Merry Christmas To All

Cross Posted from Rev’Jim’s RantsnRaves

Santa didn’t forget

We almost let Christmas slip by without offering a wish list for some of our favorite drivers, teams, and NASCAR personalities. I’m not going to let that happen.

Silly season never really ended. Bobby Labonte was released from Petty Enterprises even after avowing his loyalty to that team. So of course, for Bobby Labonte: A full time Interstate Battery sponsorship and a full time ride for 2009.

For Tony Stewart: A four-leaf clover, or a lucky horseshoe, or both, wishing him the best of luck with his new team.

For Stewart/Haas Racing: A full time sponsorship from Interstate Batteries and Bobby Labonte for a third team.

For Scott Riggs: A ride where he will be appreciated. Perhaps the Team Formerly Known As Bill Davis Racing has an opening?

For Bill Davis: A happy retirement after going out on top.

For all Crew Chiefs: A free pass for “pushing the envelope.” We won’t see much of that anyway in ‘09, due to lack of open testing, but if it happens, give them a break.

For Mark Martin: A Championship. Why not? He certainly deserves one.

For Kyle Busch: Some love from the fans.

For Greg Biffle: Some love from his team.

For Brian France: A key so he can escape his ivory tower, for a temporary taste of reality.

For All NASCAR Fans: A Merry Christmas, and a great 2009!

 

New Hampshire Weekend Review

There is never any way, in the US at least, Formula One is going to steal NASCAR’s thunder. The racing world was amazed as 21 year old Sebastion Vettel became the youngest driver ever to win a points Grand Prix race in the history of that series. He did it at Monza in Italy, driving for Red Bull Racing’s Jr league Scudaria Toro Roso, which isn’t supposed to do better than the top teams. This is the same team that was known as Menardi before 2006, and was a historical back marker.

As big as that news was to many fans all over the world, the big news in NASCAR was Kyle Busch having a broken car and losing the points lead in the first round of the Chase for the Championship. For those who may have missed the race, or want to relive it, Rev’ Jim’s RantsnRaves presents the race “Live on Type Delay,” including unnecessary commentary that we hope is as fun to read as it was to write:

Sometimes it seems that New Hampshire Motor Speedway needs something like Joey Chitwood to make it more exciting. It looks like a big Martinsville, but races like a small California. It is rumored–actually expected–that Bruton Smith, the new owner will reconfigure the track, perhaps add some more banking, to change the way the track is raced. I don’t know how much change we really want to see. As it is, it is a thinking man’s track, because it presents a very real challenge in passing and in saving brakes and tires. It definitely emphasis’s a team effort, and it really doesn’t make any difference if it is the Sprint Cup car or the conventional car racing on the track–we expect to see a single file line of cars through most of the race.

But what makes it exciting today is that it is the first race of the Chase, and things can happen. Last year, we expected the Chase teams to be cautious, and they weren’t. They took off racing each other hard, and raced aggressively throughout the event. Clint Bowyer, in his first Chase for the Championship got his first career victory at the end.

The rain has moved out, the track is being dried, and it looks like the race may start on schedule. The anticipation is building. ..read more

Meanwhile we’re trying to figure out what some of our other bloggers at The Digest are doing. Amy’s Bad Groove promises a post race report, and the other two parts of her personal experiences at Auto Club Speedway a couple of weeks ago are up. She also has some good pictures of her nephew.

Diecast Dude watched the same race RevJim did, but it’s hard to tell that from his entry on Restrictor-Plate This, titled A Dull Race=An Interesting Chase. He also provides us with a decent news wrap up, with which we shall call a wrap on this post.

 

NASCAR’s 2008 “Regular Season” Ends

Cross posted from Rev’ Jim’s RantsnRaves:

NASCAR’s regular season for 2008 ended with a great shootout between two of the best drivers in the sport. The entire season had its share of similar exciting moments, as well as some huge disappointments.

Dodge started out on a high note, with the Penske and Gillett-Evernham teams making a strong showing at the Daytona 500, resulting in a victory by Penske’s #12 team and Ryan Newman. After that they sort of disappeared from the radar screen. Kasey Kahne and the GEM # 9 Dodge team had some brilliant moments, and it looked like Kahne could be a championship contender, but a late season string of bad luck over just a few short weeks virtually put that team out of the running….read more

Every fan has his or her favorite moments of the season, and probably has a pretty good list of least favorite moments. The “Spin heard around the world” in the first Richmond race certainly got the fans fired up, no matter who they held as their favorite driver. The Brickyard race was, on the other hand, shockingly disappointing.

We can expect more excitement over the next ten races as the championship is decided and the other teams attempt to stay in, or get into, the top thirty-five in owners points which would guarantee them a spot in the first five races of next season.

I would like to see some posts here from some of our other NASCAR Full Throttle bloggers on what they think of the regular season as a whole.

In the meantime Amy’s Bad Groove explores the implications of that final regular season race at Richmond:

The race at Richmond was a battle royale even for Team Home Depot.  To maintain a position in the chase team Home Depot had to score 35 or better.  Thanks to Tropical Storm Hannah the Saturday night race was postponed until Sunday afternoon and qualifying was a wash. This however, was a good thing because it meant team Home Depot started 8th because they were 8th in points…read more

While you are visiting Amy’s Bad Groove, be sure to read her first person account of the race weekend at Fontana. So far, she has posted part one and part two.

Trixie’s Trailer Park has a good preview of the 2008 Chase for the Championship here.

If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of Tim of Do You NASCAR, it would be greatly appreciated. He hasn’t posted anything since the Watkins Glen race.

 

Another silly season change

Earlier this week, I went to visit one of my favorite blogs, and was nearly traumatised to find what could have been disturbing news:

Trouble in Turn 2 is no more. Mike, the beloved blogger of that site has moved to One Bad Wheel.  One Bad Wheel, many of you know, is an excellent fantasy and statistics site, and many of us feature the widgets from that site on our own sites. Mike’s features, commentaries, previews and reviews will add even more reasons to visit one of the best NASCAR related sites on the web.

Rev Jim’s RantsnRaves offers an overview on other things that have happened during Silly Season–click here to read.

 

Bristol has its ups and downs

There may be some fans who miss the single file wreck fest that used to be the product of a NASCAR race at Bristol. I’m not one of those. Granted, the old configuration presented a challenge to the drivers in that they had to be able to hold their cars on the track while getting bumped from behind, and that there were few ways to gain a position other than moving the car in front of them out of the way by using the “chrome horn.” But that was the same thing we see at Martinsville, except at a higher speed. That might be right for some, but to me, it wasn’t good racing.

Bristol, in its most recent configuration, features multiple grooves that allow side by side racing. It is still a short track, but it is a high speed short track. As at any short track, the driver has to find a rhythm, but the rhythm has a quicker beat than it would at a flat track.

We still saw plenty of contact in the Nationwide Series race, Saturday night, especially when the lead lap cars caught up with lapped traffic. Contact is expected at short tracks, and it still occurs. It just isn’t as effective or obvious with the Cup cars as it is with the conventional cars used by the Nationwide Series.

The Sprint cup car presents a complementary challenge to the new configuration of Bristol. With the matching bumpers, it is more difficult to get a leading car loose than it was with the conventional car. The challenge presented now is to find the right line for the car and hold it, drive into the turns as hard as possible without using up the brakes or over-driving, and avoid getting beat up too bad by the other cars. Aerodynamics are more of a factor at Bristol than at other short tracks.

Jeff Gordon is good at all of the above, which is why he is my pick as the winner of tonight’s Sharpie 500. He has declared that he will take matters into his own hands, and, if he lives up to his promise, we will see why he is considered one of the greatest NASCAR racers of all time. We are looking forward to that tonight.

Bristol is still one of my favorite tracks. The new configuration requires new driving and racing techniques. Side by side racing and contact between the cars is what we like to see in NASCAR Cup style racing, and if it can be done without an overabundance of wrecks and caution, so much the better.

 

The racing should pick up now. Really, it should

Five weeks to go until the race at Richmond that decides who will be in the Chase for the Championship, and who won’t be there. The competition should be stepping up, and the teams are moving into high gear.

Some of the races have been very good this year–Phoenix, Talladega, Lowe’s, Martinsville, Richmond, and Darlington have been the scenes of some very good racing. Some have been not-so-good. Atlanta, TMS, and Las Vegas, for example. And there has been one that, for the fans, was absolutely terrible. We all know which one that was, so we won’t mention it further.

The CoT, or Cup car, still needs a little work. The ablility to race side by side still doesn’t seem to be there. Not surprisingly, Brian at Racedriven.com and Rev Jim at Rev’ Jim’s RantsnRaves each had opinions on the subject of improving the racing and published said opinions on the same day. While agreeing on some points, they differ on others. It should be said that neither blogger was in contact with the other before posting their thoughts.

Racedriven.com wrote:

Since the Friday before the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard (or Brickyard 400), the talk around NASCAR has been mainly focused on tires, the tire wear seems to be a problem. Let’s be honest, so far in the 2008 NASCAR Cup Series season, the subject has been mainly focused on the tires vs. NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow, so the tire issues were nothing new to hear, however the powder was…read more

Rev’ Jim thinks the problem comes from more than the tires:

From its very beginnings, NASCAR has attempted to impose parity among the teams participating in the races they sanction. From the very beginning, car owners and drivers have been trying to find a way to get an edge on the competition by going around the rules and finding “gray areas.” …read more

This coming weekend’s race at Watkins Glen should be good for some teams trying to stay in the Chase, and not so good for others. The race won’t mean much to the top six drivers in the standings, as they are mathematically locked into the Chase, but those who can, such as sixth placed Jeff Gordon, will try to get ten bonus points for the Chase by winning at Watkins Glen.

Tim, at Do You NASCAR ? explains it all, as far as the standings go and how this weekend relates to the standings.

This week NASCAR heads to Waktins Glen International for one of their two road course races of the season on the Sprint Cup Series schedule. The race comes just one week after NASCAR made history for itself when they raced in the rain last Saturday in the Nationwide Series in Montreal, which most critics feel came off as a huge success. As of right now there are no plans to break out the rain tires on Sunday, but there’s still plenty to look forward to with just five races remaining until the cutoff for the Chase…read more

Of course while talking about race previews, we can’t overlook Mike’s take from Trouble in Turn 2

Hello, my name is Glen. I’m from upstate New York. I throw a party once a year and invite all of my friends to come and hang out for the weekend. My political views are pretty balanced, sometimes I go to the left, other times I lean to the right. Not everyone is used to this balanced path and sometimes it can be frustrating for my friends with less experience at my parties. Alright, I admit it used to be fun playing tricks on these people and watching them spin and get caught in the quicksand, but I’ve matured in recent years…read more

Tim writes plenty of stuff that shouldn’t be missed, so while you are there, you might want to read “How to speak NASCAR: A translation guide.”

Until next time, thanks for you kindness and patience, and thanks for reading our blogs.

 

Frustration

Sunday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway certainly did not live up to its hype. I wouldn’t say it was boring, but it was certainly frustrating, and very difficult to watch. But NASCAR did what it had to do to keep the drivers safe and still run the race to its completion.

It probably would have been better if open testing had been allowed for all teams prior to the race weekend. They may have figured some way to save the right side tires, but we will never know. It will not happen again, we do know that for certain.

The mystery remains as to why the track surface never rubbered up. Instead of being ground into the track surface, as it has in the past, it just turned into dust.

“Live on Type Delay” from Rev’Jim’s RantsnRaves could not be done properly because of the way the race was run, ten or eleven laps and caution for the majority of the race. Instead we call it “Not Quite Live on Type Delay.”

This is a different kind of “live on type delay,” because the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard was a kind of race we have never seen before. Although it wasn’t the greatest event for the fans to watch–for that matter it could be compared to the 2005 Formula 1 USGP in terms of disappointment–it was a race, and there was racing happening…read more 

Some of our other bloggers weren’t as kind as we were. Trixie wouldn’t even call it a race:

I felt like I was in the middle of some crazy nightmare yesterday.  Congratulations to Jimmie Johnson for coming in first yesterday.  I don’t know if we could call what happened yesterday racing.  Yes, there were 43 cars on the track trying to make their way to the front.  And I guess by definition that would be racing, but the type of racing I like to see between the drivers didn’t happen yesterday…read more

Trixie does go into detail and some explanation for the problems encountered by NASCAR, and the article is well worth reading.

Diecast Dude finds a bright spot, sort of, in his Restrictor-Plate This Post “Now wasn’t that fun?”

In a bizarre — very bizarre — way, yesterday’s Brickyard (otherwise known as the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway) had an entertainment value seldom seen this year.  A comedy of errors has its moments…read more

We’re certain that every race fan has something to say about Sunday’s disaster. As always we welcome comments.

 

Recovering

We hope you enjoyed Ovalscreams post on Winnie. We apologize to our readers for the lack of activity on this blog, but that was such a good post, it deserved to be left on top. The truth is, Ovalscream set the bar so high with that post, it must have scared the rest of us.

Oh well, vacation is over and it is time to get back to work.

This particular Tony Stewart fan, that is I, has had a difficult time looking forward to the prospect of my favorite driver going to a different team and a different car number. I am gradually accepting it, but only with the realization that Smoke’s attitude has changed to the point where there are other things in racing that are more important to him than winning as a race car driver. He is optimistic about his chances of helping his new Stewart-Haas racing team step up, and be competitive, but, he admits, it could take a while to build the team. We just have to get used to the fact that he will be happy driving around the track like Kyle Petty, as his team gains strength and competiveness.

That being said, we are finally getting a little excited about what will be the #14 team, but that is for next season. This season, we wonder if Smoke still has the fire to win a few. He got out of his car at Daytona a few weeks ago, when he had a car that looked like it could win. Yes, he was sick, and yes, it was probably for good reason, but there was a time when he would rather soil his firesuit than get out of a potentially winning car.

So, Smoke ain’t what he used to be. Since he is the part owner of a new NASCAR Sprint Cup partnership, this is probably a good step towards being politically correct–something else we aren’t used to from Smoke.

But can he make it three in a row at the Brickyard, next weekend? That is a tough call. If he does win, I will then lose all my doubts, and start being optimistic about Stewart-Haas Racing, because another Brickyard win will mean that Smoke does still have the fire. After all, that is a very tough race to win, and when everybody wants to win it just as bad as any other driver, it makes it even tougher. Mike of Trouble in Turn 2 has a little to say about how tough it can be in his excellent article, “Pick Your Ten Favorite NASCAR Races”

The actual race itself isn’t always filled with passing and a few drivers tend to dominate. It’s still one of the most prestigious venues in the world of motorsports and teams tend to spend a little extra time massaging their cars and getting everything just right for this race. Unlike Daytona where a good restrictor plate car only translates to three other races, The Brickyard 400 goes a long ways towards speedway bragging rights…read more

In spite of my griping about the changes Tony Stewart is going through, we think he will continue to show that he has a strong drive to win, it will just be with a different way of winning in mind.

 

Just a few more thoughts on silly season

Randy Moss will be entering his first NASCAR race as a team owner when he runs the #81truck at  Kentucky Speedway on July 18. Willie Allen, last year’s Craftsman Truck Series Rookie of the Year will be his driver.

Moss said that his involvement is all about love and passion:

“But I am not jumping into NASCAR because of the color of my skin. It’s about the love and passion I have to win and about being a fan with an opportunity that has come my way”

Moss has jumped in with both feet, buying 50% of the Morgan-Dollar race team and renaming it Randy Moss Motorsports. It seems like he knows what he is doing, and we wish him the best of luck. You can find more information in this David Poole article from the Charlotte Observer.

With Mark Martin signing for two years with HMS to drive the #5 car full time next year, and perhaps to share a ride with Landon Cassill or Brad Keselowski in 2010, the rumor mongers are running out of options for Tony Stewart. It seems that his only options now may be the #12 car for Penske, if Ryan Newman goes elsewhere, or maybe the #40 team for Ganassi. Or maybe he could just stay with Gibbs. Rev Jim explores the options one more time:

Stewart is already rumored to be signing with Haas/CNC, where he will be part owner and drive a car for the chronic backmarker, and wave some kind of magic wand that will suddenly make a top forty team a top ten team. While he is doing that, he is also rumored to be driving for Hendrick Motorsports in the number 5 car, since it has been announced that Casey Mears will no longer be driving the car next year. That alone should generate more rumors concerning Mears in the #40 car next year, even if Stewart is supposed to be in that car next year, according to rumor mongers, who have yet to explain how Smoke will be in the #5 car if that is where Mark Martin is supposed to be for 2009…read more

That item is tagged as “Satire and Humor” so we should take it with a grain of salt.

Over at Trouble in Turn 2, Mike has some “Friday Notes:”

A brief history of the #40 car. Once upon a time there was a driver named Sterling Marlin. He was hired to drive a racecar full time for Chip Ganassi/Felix Sabates Racing (This was before they changed their name to Chip Ganassi/Felix Sabates Mostly Riding Around)…read more

Have a Happy Independence Weekend, and enjoy the race!

 

Some thoughts and more from the New Hampshire Weekend

While the outcome of Sunday’s Lennox Industrial Tools 301 may have been disapointing for many of us, it reminded us of how hard it is to actually win a race in NASCAR. A team that has the best car and the best driver for a given race doesn’t necessarily come out the winner, and we saw that at Loudon.
The teams that stayed out during the caution with around thirty laps to go were merely expecting to get a good finish. They knew they wouldn’t be able to beat the cars that had been running so well all day–those of Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Jeff Burton, for example– and expected to be about four laps short on fuel if the race had gone green for the scheduled distance, but they took a gamble that many teams take at nearly every race. The results that came of the gamble were better than expected, with Kurt Busch winning the race, Michael Waltrip second, and JJ Yeley third.

It would be fun to think about what might have happened if the rain hadn’t come down, but it is really pointless to do so, in much the same way it would be to think about what would have happened if it had started raining fifteen minutes earlier.

It was disappointing to see the race end the way it did, but what happened happened, and we got to see yet another way a race is won.

For those who missed the race, or perhaps wish to relive the experience, Rev’Jim’s RantsnRaves has the race “Live on Type Delay:

There are a lot of fast cars making their way up through the field. Besides Stewart, who is now running in thirteenth, having gained fifteen positions from his starting spot, Jeff Gordon seems to finally have a good car to start with and has made it into the top ten…read more

There are also some thoughts on the Nationwide series at Rev’Jim’s in the post “Dave Rogers, Jr Celebrates Hometown Victory“

Thank you for visiting NASCAR Bloggers FT Digest