joy and Darrell Waltrip of FOX Sports are covering that race for SPEED, just as they did the Bathurst 1000, so you know they're going to comment on this situation, and probably compare this situation to the Dale Earnhardt tragedy that they covered in 2001. There are probably going to be other IndyCar drivers there to run that race. Especially guys like Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe. (Will Power might also have wanted to, but he was also injured in that crash yesterday.) This is at least the second terrible crash at Las Vegas in the last four years, but unlike last time, the track, in my mind, has no responsibility in this incident, as the catchfence actually did what it was supposed to do, which is to keep the car(s) inside the racetrack. Unfortunately, a very prominent driver was lost in the process. If no driver had been seriously injured, we would be applauding the catch fencing at Las Vegas, because it certainly did it's job. Had there been no catch fencing, one or more of those cars might have hit the billboards outside the track, which might very well have been fatal anyway. 206. NicoRosbergFan posted: 10.17.2011 - 7:44 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I saw the wreck live, and it was the most horrible thing I had seen in my life. I didn't know who, but I knew instantly in my heart that someone had died in that wreck. I hate to think of what the autopsy report will state as to what part of the wreck killed Dan. Seeing Dario was heart-wrenching especially since they had been friends for 27 years. I'm glad IndyCar decided to *cough cough* repair the "gouges in the asphalt" and the "damage to the safer barrier and catch fence" instead of finish the race as was done the day Greg Moore died (I wasn't watching open-wheel before 05 though). I had told my mother the day that Bernard announced the $5,000,000 Challenge (April) that one of the Challenge drivers would be killed, but at the time I thought it would be someone like Kasey Kahne of Travis Pastrana. If I was Randy Bernard, I would end the Challenge and make a strict field of 26 cars for next year's race with some way to keep the cars below 217 mph. 207. cjs3872 posted: 10.17.2011 - 7:54 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I also disagree with those that say that there should have been no tribute. Of course there should have been. and I believe they chose the right one by cancelling the race and doing a five-lap, Indy 500-style three wide tribute to a man who won that race twice and will be regarded, at least by myself, as probably the greatest Indy 500 driver since the era of the racing giants (Foyt, Rutherford, Johncock, Mears, Fittipaldi, the Unsers, and the Andrettis, etc.). Sure, Helio Castroneves has won the race three times, but I don't think he is as good as Wheldon was, considering that he has always raced there for Roger Penske. Remember that Wheldon nearly won the race twice in a row with Panther Racing, who was not the team it was when Sam Hornish won two consecutive championships with the team, and won races with other drivers such as Scott Goodyear, who of course was on the ABC broadcast yesterday. Wheldon was one of just four drivers ever to finish either first or second at Indy three times in a row, the others being Wilbur Shaw (who actually did it four consecutive times from 1937-'40), Bill Holland (1947-'49), Johnny Rutherford (1974-'76), and Wheldon (2009-'11). Wheldon's also one of just a few drivers to finish win the race more than once and finish second more than once. He joins giants like Shaw (3 wins, 3 2nds), Rodger Ward (2 wins, 2 2nds) A.J. Foyt (4 wins, 2 2nds), and Al Unser, Sr. (4 wins, 3 2nds) as drivers that finsihed both first and second more than once at Indy. It's going to be a while before we, as race fans, appreciate just how good he realy was. IndyCar racing, especially the Indianapolis 500 lost one of it's best ever yesterday. 208. cjs3872 posted: 10.17.2011 - 8:23 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) NicoRosbergFan, until the 1999 race at Charlotte, races were always finished. The 1964 Indianapolis 500 saw two drivers killed on the second lap, Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald. The deaths of both drivers were announced on the PA system at Indy during the time the race was stopped. Nine years later, in the 1973 Indianapolis 500, just after the accident with Swede Savage, one of Pat Ptrick's crewman, Armando Teran, who worked on the car of Graham McRae, who was a teammate of Savage that day, was run over by a firetruck and was killed instantly, and the death, I believe was announced just before the race restarted. Patrick's third car, driven by Gordon Joyhncock, won the race, but Patrick was so devastated by the events of that race, that he refuses to talk about it to this day. In 1955, Bill Vukovich, who was going for three consecutive Indy 500 wins, was killed on the 57th lap, and the race that year wasn't even stopped. In 1958, Pat O'Connor was killed on the first lap of the Indy 500, and again, the race wasn't even stopped, even though there were 15 cars involved in the crash, eight of which were unable to continue. Though there were no driver fatalities, the 1973 Winston 500 at Talladega was never stopped after the horrible crash that occurred on the ninth lap involving 19 cars. The 1975 Talladega 500 was run to it's completion after Tiny Lund,.who wasn't even supposed to be in the race, was killed on the seventh lap. Mark Donohue suffered the crash that killed him earlier that same day, making August 17, 1975 one of the darkest days in the history of American racing. Even the NASCAR Truck series race at Texas in which Tony Roper was killed in 2000, was run to it's completion, as was the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, the race in which Ayrton Senna was killed. However, the decision to not run yesterday's race after the incident that killed Wheldon was a correct one, because it's likely that another one similar to that would have happened again. But I disagree with you saying that the speeds should be kept down, because that means that the field would still be bunched up, which is the main contributing factor to the severeity of the crash. Remember that these are open-wheel cars. As I mentioned in post #198, had this been a stock car race, or even a sports car race, even run at the speeds run by the IndyCars at Las Vegas, there would have been a high likelyhood that nobody would have gotten seriously injured, because none of those cars would have gotted airborne after the crash started becuse stock cars and sports cars have closed fenders that would keep the tires from being used as launching pads. That's what caused the severeity of the crash, not the speeds or the close proximity to which the cars were running. Certainly the close proximity and the high speeds contributed to the fact that there were 15 cars involved, but crashes like that happen in stock car racing all the time, especially where NASCAR is heading this week, Talladega. But your point about needing to cut the size of the field at Las Vegas and other tracks like that is spot on. Remember that when that 19-car crash at the 1973 Winston 500 at Talladega occurred, that took place in a race with a 60-car field, much too big for the speeds that were being run. After all, the decision was made to CUT the Daytona 500 starting field from 50 cars to 40 in 1970, because of the high speeds that were being attained at that time, and the last 50-car starting field for the Daytona 500 was four years before the Talladega crash of 1973. And at Daytona in the Sportsman race in 1960, there was a crash involving 37 cars in a race that had a 68-car starting field, though the top speeds at that time were 155 MPH, which was still faster than at any other track in the world, except for the high-banked oval in Monza, Italy, where the famous Race of Two Worlds between IndyCars (which were the famed Indy roadsters then) and sports cars was held in the late 1950s. Now I still think they can expand the field at Indy to 36 cars and do it in a safe manner, but starting 34 cars at a track that's a mile shorter than Indy, where one fewer car starts, knowing that the field would be bunched up, was a foolish idea from the start. 209. NicoRosbergFan posted: 10.17.2011 - 9:14 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) cjs, I know they usually finish the races, but I don't think they should if they know someone died. I meant "slow down" to mean "keep the cars from taking flight," and you're right that speed is irrelevant to flight. 210. myothercarisanM535i posted: 10.17.2011 - 9:17 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) " 205. cjs3872 posted: " There was about half a dozen Indycar drivers who were scheduled to come down here for the GC600, including Dan Wheldon. Tony Cochrane, head of V8 Supercars, has made it clear to all drivers involved that he wants them to be wherever they wish to be next weekend as it may be too soon for some to return to a racetrack, or inappropriate for some to fly halfway across the world so close to this tragedy. It sometimes isn't evident just how extensive the damage of such tragic occurrences is. No doubt everyone who has ever donned a helmet will acknowledge and remember in their own way and even worse pain will be felt by those who knew him personally. Dan Wheldon was set to co-drive with longtime friend James Courtney. The two met whilst competing against each other in Europe. The race was on at approx. 6am this morning, Australian time and James Courtney was watching it live, with another longtime friend of his, Marino Franchitti, who is also here for the GC600 event. Marino started racing Karts on the very same day as Dan. So far, both Will Power and Tony Kanaan have withdrawn from the race. Both of their replacements also competed with Wheldon at some stage of their careers. Irishman Richard Lyons was a friend of Dan's since they were teenagers and Dane Allan Simonsen also raced Karts with him. No doubt this tragedy will be felt for a long, long time. 211. Anonymous posted: 10.17.2011 - 1:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Scott Speed made the right decision by turning down Indy car for racing at the Las Vegas Indy car race instead of trying to race for 5 million dollars at that track from starting from the back. Source: http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/Former-open-wheel-driver-Scott-Speed-AJ-Allmendinger-discuss-dangers-of-oval-racing-101611 212. cjs3872 posted: 10.17.2011 - 1:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Power wasn't going to be able to compete anyway due to the injuries that he suffered in that accident, but I'm, in a way, not surprised that some of the others pulled out. NRF, the real problem is not the speed, as much as it was the size of the field for the size of the track, as well as the fact that those were open-wheel cars, because the wheel in a crash act as launching pads in a big open-wheel crash like that. Remember that when Salt Walther had his crash at Indy in 1973, he was going at not much more than half the speed that the cars that crashed yesterday were going at and tom Sneva was going about 170 when he was launched over Eldon Rasmussen's car in 1975 at Indy. And as for those mentioning about the idiotic fans that cheer for crashes, I recommend that you watch the 1982 Daytona 500, especially around the 90-lap mark. During the broadcast of that race during the caution for Tighe Scott's crash, Brock Yates, who never pulled any punches, goes into a 60-second commentary about what an awesome pall a terrible crash has over anyone that is watching. And anyone who saw the events at Las Vegas yesterday knows exactly what Brock Yates was talking about. 213. cjs3872 posted: 10.17.2011 - 1:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) And as for how the tragedy effects those involved in other braches of the sport, NASCAR.com has an article on exactly that, where NASCAR's concerned. Of the NASCAR drivers that have commented, Trevor Bayne may be the one that puts it in best perspective when he said that he was sick to his stomach. Many others like Juan Montoya, a fellow Indy 500 winner, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Richard Childress, who knows the feeling all too well, as do Kyle Petty, who lost his son Adam to racing, as well as Chip Ganassi, Roger Penske, who were there yesterday, have, of course, felt great sadness among those in the NASCAR community, but I think Bayne's comments were the only ones among the NASCAR drivers I saw that best captured what everyone else truly thought about the situation. We all know that Childress lost Dale Earnhardt at Daytona in 2001, but when Tony Renna was killed in a tire testing crash at Indy, he was driving a car for Chip Ganassi, and Penske lost drivers such as Greg Moore, who was to drive for him in 2000 in the 1999 CART Season finale at Fontana, CA, Gonzalo Rodriguez, and of course, two greats from the 1970s in Mark Donohue, his first Indy 500 (1972) and NASCAR (1973 NASCAR season opener at Riverside, CA) winner in 1975 on what I call "Black Sunday", August 17, 1975, the same day that Tiny Lund lost his life at Talladega (Donohue survived for two days and acutally died on August 19, 1975), and when Donohue decided to retire from IndyCar competition in 1974, which was likely due to the events of the 1973 Indianapolis 500, Peter Revson was chosen to replace him at Indy in one of Penske's cars, but he was killed in South Africa before the 1974 Indianapolis 500. 214. 00andJoe posted: 10.17.2011 - 2:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #206: I'll be very surprised if IndyCars ever return to Vegas. As I understand it, the 2012 IndyCar chassis is supposed to have a "bumper" of sorts at the rear to help stop the launchpad effect. 215. cjs3872 posted: 10.17.2011 - 3:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Not to mention fenders, 00andJoe, because the "launchpad effect", as you call it, is the main reason the crash was as severe as it was. Having a 15-car crash, even at those speeds, would not have been that bad, but the fact that you had those four cars get in the air meant that there was nothing to slow them down prior to impact. If you remember the Swede Savage crash at Indy in 1973, many think he would actually have survived if it wasn't for a transfusion of contaminated blood. And that was as bad a wall impact as any driver had ever suffered to that point, and he hit the wall head-on at 180 MPH or more and was in the part of the car (which split into two) that was on fire for more than a minute. In fact, I still consider that to be the worst single-car crash I've ever seen in an race. There have, of course, been worse accidents in testing, practice, or qualifying, but I've never seen one that bad in an actual race since, and he nearly survived that crash. And remember that took place nearly 40 years ago with the cars far less safe than they are now. 216. 00andJoe posted: 10.17.2011 - 5:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Talladega entry list is out. 47 cars: -Robby Gordon is listed in the #7 -Michael Waltrip in the #15 -Bayne in the #21 -Terry Labonte in the #32 -Geoff Bodine in the #35 -Wise in the #37 -Kvapil in the #38 -Yeley in the #55 -Lally is listed in the #71 -with the #77 as TBA -Conway in the #97 No #30 or #50 this week. 217. cjs3872 posted: 10.17.2011 - 6:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Interestsingly, both Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. apparently alternated in the #6 car, which was Roush's representative car for the Fuel Injection test at Charlotte. On SPEED's Race Hub, it was reported that Bayne replaced David Ragan in that car for the test. My question here is, was this pre-planned for Ragan not to be at the EFI test, or was Roush sending a message to Ragan for his idiotic move late in the race (when he forced the issue on Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon on a late restart, resulting in all three of them spinning in turn one), especially since Roush has already allowed him to seek other options. And by the way, Bayne was fastest in the #6 car, though that means as much as a blank sheet of paper since it was a test of the Electronic Fuel Injection system for next year. 218. Talon64 posted: 10.17.2011 - 6:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Matt Kenseth picked up his 21st career Sprint Cup Series victory and 3rd of 2011, the most he's had in a year since he won 4 races in 2006 (finished 2nd in the standings). Matt also reached 10 top 5's for the 6th time in 12 seasons and first time since 2006. It's his first win at Charlotte since he got his 1st career win in the 2000 Coke 600. It's his 5th top 10 in the last 6 races there and his 7th top 5 in 25 career starts there. It's also just his 2nd career Chase win (Homestead 2007). It's Roush Racing's 125th career Cup win, 5th of 2011 but their first in 14 races (David Ragan's Daytona win). Kyle Busch finished runner-up for the 17th time in his career, and 2nd straight runner-up in the Charlotte Chase race (3rd podium in his last 4 Charlotte races overall, 6th top 5 in 16 Charlotte starts); it's his first top 5 in the last 8 races. Kyle also led a race-high 111 laps and now leads the season with 1308, his most in a year since he led 1673 in 2008. Carl Edwards picked up his series-leading 16th top 5 and 22nd top 10 of 2011. It's his 3rd straight top 5 and 8th straight top 10 finish. But it's Carl's first top 10 in the last 5 Charlotte races (5th top 5 in 14 starts, 12.6 avg fin). Kasey Kahne has 3 consecutive top 5 finishes for the first time since 2006, and his 11 top 10's this year are already more than he had in all of 2010. Kahne needs just 2 more top 10's to reach 100 for his career. It's Kahne's 6th top 5 at Charlotte (16 starts, 13.4 avg fin), tied with Atlanta and Michigan for his most at any track. Marcos Ambrose has 3 straight top 10's for the first time in his entire NASCAR career, let alone Cup. After having just 7 top 5's and 13 top 10's in his first 83 Cup starts, Ambrose has 5 and 11, respecively, this season alone. It's Ambrose's 6th career top 5 in 106 starts on ovals, but 3 of them have come this season. He scored the 3rd most points at Charlotte this year, one of just 3 drivers (Kevin Harvick, AJ Allmendinger) to finish in the top 10 in both races. Kevin Harvick got his 6th top 10 in the last 7 races, and 2nd straight 6th place finish. It's just his 6th top 10 in 22 Charlotte races, but he won the Coke 600 and finished top 10 in both races this year. AJ Allmendinger made it 2 RPM cars in the top 7 with his 8th top 10 of the year, matching his career-high total from 2010. It's his 2nd finish of 7th in the last 3 races. Allmendinger only had a 25.4 avg fin in 8 Charlotte starts before finishing top 10 in both Charlotte races in 2011. Tony Stewart's 94 laps led are his most since leading 163 at Las Vegas back in March. His 8th place finish was his first top 10 in the last 8 Charlotte races (12th in 26 career starts, 13.6 avg fin). Denny Hamlin got his first top 10 in the Chase this season, but his 3rd straight top 10 at Charlotte (6 top 10's in 13 career starts, 16.0 avg fin). Ryan Newman becomes the 44th driver all time to reach 150 career top 10's (tying him with Dick Brooks for 43rd). It's his first top 10 in 4 races, but he still has more poles (9) than top 10's (8) in 22 career Charlotte starts (20.4 avg fin). David Ragan recovered from a late spin to get his 4th finish of 11th or better in the last 6 races. Greg Biffle now leads all drivers without a win in 2011 in laps led with 325. After having 8 top 10's in the previous 9 races, Brad Keselowski's now finished outside of the top 10 in 2 of the last 3 races. The lack of bonus points for regular season wins are starting to hurt now; he's scored the 5th most points of any Chase driver in the Chase, just 12 less than 2nd place Matt Kenseth (22 less than Carl) and 5 more than Kyle Busch. 219. TheTruthâ?¢ posted: 10.17.2011 - 7:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I was expecting a mediocre run tonight but they ran great and, most importantly, the pit crew performed solidly tonight." Honestly, the pit crew almost always performs solidly. They make a couple of mistakes and suddenly everyone thinks they're holding Kyle back. That crew has been the primary reason that Kyle got several wins, when he didn't have the best car yet gains 3-5 spots under every single caution until he ends up leading the race when clean air prevails. The pit crew almost ALWAYS performs solidly. Did you notice how many spots Kyle got on pit road this past weekend? It was like 20... 220. TheTruthâ?¢ posted: 10.17.2011 - 7:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Cooper, its got nothing to do with aerodynamics." Jimmie Johnson getting massively loose BEFORE the overcorrection has nothing to do with aerodynamics? Uhh, okay. 221. Cooper posted: 10.17.2011 - 7:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "219. TheTruth posted: 10.17.11 - 7:26 pm" Yep. So true. "220. TheTruth posted: 10.17.11 - 7:28 pm" Thank you, was waiting for someone to back me up. 222. JR Motorsports Employee posted: 10.17.2011 - 8:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "And Bronco, I don't seriously think that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will EVER help Jeff Gordon to win a race there. The built-in rivalry between the two, which started with Gordon and Dale, Sr. would prevent that from ever happening. He would help any other driver in the race, no matter what car or team he's driving for, before he would help Gordon. That, I think is a safe asssumption. Dale, Jr. could never make himself do that. He'd rather help a Gibbs or Roush car win than help Gordon win." I'd SERIOUSLY dispute that. Not true. 223. TheTruthâ?¢ posted: 10.17.2011 - 9:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I occasionally agree with playing it safe by throwing a caution but generally the spotters can tell when there is oil on the track, its a streak, you can see it on tv most of the time." It's not always so obviously visible from a distance. You can't take risks like that, because the first car who gets in that oil and ends up destroyed will have a good argument to make. 224. Bronco posted: 10.17.2011 - 9:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Jimmie Johnson getting massively loose BEFORE the overcorrection has nothing to do with aerodynamics? Uhh, okay." I don't really see how you can blame the aero for that. Newman left him enough room and wasn't pinching him on the bottom, Kahne wasn't all the way on his back bumper either, neither one touched him, he just flat out lost. And given some of the saves that he's made during his career, I'm surprised he didn't turn the car to left and spin it out which could have led to him pitting for four tires and restarting at the tail end of the lead lap. 225. cjs3872 posted: 10.18.2011 - 12:04 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) #222, what I was getting at was that Dale, Jr. may one day want to help Gordon win at Daytona or Talladega, but then an instinct within him might kick in that would tell him not to, because of that built-in rivalry. But I think that he would rather help a guy like Tony Stewart, who's been a pet drafting partner of his for years, or one of his other Hendrick teammates, like Johnson or Mark Martin (or Kasey Kahne next year) rather than Gordon. Throw in the fact that Johnson is Earnhardt's garage-mate, so to speak, and you see why Earnhardt would rather help Johnson. Now the question is, when would Johnson return the favor, if he does at all? The same is true regarding Gordon and Martin. They're garage-mates, and have done everything they can to help each other in the last two plate races. And it wouldn't surprise me to see Gordon try to get Martin one final victory this weekend at Talladega. Remember that there was an incident in the 2008 spring race at Talladega in which Dale, Jr. had a chance to help Gordon go for the win, but chose not to, instead helping a driver from a rival orgainzation. Also, for a great number of the races the last couple of years, including the races at Charlotte in that period, Jimmie Johnson has been overdriving the car because it has been quite a bit off the pace, which has resulted in him either spinning out or crashing in the last four races at Charlotte, a track that not too long ago, he could win at driving virtually blindfolded. And if you count the All-Star Race, I believe that number goes up to five or six. Certainly areodynamics has a part in that, but so does Jimmie overdriving the car, trying to get speed out of the car that simply isn't there. 226. Scott B posted: 10.18.2011 - 10:40 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) CJS, Stenhouse was originally listed in the #6 for the FI test, though it may have been planned to alternate him with Bayne. Ragan was never in the picture, so it wasn't a message about his performance on Saturday. It probably was an inidcator about his future with the organization in 2012 and beyond, though. 227. Mr X posted: 10.18.2011 - 11:35 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think that Jimmie Johnson's losing simply just has to do with the fact that is so difficult to pass. I've said it before and I'll say it again, JJ virtually had to crash Kyle Busch to get by at Loudon. Even though the tire did slow down by a fair amount, 5 to 6mph per lap over a run, the cool conditions meant the groove never expanded more then halfway up the track, and it barely did that. Believe it or not the final lead change actually happened on the track between to guys actually racing for it, however when Matt passed Kyle Matt moved up one lane, no further, anyone who ran any higher then Matt did lost multiple car lengths every lap. The aero-push was as prevelent on saturday as it was at Kentucky or Las Vegas earlier this year. In order to just make time back in the field or make a pass these guys have to drive these cars so loose all the time, and once they get close to another car the drivers just have to overdrive their cars so vastly that almost anything will upset the car. This I believe this was amplified by the fact that Jimmie tends to drive a car on the loose side, and by Ryan up high, and Kasey directly behind him, even though neither of them were really that close. Very glad to see that Jimmie was alright, we had one too many tragedies this weekend.(RIP Dan Wheldon) This (terrible) current rules, tire, and tracks package has finally showed the weakness of Chad Knaus, he keeps the car fast, he doesn't keep it up front. Chad has given away track position like candy on Halloween for a while now at the expense of keeping the car as the fastest one on the track, in years past that actually mattered. In regards to the Dave Blaney blown engine caution which I still feel strongly about, I still think that NASCAR was a little quick to throw the yellow. In the 1995 Coca-Cola 600 Ken Schrader blew up with a similar top end engine failure while leading with 42 laps to go, there was no oil on the track, the race stayed under green and ran to the finish without incident, Bobby Labonte got his first win in the fastest ever 600 mile NASCAR race. NASCAR appeared to throw the yellow instantly as soon as the the 36 started smoking, Dave got the car on the appron quickly, they could've waited an extra 10 seconds, been a little more sure whether or not there was oil out there, and if they still weren't sure then throw the yellow. NASCAR threw the caution instantly, there was no fluid, multiple cars were trapped a lap down for the second time that night because the caution was thrown in the middle of green flag stops, and chaos ensued on the restart. 228. cjs3872 posted: 10.18.2011 - 2:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Thanks for the clarification, Scott B, even though Stenhouse had been driving a car #121 for the previous EFI test he was involved in. That why I wondered whether there had been a late switch. Mr X, if you've watched NASCAR races as long as I have (and maybe you have), you would know that the LAST thing NASCAR ever wants to do is to throw a caution flag in the middle of green flag pit stops, becuase of how that scrambles up the field. Remember the 1998 Brickyard 400 when Ward Burton's car was stopped on the pit apron at Indy? NASCAR waited about three laps to throw the caution flag because they wanted the entire pit stop sequence to take place. In other words, NASCAR felt is was obliged to throw the caution flag. The real problem with the aero-push problem at many tracks in the last three years has to do with the fact that the new paving jobs at tracks like Charlotte, Darlington, and other tracks that have repaved in recent years don't, for some reason, get worn out like they used to. And until those surfaces get worn out, at least a little bit, this problem will continue. Another thing the lack of track surface wear has produced is the fact that the speeds don't decrease. Because of that, Goodyear, for obvious reasons, can't build a tire that wears out a lot, because then you would have a tire that would last only one-half to three-quarters of a fuel run at the high-speed tracks. Still another fact involved is the fact that, with the fuel changes in the last couple of years from leaded to unleaded, to the E15 fuel, the cars can't go as far on a tank of fuel as they used to. About 75-85 miles in the farthest a car can go on fuel, instead of about 90-100 miles. Because of that, the drivers can run harder, since a lot of the tire problems occurred in the last 15 miles of a fuel run. But now they can't even go that last 15 miles, so whatever tire problems may have occurred late in fuel runs, simply don't happen anymore because everyone has to pit for fuel and they can get those tires off, effectively eliminating tire management as a factor, which is why veteran drivers like Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, and until this year, Jeff Gordon, have not been major factors in recent years. Those three drivers were masters at saving tires, but because of the 15-20% reduction in the distance that cars can go on a tank of fuel, that particular strategy is out the window at many tracks, especially the speedways, except for Atlanta, where the surface is worn out. As a result, drivers can now run as hard as they want to at all times, which also limits the amount of on-track passing that takes place during a race, while increasing the number of pit stops. 229. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.18.2011 - 5:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "The real problem with the aero-push problem at many tracks in the last three years has to do with the fact that the new paving jobs at tracks like Charlotte, Darlington, and other tracks that have repaved in recent years don't, for some reason, get worn out like they used to. And until those surfaces get worn out, at least a little bit, this problem will continue. Another thing the lack of track surface wear has produced is the fact that the speeds don't decrease. Because of that, Goodyear, for obvious reasons, can't build a tire that wears out a lot, because then you would have a tire that would last only one-half to three-quarters of a fuel run at the high-speed tracks." On the SPEED boards we have a resident road building and repair expert. He said the technology to repair and repave roads has gotten alot better in recent years and that includes race tracks. Roads today (that are being fixed, not in the sad state that about 90% of Americas roads are in) are being made to last. Race tracks are also being made to last, and i see no problem. (only traditionalists will have a problem with it.) 230. Talon64 posted: 10.18.2011 - 5:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Milestones/Rankings: Matt Kenseth's 21st career Cup win ties him with Jeff Burton, Bobby Labonte, Benny Parsons and Jack Smith for 30th all time, tied with Burton and Labonte for 18th in the modern era, and ranks him 6th since 2000. Kyle Busch's 80th career top 5 ties him with Ryan Newman for 44th all time, 29th in the modern era and ranks him 5th since 2005. Kyle also moved into 24th all time in laps led with 6,979 (19th in modern era, 2nd since 2005). Kasey Kahne's 55th career top 5 ties him with GC Spencer for 62nd all time, still ranks him 38th in the modern era and 13th since 2004. Greg Biffle's 55th career top 10 ties him with Fireball Roberts for 55th all time, ranks him 36th in the modern era and 11th since 2003. 231. Talon64 posted: 10.18.2011 - 6:07 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) whoops, scratch that on Biffle. I thought he finished top 10, but I was thinking about the last race. 232. cjs3872 posted: 10.18.2011 - 8:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #229, I agree that technology is there to make roads and tracks better. Of course, here in Baltimore, the roads are so terrible that it wouldn't matter. But I digress. The thing about making the roads and tracks better is actually part of the problem, as they just don't wear. After all, Charlotte was repaved in 2005-'06 and it hasn't worn out hardly at all. The same is true concerning Darlington following the 2007 Southern 500 (yes I consider the race there, which was run under a different name to be the Southern 500) there, and in four years, the track at Darlington, of all places, hasn't worn any, either. The last time that Darlington was paved after the 1994 Southern 500, it had begun to wear out tires by 1997. It's not happening this time, at least at this point. The wearing out of tires was one thing that allowed cars to move to the front, but it's hardly the only thing that could be done to make racing better. I still think that if they make it so that the cars can run longer on a tank of fuel, that will make the racing better, because the drivers will then have to manage their tires. Now they don't have to, because they can't go as far on a tank of fuel. By the time the point in a fuel run comes when they had to woory about tire wear, they just pit now because they're about out of fuel. And of course, you've got the fact that the cars are going too fast, especially in the turns. The way to slow the cars down is to slow them down in the corners. I've heard ideas from people that think they should widen the tires. That's a terrible idea, because that won't slow the cars down in the corners. If anything, it'll speed them up in the corners, making it even harder for cars to get closer due to the aerodynamics. Now just how are they going to slow the cars down in the corners, I really don't have the answer to that. They could run the cars 10 MPH faster down the straightaway on these tracks, just as long as they slow them down in the corners. A case in point would be watching IndyCar racing in 1970 and watching it again in 1972, when large rear wings were allowed to be bolted on for the first time. The result was that from 1970-'72 at Indy, the speeds increased over 26 MPH in those two years, all because of higher cornering speeds due to areodynamics. The speeds of the cars really weren't any different on the straightaways, but were going 30 MPH faster in the corners, hence the dramatic increase in the lap speeds. 233. 00andJoe posted: 10.18.2011 - 8:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "In the 1995 Coca-Cola 600..." ...NASCAR hadn't yet gotten the massive dose of egg (or is it oil?) on their face from Dover a few years back. 234. 00andJoe posted: 10.18.2011 - 8:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Talladega entry list update: the second TRG car (#77) has been withdrawn. 235. 00andJoe posted: 10.18.2011 - 8:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) ...huh. Just found this on the Max Q Motorsports page: "Join our team and support Josh Wise in his attempt for the 2012 Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year" So, looks like we have a ROTY contender with hat in the ring for next year... (Also, has anybody figured out what the sponsor was on the #37 at Charlotte?) 236. LordLowe posted: 10.18.2011 - 8:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Here is a quick fix solution for the abysmal racing on the 1.5 mile or greater intermediate tracks. Put restritor plates on the cars and see if that will improve the quality of the racing on these tracks 237. cjs3872 posted: 10.18.2011 - 10:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Oh, good, another Rookie of the Year by default, just like Andy Lally this year and Kevin Conway last year. And in a start-and-park, no less. Of course, Johnny Benson's 1996 RoY was also basically by default, and that was during NASCAR's peak of popularity in the mid-1990s. At there will be a Rookie of the Year battle, but that won't take place until 2013 or '14. By then, drivers like Austin Dillon and maybe Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Justin Allgaier, Parker Kligerman, and a couple of others will have full-time rides and run for the Rookie honors, but as I mentioned, that's still two to three more years down the road, at least. 238. 00andJoe posted: 10.19.2011 - 12:00 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Don't forget that when Jimmy Hensely won the 1992 ROTY, he didn't start running until...what, seven races into the season? 239. Cooper posted: 10.19.2011 - 10:15 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "236. LordLowe posted: 10.18.11 - 8:49 pm" Don't think that would work. Maybe you could try it in a test session...But I think it would turn out to be like the 2000 New Hampshire race. 240. Scott B posted: 10.19.2011 - 10:50 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yeah, I noticed that Josh Wise announcement on the Max Q website a few weeks ago, but I don't think it's been reported anywhere else. We'll have Danica in a Stewart-Haas car and Grant Enfinger driving for the new Sinica Motorsports team, but those will both be P/T in 2012, so Wise looks like the only declared ROTY candidate so far. Steven Leicht would be eligible if TBR could put together something for him in the #35. And of course, Bayne or Stenhouse would be the overwhelming favorite if either ended up running a full time Cup schedule. Along that theme, it looks like Andy Lally could be the second driver in a row to win the ROTY award and not have a full-time ride the next season. With the #71 needing sponsorship and ruomored to be interested in David Ragan, they might want to return Lally to their Grand Am road racing program and only run him in a few Cup events for 2012. I'm hoping Danica doesn't get the award by default in 2013, somebody PLEASE put up a legitimate candidate to run against her. Let's not give the media one more reason to hype her arrival, as if they need it. 241. Scott B posted: 10.19.2011 - 10:54 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Also, just for the record... Withdrew from Charlotte after the initial entry list was published: #60 Mike Skinner (that ride is reported to be shut down for the remainder of the season) #75 Derrike Cope 242. cjs3872 posted: 10.19.2011 - 1:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) LordLowe (#236), that still wouldn't cure the real problem, which as I mentioned in post #232, which is cornering speed. A restrictor plate would slow straightaway speeds down to 175 from 195, but cornering speeds would stay right where they are, so the same problems would continue to plague the racing. In fact, the lack of power to get off the corners would proably make things worse. And Scott B, I suspect that Danica would have competition from Stenhouse and maybe someone else in a highly funded car in 2013. In fact, if Trevor Bayne were to find a ride (or a combination of two rides) for a full Cup season next year, I believe he would be eligible to run for the Rookie of the Year, despite the fact that he won the Daytona 500 this year and will start in 16 other races, because he's earning points in Nationwide, not Cup this year. 243. Scott B posted: 10.19.2011 - 2:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well, I need to correct myself... It appears Stephen Leicht is credited with Cup points in his 2011 start at Richmond, so he would not be in the 2012 rookie class even in the event that sponsorship was found to run enough races to put him in the hunt. So, like Brad Kesolowski and Landon Cassill, he sort of falls through the cracks in the ROTY system. And yes, as I interpret the current rules, Trevor Bayne can still declare himself a rookie in 2012 or 2013, as he is only credited with NNW points this season and not Cup points. 244. LordLowe posted: 10.19.2011 - 4:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) well just trying to help cjs3872 do you have any ideas about how to fix this problem 245. Talon64 posted: 10.19.2011 - 4:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Don't forget about Grant Enfinger, who's supposed to be running 10-15 races next year with Sinica Motorsports. Although I'm pessimistic about their chances of even showing up for next season, let alone making that many starts. To me Enfinger's shown he's capable enough that a move up to the Trucks would be fine. But straight to Cup? Have they forgotten about Michael McDowell? As sad as ROTY in Cup has been for the last couple of years, at least the Trucks this year has had one of the most compelling ROTY battles I've ever seen in any NASCAR series. None of them might win a race, but they've all come close. 246. 00andJoe posted: 10.19.2011 - 6:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Scott B - I'd suspect Enfinger to declare for ROTY, simply because (so far) he only has the Cup ride, with no regular N'wide or Truck ride. And with Sinica Motorsports having stated flatly "we will NOT start and park" , running for the award would make sense... ...of course, the whole thing with that team has every sign of "it's going to end in tears..." As for Leicht, I'd assume that, having run only one race, he's still eligible for ROTY. Why Cassill declared for Nationwide points this year instead of ROTY in Cup is beyond me... 247. Talon64 posted: 10.19.2011 - 6:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Why Cassill declared for Nationwide points this year instead of ROTY in Cup is beyond me..." He might as well have said no to $100k; highest finishing rookie in a race nets you $1.5k and then ROTY is worth $75k. Every cent counts, so it's no wonder these back marker teams want to run rookies so they can cash in. While they hope they don't end up with a lot of wrecked equipment and missed races to more than offset it. But if you're the only rookie, like Andy Lally has been this year, then just mail it in. Lally's been the highest finishing rookie 27 times already this year, so that's $40.5k alone. 248. cjs3872 posted: 10.19.2011 - 11:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well, LordLowe, I would start by cutting more off the rear spoiler, maybe to between 3-4 inches (I believe it's 4.5 now, but I might be mistaken), or even narrowing it slightly, like it was on the cars of the 1970s. I don't care if the cars go faster on the straightaways, slowing them down in the corners and meking them more difficult to drive would, I believe, make the racing better. In fact, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to cut or narrow the spoilers at the restrictor plate tracks. Like I've said, the way to stop the two-by-two tandem drafting, if NASCAR really wanted to, would be to cut some off the rear spoiler to make the cars harder to drive in the corners, and make it so that the bumpers of the cars don't line up, which would eliminate pushing through the corners, because doing so would spin a car out because it would lift the rear tires of the front car off the ground. As for those that say that the smaller rear spoiler would increase speeds. Well, not allowing the cars to constantly push would drop the speeds by 8-12 MPH, and it's been proven, so the smaller rear spoilers would increase the speeds some, but not by as much as eliminating the pushing would lower the speeds. If you made those changes, I believe the speeds would be about 192-196 MPH, but in the push-draft, the cars go about 199-205 MPH. But back to the question at hand, making the cars harder to drive in the corners would also slow them down and make better racing. Also making tires that wear would do the same in the long run, though the cars would actually be faster in the short run. But I still think a key is to make it so the cars can go longer on a single tank of fuel, making tire management essential, especially on recently (last 4-7 years) resurfaced tracks that just don't seem to age like previous paving jobs did. There are several things that can be done to slow the cars down in the corner, but if NASCAR doesn't have the answer, then what chance do I have of giving such an answer? 249. 1995 Subaru WRX STi posted: 10.20.2011 - 12:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) making the bumpers not line up wouldn't make a difference, anybody remember the Truck race at Daytona? Don't those trucks bumpers not line up? WEren't they push drafting each other around the track? I think they were. They would have done with the POSCOY if that crap wagon was still in use. NASCAR should just leave it alone but the 2 car draft it basically takes away the one major factor that made plate racing worry some: Packs of cars. On an unrelated note, Mr. Sliced Bread made an apperence on Travel Channels Man vs Food nation. Had to eat a 5 pound burger in under an hour. He made a pretty good size dent in it but didn't eat the whole thing. I couldn't eat 5 pound of food, so for him to eat about 3-3.5 pounds isn't too bad. 250. Mr X posted: 10.20.2011 - 3:12 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Lift the front valence slightly, while not allowing anymore travel, remove some spoiler, or lay it down a few degrees, make it illegal to put tape on the grille, a slightly skinnier tire is possible without a rim change however not really optimal. LESS NIGHT RACING!! The larger the difference between the speed at the end of straightaway as opposed to the speed in the middle of the corner the more will be put back in the drivers hands, and the chassis setup will play more of a factor aswell, as cjs points out longer fuel runs are needed, and more tire wear is absolutely needed. I really don't think it matters how fast they're going at the start of a run, the field is bunched up, things will get a little crazy, side by side and passing will happen almost regardless. However tire wear causes the field to come back together again because the cars that checked out at the start of the run will begin to deteriorate, and the long run cars that fell behind at the start will stay more consistant and begin to catch back up. Good Year seems to want the same tire everywhere this year. Trying to build a tire so durable that it can survive anywhere, they think that a tire for Atlanta is suitable for this race at Charlotte. Atlanta is worn out, and abuses the tire, Charlotte isn't and the tire doesn't fall off nearly as much as it should. NASCAR puts on shows to attract fans every week, the show is the green flag racing, that part where everyone is trying to go as fast as they can, they can't continue to allow track position and clean air to be this much of a factor, and still draw a crowd. The race and its results are completely skewed by the fact that you can't pass or make time if you don't have clean air, garbage race cars can hold their ground because they got off pitroad fast, Kyle Busch and the Roush cars were the only ones who could gain any ground under green. This race 11 years ago had nearly triple the lead changes of Saturday's race, and this one had few more then the average road course race. 251. cjs3872 posted: 10.20.2011 - 9:36 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Mr X, I disagree with your point about less night racing, as I really don't think that has anything to do with the problem. I actually think the amount of racing at night is about right. If anything, the night races should be spread out more instead of condensed in clusters like they are. And remember, you have to have night races during the summer, due to the safety factor for competitors, officials, and spectators alike, as you can't have anyone have potential heat-related injuries, or even deaths due to heat. That has happened. And your point about the fall race at Charlotte in 2000 is well taken. The 46 lead changes that took place was the most for any race in over 10 years and the most for a non-Daytona or Talladega race since the late 70s and early 80s when drafting, even at places like Pocono and Michigan, was a major factor. And that's another thing that could be done to make the racing better at the intermediates. I think NASCAR could add the roof strip at the tracks over one mile in length to make drafting important at those facilities again. After all, can you imagine what a NASCAR race at Indy would have looked like in about 1981-'84? It would have been much more competitve because drafting would have been an important factor. I think the 2005 Indianapolis 500 was the most competitive race there since the days of the roadster, in terms of the number of cars that had legitimate shots at winning, which was due to drafting, because no one car could break away for any significant length of time. NASCAR needs to find a way to put drafting baack into play at the 1.5-2.5 mile non-restrictor plate tracks. If it does, you might see racing like the younger fans have never seen before at thoase tracks, but racing that the old-time fans (those who have been fans for longer than even I have been) can remember. And if that happens, you can kiss the fan indifference goodbye, and the popularity of the sport will go through the roof again, as it did 15 years ago. Auto racing's popularity has always been fueled by two things. One is the personalities of the drivers, and the other is the intense competition. The newer drivers, such as Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Trevor Bayne seem to be bringing the personalities of the drivers, which has been lacking in the last decade for the most part, back. Now all NASCAR needs is the intense competition to return, and the attendance figures will go back up. That, I can almost promise with 100% certainty. 252. 00andJoe posted: 10.20.2011 - 12:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #37 sponsor: AquariaUSA 253. 00andJoe posted: 10.20.2011 - 6:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Talladega entry list update: the #77 is once again listed, with T.J. Bell as driver. 254. Foyt 14 posted: 10.20.2011 - 8:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jimmie Johnson needs to shut his trap about Indycar, and how he thinks they should not race anymore ovals. In both his original statement, and his "clarification" of his statement earlier today, he never makes a mention of excluding the Indianapolis 500 from his no-ovals policy. First off Jimmie, stick to what you know, stock cars. Secondly, to stop running the Indy 500 because of Dan Wheldon would be a disservice to the dozens of others who have lost their lives to that race only to see it continue. Dan Wheldon would not want his death to be the end of the Indy 500, I guarantee you that. The Indianapolis 500 is going to continue long after Jimmie Johnson or any of us here draw our last breaths, as it should. It has weathered multiple world wars, more than 50 driver deaths, countless rain delays, different owners, different sanctioning bodies, and for an entire century it has balanced speed and danger with every drivers desire for racing glory. If NASCAR's golden boy thinks that the greatest spectacle in racing should come to end, he has truly lost my respect. You can debate whether it's worth it to race any other track besides Indy, but Indy will always be worth the risk, and every Indycar driver would agree. 255. cjs3872 posted: 10.21.2011 - 1:23 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sorry Foyt 14, but I believe what Jimmie mentioned in his clarification is that you just can't have Talladega-style racing in IndyCars, something everyone believes. In fact, Johnson isn't the first to criticize IndyCars racing on the medium-to-high-banked ovals. I believe Darrell Waltrip made similar critisms several years ago. Just read my posts on the reason why the crash at Las Vegas was so catastrophic and you'll see why they and numerous others, even quite a few inside IndyCar racing, agree with Johnson and Waltrip. But I'll mention them in this post, as well. First, you had too many cars on the track. It just makes no sense when the Indianapolis 500 has 33 cars, and I believe it can handle at least three more, and a race at a high-bakned speedway that's a mile shorter in length running overall lap speeds faster than they do at Indy, and with the field bunched up (my second reason for the calamatous nature of the crash) with no way to separate the field, something terrible was going to happen. The only surprise was that it took this long. And finally, there was the fact that they were open-wheel cars, and when open-wheel cars touch in any way, the tires act as launching pads, no matter the speed. The Indy 500 crashes of Salt Walther (1973 at not much more than half the speed that the four cars that got launched were traveling) and Tom Sneva (1975 at about 160 MPH) prove this. Certainly, Johnson's comments were knee-jerk, but the basis for his comments were right on the money. As for the greatest spectactle in racing coming to an end, we know that, as long as open-wheel racing continues to exist in this country, that will never happen. And like I've said, the Indianapolis 500 can, in my opinion, handle a field of 36-40 cars with little problem (remember that the field for the very first Indianapolis 500 in 1911 was 40 cars). But IndyCar racing does need to get off the high-banked speedways where the field is unable to separate, though the new car that Wheldon was testing may alleviate some of this, as the wheels are not quite as exposed, making it less likely that something like this would happen on so grand a scale. 256. RCRandPenskeGuy posted: 10.21.2011 - 2:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) At a track like Las Vegas, 30+ cars is way too many for an IndyCar race in my opinion. The wreck on Lap 11 last Sunday looked to be caused by too many cars in one spot entering Turn 1. At a track like Indianapolis, which looks like it may as well be an IndyCar coliseum, that many entries isn't that big a deal (but it still could cause horrific wrecks, as we have seen many times in the past). But what I am getting at is that ever since Vegas was reconfigured, it has become too treacherous a track for the type of car that IndyCar races, let alone too treacherous for that many entries. In NASCAR, it isn't as big of a deal because it is easier for stock cars to spread out. 257. cjs3872 posted: 10.21.2011 - 3:08 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Agreed RCRandPenskeGuy, which is why I compare a number of the circumstances of the IndyCar crash at Las Vegas to what happened at the 1973 Winston 500 at Talladega, which had a 60-car field. Remember that the decision was made after SpeedWeeks 1969 to CUT the size of the field for the Daytona 500 from 50 to 40 cars, but for the Winston 500 at Talladega in 1973, the went the other way, EXPANDING the field from 50 to 60 cars, despite speeds in the draft easily exceeding 190 MPH. And what happened on the ninth lap of that race, was almost as predictable as what happened on the 11th lap of Sunday's event at Las Vegas. But unlike that event at Talladega nearly 40 years ago, Sunday's event cost one life and darn-near resulted in the loss of two more. Yes, there have been numerous multi-car crashes at Indy over the years, but almost every one of them came on the start of the race (1958, '66, '73, '82, 95), or as was the case in 1964, on just the second lap of the race. They rarely happen into the race because the field spreads out due to the layout of the track. 258. Scott B posted: 10.21.2011 - 2:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Just for fun, looking at ROTY numbers for the first 31 Cup points events in 2011 if this were a three way race between Lally, Cassill, and T.J. Bell... Cassill would have the top finish in 18 races, Lally in 12, and Bell 1. (Brian Kesolowski 0, but an honorable mention for his run at Daytona that ended early) If you added Trevor Bayne as a 2011 rookie, I'm sure it would really scramble things... but I'm too lazy to run those numbers. 259. Spen posted: 10.21.2011 - 3:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) With all the races he ran last year, how would Cassill even be eligible this year? 260. RaceFanX posted: 10.21.2011 - 5:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Did Travis Kvapil start-and-park despite having a sponsor, Ingersol-Rand, for this race and promoting that fact ahead of the race? 261. cjs3872 posted: 10.22.2011 - 9:48 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Well, it looks like Kyle Busch Motorsports is going Nationwide Series racing full-time next year. what that means is, that although Kyle will still be doing races in the Nationwide Series for Joe Gibbs next year, he won't do quite as amy for Gibbs, as he will driving his own car for some of those races. That, of course, means that there may be room for a Toyota development driver (or drivers), splitting time with Kyle in the KBM Nationwide car, as well as potentially more opportunities for possible Gibbs development drivers running more races, even companion races with the Cup series, because if Kyle runs for his own team in those races, that would presumably leave one of Gibbs' cars open for a development driver. I have never had a problem with Cup drivers running the Nationwide Series, especially if it's not with a Cup organization, because I think what ruined the competitve balance in the Nationwide was not in higher number of Cup drivers. What ruined the competitve balance in the Nationwide Series was the greater number of Cup teams and their budgets, which made it next-to impossible for the Nationwide teams to be competitive. I still think, however, that the best way to limit Cup driver participation is to limit full-time Cup drivers with three or more season or 100 or more starts to 10-12 races, definately no more than 15, to give young, aspiring drivers a fair shot. Saying that about full-time Cup operations in the Nationwide Series ruining the series, I also have never had a problem with Cup organizations running development drivers full-time, as Roush is doing with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and Trevor Bayne this year, and what Penske (Ryan Newman and Brad Keselowski) and Hendrick (Brian Vickers and Kyle Busch) did in the past, using their Cup organizations to develop talent in the Nationwide Series, since developing young up-and-coming talent was what the series was originally intended for. 262. 00andJoe posted: 10.22.2011 - 6:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "With all the races he ran last year, how would Cassill even be eligible this year?" It's the new eligibility rule - if you haven't run full-time in Cup before, you're eligible to run for ROTY in your first full season. 263. 00andJoe posted: 10.22.2011 - 9:07 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Owner's standings by best finishing car 1. Roush, 1260 2. Hendrick, 1259 3. Gibbs, 1232 4. Childress, 1188 5. Penske, 1174 6. Stewart-Haas, 1095 7. Petty, 1010 8. Red Bull, 981 9. Earnhardt-Ganassi, 947 10. Michael Waltrip, 886 11. Furniture Row, 717 12. JTG-Daughtery, 618 13. Front Row, 572 14. Phoenix 548 15. Baldwin, 435 16. Germain, 427 --. Stoddard, 427 18. TRG, 404 19. Robby Gordon, 309 20. Wood Brothers, 273 21. Gunselman, 166 22. Whitney, 139 23. Parsons, 126 24. NEMCO, 118 25. Inception, 79 26. Leavine, 47 27. Rusty Wallace, 24 28. Falk, 20 29. Curb, 18 30. K-Automotive, 9 264. the_man posted: 11.24.2011 - 9:33 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) David Ragan on an 11th place finish: "We had a top three or top four car, so it's disappointing we had that spin and contact late in the race. We had a great UPS Ford all weekend and it's just unfortunate something like that had to happen. Our team did a great job in the pits all night and we're definitely looking forward to next weekend in Talladega." 265. Daniel posted: 05.21.2012 - 3:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) In using fastest 43: #35 Geoffrey Bodine & #46 Scott Speed Out using fastest 43: #32 Mike Bliss & #71 Hermie Sadler 266. Robert Nelson posted: 07.13.2012 - 1:04 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) F1 points Kyle Busch 272 Carl Edwards 263 Jimmie Johnson 237 11th. Kasey Kahne 107 (12th driver to get 100 points) F1 points Chase Matt Kenseth 61 Carl Edwards 58 Brad Keselowski 52 F1 points real life Chase Matt Kenseth 61 Carl Edwards 58 Tony Stewart 54 267. Anonymous posted: 04.11.2014 - 9:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor Updates 4 - Red Bull/Buffalo Wild Wings 83 -Red Bull/WilCo 268. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 04.24.2014 - 12:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Withdrew 60 Mike Skinner Toyota Big Red Mike Hillman 75 Derrike Cope Dodge TBA Derrike Cope ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: