5. Tony Stewart/Joey Logano “Home Depot” Commercial

If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m a Stewart fan and I’m slowly becoming a Loano fan so this commercial is kind of bittersweet (because Tony’s leaving) and exciting because I know Logano will do all my #20 merchandise justice.

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Well I must say that this is the first Sprint Cup race that I have watched in a few weeks where I was genuinely interested throughout the entire race and expected not to be, and most importantly…I was able to watch the entire race uninterrupted and without any power failures.

 

I guess a power outage wouldn’t have disappointed me much since the LENOX Industrial Tools 301, turned into the LENOX Industrial Tools 284 due to rain.

 

Casey Mears dominated the first quarter of the race due to pit strategy. How convenient that the same weekend that it is announced that he is being released from Hendrick Motorsports he leads his first laps of the race all season. I guess firing race car driver lights a fire under their butt! If I was a driver for Hendrick Motorsports, I’d be farting fire out my butt all season long…so why is Casey now making something happen?

 

Once Tony Stewart took over the lead he dominated the rest of the race with the exception of when it counted most. “It’s just been the oddest year I’ve ever seen for this team,” said Stewart. ”It’s just frustrating.” 

 

Tony lead 132 laps of the entire race but it looks like pit road strategy could have helped him in today’s race. It worked for him yesterday in the Nationwide Series.

 

Stewart’s last victory was on 8/12/07 at Watkins Glen, so this win today would have most likely been very important for Stewart (and his fans.) I know I’m personally sitting on pins and needles waiting for my favorite man to bring home the bacon to mama! Haha!

 

Just for a hearty tidbit, Toyota has collectively lead 2081 laps this season. If we did the math, 90% of those laps are Kyle Busch’s. Alas, we go back to the “lighting a fire under your butt” analogy aforementioned above. Hendrick Motorsports is slowly becoming the butt lighting race team, releasing one race car driver at a time.

 

At Lap 220 Kasey Kahne spun out Aric Armirola. Kahne, in turn spins out at lap 224 and no caution came out which caused Kahne to loose a lot of track position, and would eventually put him more than a few laps down.

 

At Lap 228 a great competitive race ensued between teammates Gordon and Johnson which gave Stewart an even more significant lead.

 

With 27 laps to go, Dale Earnhardt Jr, was getting ready to pit.  He drove towards the pit lane, driving below the yellow line when out of nowhere BLAM! McMurray rams Earnhardt Jr. from the back and spins out, in turn Ragan comes barreling on through and hits McMurray. Post race, McMurray explained he did not see Earnhardt Jr because he was looking ahead of where he wanted his car to eventually be, and no indication was left from his spotter that Jr. was there.

 

During the pit stops following the Earnhardt Jr./McMurray/Ragan wreck, Tony lost four positions by taking right side tires only while most took fuel only.

 

A few more laps later, Hornish and Bowyer get together in a wreck. Once the caution was waved after getting through the wreck Montoya and Kyle Busch get into some rubbing shenanigans and Montoya intentionally spins out Kyle Busch.

 

Who do you think is at fault for the wreck, Busch or Montoya? Or both?

 

After 284 laps, it rains, it pours…and NASCAR calls the race. Kurt Busch wins, luck and strategy was on his side, even though Kurt seemed to have hinted during rain delay interviews that maybe a win wasn’t very deserved due to a rain technicality.

“Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good,” said Busch. ”We might not have been the fastest car, but we got the win.”

 

Do you think Kurt Busch deserve the win?

 

I say yes! If you are smart enough and have good enough timing to plan such strategery (Thanks for the word Kyle Petty!) then as Dale Earnhardt Jr. said after his win on fuel strategy a few weeks ago…”A WIN IS A WIN”.

 

Dale Earnhardt Jr’s fuel strategy should be no different than Kurt Busch’s pit strategy. Period. If you disagree, please…enlighten me.

So this is a few days late, let’s just run with the fact that I was so irritated after watching the Richmond race Saturday night that I needed a few days to cool off. The truth is, I was busy with family outings for the rest of the weekend and they don’t really like hearing my race shenanigans.

This is why I have you guys, to vent…right?

Who do I want to rip out first?

Danny Hamlin¹ – After dominating almost 90% of the race, with 30 laps to go, he realizes his tire is down. Reporters said he didn’t pit because he wasn’t sure if his tire was really going down. The truth of the matter is, he purposely wanted to throw out the caution because then he could go in to pit and not lose any track position, therefore instead of just pitting, like common sense says, he stops in the middle of the damn track. Magically, the yellow flag waves and he’s driving off into his pit stall again. Woah! What a miracle! A selfish and dirty move indeed; NASCAR punished him for it, so he lost track position anyways. Bite it Denny! After all this, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was leading the race and would have indeed won that race except that the other Gibb’s driver Kyle Bush pulled this little stunt:

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1. AP Photo/Mike McCarn [↩]

I don’t know how the senior and long-time NASCAR fans feel about it, but I would love to see NNS race without any NSCS drivers in it. Why do I say that?

 

Here are this season’s NNS winners on the first 10 races:¹

 

1. Daytona: Tony Stewart
2. Fontana: Tony Stewart
3. Las Vegas: Mark Martin
4. Atlanta: Matt Kenseth
5. Bristol: Clint Bowyer
6. Nashville: Scott Wimmer
7. Fort Worth: Kyle Busch
8. Phoenix: Kyle Busch
9. Mexico City: Kyle Busch
10. Talladega: Tony Stewart

 

All NNS winners so far this season have been NSCS drivers with the exception of Scott Wimmer, and that was the race that was an off weekend for the NSCS drivers and none of them were racing in the NNS race that weekend.

 

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1. Statistics from Racing-Referance.info [↩]

Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 9 UAW/Dodge Dealers Dodge Charger, won his second race of the season and third of his Nextel Cup career for Sunday’s Samsung/Radio Shack 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway. Kasey turns 26 on Monday.

“I couldn’t believe we were that loose at the start and just took us a while to get going. (Team director) Kenny Francis made some great adjustments to our Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger,” Kahne said. “The final run there was the best the car had been all day. It was a heck of a battle with Tony (Stewart) there. I knew he wanted to hold me off because if he could beat me into the pits, he had a better shot at beating us out. The pit crew didn’t let that happen so it’s just a privilege to drive for Ray Evernham. The engines ran great, and I thank everybody at the shop. These guys do a great job.”

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One of the MANY reasons that I now watch Nascar…

It’s all my friend, Brynn’s fault and with no help, or better influence from my boyfriend. I HATE YOU ALL!