Like a woman and her ever changing moods, I decided to do recaps for the race again.

And I must say, it’s so easy to do recaps when my electric is not being blown out my Hurricane Ike, a 6 year old begging me to undress sleazy looking Bratz dolls and a boyfriend fighting you for the TV because he’d rather watch NFL.

God, I hate my life after that little reflection….anyways…the RECAP. Fun news stories and sarcasm coming tomorrow!

• Start: Jeff Gordon the poll sitter gets a good head start.
• Lap 2: Kurt Busch hits the wall, caused by David Guilliland getting loose, (#15) spins as well as an aftermath result. Tony Stewart runs down into the grass to avoid hitting Paul Menard.
• Lap 12: Patrick Carpantier spins into the wall, Carl Edwards (#99) clips him in the left front, but only slightly, he decides that the damage is not extensive enough to effect anything and stays out.
• Lap 38 (around): Jamie McMurray is the dominant car moving through the field and takes 1st.
• Lap 64: Joe Nemecheck (#78) solo wrecks, caution waves for third time. Jamie McMurray and Kyle Busch have semi-weak pit stops.
• Lap 101: Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues to fall back in spots due to his car being “very loose”
• Lap 111: Matt Kenseth is leading.
• Lap 113: Dale Jr’s tire goes low and he spins out, avoiding the wall, then Kyle Busch (#18) car has smoke coming out of it. He says they could possibly blow up on the restart.
• Lap 157: AJ Allmedinger’s car blows smoke, caution is out. Kyle Busch is still running in the race.
• Lap 162: Robby Gordon and Jamie McMurray get together after such a great run from Jamie McMurray, both cars suffer damage. Marcus Ambrose gets the free pass.  McMurray tries to pass Gordon who was a lap car and lost control.  McMurray is out of the race.
• Lap 171: Sam Hornish Jr. (#77) gets into the wall and suffers a missing rear bumper, and side damage. Caution is out for the 7th time.
• Shortly after this, Kyle Busch is taken back to the garage area. As a parting gift oil is spilled all over his neighboring pit stalls. Denny Hamlin has been on and off of pit road so many times.
• Lap 186: Caution is out. #77 has car pieces falling out onto the track.
• 180 Laps to go: Denny Hamlin is leaking fluids.
• 162 Laps to go: Jimmie Johnson finally pits, which was much needed, on the green flag.
• 158 Laps to go: Carl Edwards is leading the race.
• 156 Laps to go: Denny Hamlin pits with a flat tire. He ends up going to the garage.
• 150 Laps to go: Regan Smith goes to the garage.
• 135 Laps to go: Martin Truex Jr. pits under green.
• 132 Laps to go: Tony Stewart pits along with Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick under green.
• 131 Lapt to go: Clint Bowyer pits along with Jeff Burton under green.
• 129 Laps to go: Jimmie Johnson leads, followed by Stewart after all green flag stops are done. Newman and Kenseth battle for the following positions 3 & 4.
• 113 Laps to go: Denny Hamlin is back into the race from the garage.
• 109 Laps to go: Caution is out, this is good news for Jimmie Johnson who could have possibly have fuel mileage issues.
• After pits, Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards leave the pits #1 and #2 respectively, but it was a very close race off the pits.
• 99 Laps to go: Biffle takes the lead with Carl Edwards right behind him, taking the spot from Johnson. Matt Kenseth is behind them.
• 87 Laps to go:  Kurt Busch gets black flagged for pieces of his car and debris hanging off the car.
• 85 Laps to go: Biffle reports a possible flat tire.
• 75 Laps to go: Edwards is the leader. Biffle is 2nd. Mark Martin is 3rd.
• 50 Laps to go: Juan Pablo Montoya wrecks. Caution. Carl Edwards takes two tires only on a gamble by crew chief, Bob Osbourne. Mark Martin catches up to Edwards on the restart.
• 42 Laps to go: Matt Kenseth takes #2 spot from Martin.
• 28 Laps to go: Kenseth and Carl Edwards are fighting for the top spot.
• 25 Laps to go: Biffle takes the #2 spot from Kenseth.
• 23 Laps to go: Kenseth takes back the #2 spot. Carl Edwards falls back two spots to #3.
• 20 Laps to go: Kenseth is #1 with close competition from Biffle.
• 14 Laps to go: Biffle and Kenseth are racing side by side.
• 8 Laps to go: Biffle takes lead with close competition from Kenseth.
• WINNER: Greg Biffle

DEBATE QUESTION: If you were in Carl Edwards shoes would you blame the loss on Bob Osborne?

I personally say No, because if Osborne opted to take 4 tires and Edwards won the race, there would be no complaints right now. Osborne obviously thought he had a good chance to win the race on two tires, so he gave Edwards two tires. He was gambling, taking a chance, and in racing, sometimes it turns out good, sometimes bad. That’s just racin! If nobody gambled, then we’d be watching a very boring race. Edwards is 1st in points right now, so there is not too much to be disapointed with. He ran a great race and with his two tires vs. the four fresh tires that Kenseth and Biffle had.

What do you think?

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.

Tony Stewart’s luck may not be looking up in the Sprint Cup Series, but luck has been on his side in the NASCAR Nationwide Series as he wins his 5th victory (out of seven starts) last Saturday in the Camping World RV Sales 200.

 

So far in the Nationwide Series season, the #20 car has seen victory 8 out of 17 times; Five wins from Stewart, 1 from Hamlin and Kyle Busch, and one with the popular rookie, Joey Logano.

 

On Stewart’s final pit stop of the race, pit strategy played in his favor as his crew chief, Dave Rogers opted to only take two tires which put Stewart restarting third.

 

“I look up and they’re all coming,” Rogers said. “It was a parking lot, and I knew if we got back in traffic, we would never make it to the front. This is a track position race.”

 

Stewart took over the lead around lap 136 from Carl Edwards where he dominated until the end of the race. Finishing right behind Stewart were his teammates, Hamlin finishing second, and Kyle Busch finishing third.

 

“That last stop is what won the race for us,” Stewart said. “To get track position and be able to stay up front and not have to overdrive the car or abuse the tires was the key to the win.”

 

I have to share why I titled my post “90 Laps At Sonoma” because I am under the realization that it wasn’t 90 laps long. 90 laps was about how much of the race I watched before my power went out for the rest of the night. As I complained last night, I missed the entire Nationwide Race due to a power outage, someone is not wanting me to watch a race this weekend, either that or Jr. Fans are out to get me.

 

 

Pre and Post Power Outage

 

Kyle Petty had the perfect word of the day: “Strategery” Which obviously played in a few of the drivers favors. Now I must go out into the world and use it in conversation.

 

At about lap 27 a few notables like Greg Biffle, Montoya, Kyle Busch, McMurray, Burton, Harvick and Stewart made their pit stops early which played into the outcome of the race because shortly after Stewart finished his pit, the caution flag was waved and all the drivers that went to the pits early were running up front with Biffle leading the way.

 

To which the moment didn’t last long because Biffle spun out which caused Monyoya to check up and Kyle Busch swoops in for the lead. His first time leading in a road course race. The rest of the race turned into the Kyle Busch show. No complaint’s there except I was more excited for tuning into the Tony Stewart show, but that’s me!

 

The last thing I saw was Tony running 4th…then my power went out…for the second day in a row. Everyone in the neighborhood heard me scream a few obscenities that dare not be mentioned in text form and I spent most of the duration listening to the race on my Sirius Satellite Radio in my car while the major winds that knocked out the power to begin with, rocked my car back and forth. This wouldn’t be the last time the neighbor’s would hear my obscenities.

 

If Harvick had not bumped into McMurray, and McMurray had not bumped into Stewart…every single one of those drivers would have top 5 finishes. So obviously Harvick’s slip up was not intentional but when it happened I’m pretty sure I was not the only one screaming at something. Imagine a little asian girl sitting in a non-moving, non-running car yelling to herself. Yeah! I get the award for “Headache of the Week”

 

Kyle Busch won the race…yada, yada…DUH! Yey! It was exciting to watch the first two times, not so much this time, but Congrats either way. The crowd actually cheered for him this time, either that or they were ridicuously drunk on some Napa Valley Wine.

 

What was left of my laptop battery I used to watch Tony Stewart’s post race interview online. Mind you, I missed the replay, as Stewart claimed as well to Marty Snyder the TNT reporter interviewing Stewart post race. Stewart distintivly said he was not going to comment because he had not seen the wreck, of course that must not have been the entertaining answer TNT wanted.

 

“I don’t know how you expect me to answer that when I didn’t see what happened. It was at a weird spot and it was an angle I can’t see at.” Stewart snapped.

 

Here’s where the debate comes in:

 

Do you think TNT was attemping to strum up some drama with Tony, or was Tony being out of line?

 

First off, the reporter practically asked Tony the same question twice, I’d be pissy too. “Stupid people annoy me” is one of my many favorite quotes and this would be the perfect quote for it.

 

Third time is a charm for Kasey Kahne (if you’re counting the All-Star Race) If you’re not counting it as three races then two in a row is still great. Those All-State Girls must have fed him a large dose of something good.

Kyle Busch finished 43rd after wrecking himself twice. The first time, he probably wanted to blame Jaime McMurray, the second time he probably wanted to blame the curb that macigally jumped out in front of him. Whatever the reason may be, Pocono was just not a Kyle Busch day, which is a first for the season.

While we’re on the subject of Kyle Busch…does anyone else think that him trying to play “Superman” and do triple duties in all three race series (Craftsman Truck Series, Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series) is maybe finally taking its toll on his racing abilities or could this only make him a better race car driver? (as if the man couldn’t get any better.)

Stewart was running up front for a while until a pit stop/speeding penalty put him a lap down. Another disappointment for us Stewart fans. What else is there to say? I’m still predicting that Stewart’s wins will come after the first half of the season is over. He seems to be a second half season performer. Patience, Stewart fans, I know it’s hard at this point.

Juan Pablo Montoya almost got burned into a crisp while safety workers stood by and watched. These “safety workers” were later identified as being there solely for the purpose of helping the driver and not the car, so I guess him being in the car while it was on fire didn’t count?

Brad Keselowski won his first race in Nationwide Series and he didn’t even have to stick around to change Denny Hamlin’s diaper and give him his binky.

There’s honestly not much else to say, Pocono always ends up being my “snoozer race” but there were a few pit strategies that livened up the entertainment of the race which got Brian Vickers a second place finish.

So here it is, Monday morning and it’s been two days since the All-Star race. I’ve completely slacked on updates but it’s hard to get rid of writer’s block when you hear this all weekend,

“I’m hungry…” from my man’s 6 year old that I was babysitting all day Saturday.

“Where is [insert item here]?” from my mom.

“Let’s go do something!” from the 12 year old and 9 year old cousins.

All of this while doing laundry, cleaning the wrecked up house and cleaning up a poop filled ferret cage, an aquarium of three hermit crabs, and three magically flea infested dogs.

If it counted to anyone, I was blasting the Speed channel the entire time. All I know is that if this is my life now being single with no children, I would hate to see what would happen if I was married with kids. I must go tie my tubes now!

Congratulations to Dale Jarret for having such a great career! You could tell it was extremly sad to get into that car for the last time. But watching the Buster Brown truck drive around the track was the greatest thing to witness!

So anyway…the All-Star Race…was a little boring. I’m still a little perturbed how AJ-Allmen-ding-bat won the showdown, at least he didn’t accidentally wreck anyone in the All-Star race, the big boys would beat him up once he got onto the playground. But it’s my personal opinion that if he wouldn’t have wrecked out Elliot Sadler, Elliot would have won the fan vote. Dale Earnhardt Jr. supporting Elliot Sadler for the fan vote is like Dale Earnhardt Jr. supporting a presidential candidate, whomever he supports will most likely become president.

If this wasn’t his wife and mom…this would be creepy!

Sam Hornish Jr. was second place in the showdown.

Kasey Kahne won the fan vote because I voted for him about 10,345,789 times beforehand.

My female intuitions were right on the money this time. If you’re a guy, then you should know we love it when we are right.

Kyle Busch wins Segment 1 and probably would have won the second one except for the fact that his car had an engine failure.

Denny Hamlin was ready to win Segment 2, except he also had an engine failure as well. Anyone see a trend going on here? Carl Edwards wins Segment 2.

Greg Biffle wins Segment 3. At this point I’m cheering for him to win. What seems like out of nowhere, but really in thanks to a call by his crew cheif to stop and go on the last pit stop, Kasey Kahne swoops up to dominate when it counted most, the fourth and final segment to take the win and the million dollar payout. Now he can buy a little bit more excitement and a place in next year’s burnout competition because a person with asthma wouldn’t have choked over that burnout.

“A MILLION DOLLARS? That’s chump change!”

The last place winner made out with more than I make in three years worth of working. So it’s with deep soul searching that I am proud to announce that I am moving to North Carolina and entering into an exotic dancing career.

Nobody might not care, but it turns out I am going to Eldora Speedway next month, I am going to eBay the tickets to the sold out event, and I am going to eBay it until my wallet busts. I am currently a winning bidder on a pair of tickets. *squee*

Pit Crew Challenge

Anyway, did anyone watch the Pit Crew Challenge? I started too until my horrid excuse for a man decided that watching “American Chopper” was more important. What is more important than watching something NASCAR related? Wha?

Brian Vickers’ pit crew won the challenge with Denny Hamlin’s pit crew right behind. Red Bull gave them wings.¹

I don’t care what you say, those guys have to be hulluva athletic to do that stuff, there has to be some buff bodies under those firesuits. *smiles to self, ok quit being a whore*

All-Star Fan Vote

You still have a chance to vote your favorite driver into the All-Star race, after watching pre-pit crew challenge festivities, I think I might go vote for Patrick Carpentier because the man was walking around in nothing but boxers, Travis Kvapil has a cute dog and likes cheese and David Reutimann because his daughter needs a new pair of shoes. (If you did not watch last, night you will probably have no idea what I’m talking about.) I voted for Kasey Kahne and Elliot Sadler last week on NASCAR.com, just because.

Ok well I thought those were the two hottest and well…Kasey Kahne is a great driver, he’s just having a bad season, he will bounce back. Altough, I can see Travis Kvapil doing great things, with his dog and cheese…and with this thing we call racing.

About The All-Star Race

For the newbies that need a recap on what the All-Star Race really is:

The All-Star Race includes race-winning drivers from the previous and current Sprint Cup Series seasons, Cup Series champions from the past 10 years who are active drivers and have competed in at least one series event during the previous or current season, and past winners of the All-Star Race.

Additionally, two drivers will qualify for the premier event by finishing first and second, respectively, after two 20-lap segments in the Sprint Showdown (formerly the Open). Finally, one driver will once again join the All-Star Race field by winning the Fan Vote.

So if you want to vote your favorite driver into the All-Star race, go here.²

1. Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR [↩]
2. All-Star Info from NASCAR.com [↩]