Over the previous weekend we watched the Busch brothers sweep the racing action at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. We watched a NASCAR team owner accomplish a difficult milestone in motorsports history. We also got treated to another to another fun episode of “Angry Drivers After The Race.” With those thoughts in mind let’s begin this week with:
HOORAH for Kurt Busch the winner of Sunday’s Coca Cola 600 which came eight days after his Roger Penske owned Dodge team won the NASCAR Sprint All Star Challenge also held in Charlotte. Doing your basic math that’s approximately $1.4 million in winnings for a very short period of time. The Coca Cola 600 was the elder Busch brother’s second win of the season and 22nd career win. He completely dominated NASCAR’s longest event by leading 252 of the 400 laps. Also, Busch is only the seventh driver to win both the All Star Challenge and the Coca Cola 600 in the same week.
He was the first to tell you that a major part of his excellent week at Charlotte was due to the stellar performance of his Miller Lite/Penske Racing team. That leads to a HOORAH to crew chief Steve Addington who seemingly made all the right calls when it came to car adjustments. This was not easy because the Coca Cola 600 began on a warm afternoon and ended at night when track conditions began to change.
It occurs to me that the six month old coupling of Busch and Addington is somewhat like instant oatmeal. You pour the ingredients from the package into a bowl, add some hot water, vigorously stir it up and the result is a sense of warmth and instant gratification. (I should forward this to the Quaker Oats people.)
A HOORAH also goes out to the Miller Lite pit crew whose stellar performance kept their driver in contention all through the race. This is especially true of the final, two tire, pit stop that sent their driver back to the track in first.
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HOORAH to Kyle Busch who also had some impressive stats from the Charlotte Motor Speedway. That included winning Saturday night’s TECH-NET Auto Service 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series event. The race had a very exciting conclusion that saw Busch holding off Brad Keselowski in a green-white-checker finish. It marked his fifth series win of the year and his 35th career win. He’s also now tied for most series wins at Charlotte with Mark Martin with six trips to victory lane each.
He gets another HOORAH for allowing the so called “New Kyle” to handle the adversity that presented itself during the Sprint Cup event at Charlotte and there was plenty to handle especially during the final moments of the race.
First off there’s a WAZZUP that stems from Busch’s arrival down pit road. He came very close to hitting A J Allmendinger’s Ford. Then leaving his pit box he hit Brad Keselowski hard enough to knock the toe in out in his Toyota. Adding insult to injury was the fact that Busch had to serve a drive through penalty for speeding down pit road.
But things got worse during the final restart of the race when Busch, charging hard through the middle of the pack, made some contact with Jeff Burton’s car. The result was Burton coming down pit road with a cut tire while watching a top five finish get regulated to a 25th place finish.
That led to Burton and a pit road tirade after the race that featured a lot of yelling and finger pointing. Busch took it in his stride which was somewhat of a surprise because sometimes we never know if we’re going to get “Good Kyle” or “Bad Kyle.” Burton eventually calmed down but still insisted that Busch’s aggressive driving is one thing but him becoming the victim of it was a totally different story.
The damage to Burton’s tire came following contact from the outside edge of the curved splitter on the Busch car. That leads to a WAZZUP with that curved splitter cutting another tire? We’ve seen this enough in the past to warrant NASCAR looking into some possible modification to prevent future occurrences.
Despite all of this adversity Busch deserves another HOORAH for salvaging a third place finish in the Coca Cola 600 which elevates him to second in the championship standings only 29 points away from leader Kevin Harvick.
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HOORAH to team owner Chip Ganassi. He started his Memorial Day weekend Sunday by watching his driver, Dario Franchitti, win the Indianapolis 500. He became the first ever team owner to win NASCAR’s Daytona 500 and the IRL’s Indy 500 in the same season.
Following the victory lane celebration at Indy he hopped on his airplane and flew to Charlotte-North Carolina to watch his Sprint Cup team, with driver Jamie McMurray, come extremely close to winning the Coca Cola 600. McMurray finished second a mere. 737 seconds behind Kurt Busch.
On Monday Ganassi and McMurray flew to Indianapolis, with the Harley J Earl trophy from the Daytona 500, and joined Dario Franchitti, with the Borg Warner trophy from the Indy 500, for a special photo session. It was literally a case of a picture speaking a thousand words.
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WAZZUP with more bad racing luck for Jimmie Johnson and his his Hendrick Motorsports #48 team? NASCAR’s reigning champion, over the last four years, fought a loose race car all during the Coca Cola 600. The problems started on lap 166 when Johnson brushed the wall and had to come in for repairs.
But the really big problem came around lap 272 when Johnson crashed hard into the wall. That leads to a HOORAH to this team for repairing the massive damage and getting their driver back into the race in 37 laps. Granted, he finished 37th but he did manage to accumulate 57 championship points plus the five bonus points for being a race leader. This is the type of move one expects from a championship caliber team.
Needless to say we’re already hearing a lot of post race talk regarding the fact that Johnson suffered his 4th DNF, (did not finish), of the season compared to the fact that he only had one each over the past two championship seasons. That leads to a WAZZUP with all of the media speculation that says this team is struggling with the recent NASCAR mandated change that replaced the wing on the rear of the cars with the traditional spoiler. What we’re seeing here is a simple case of bad racing luck. The aspect of wing versus spoiler has very little, if anything at all, with this team’s recent finishes. Anyone who believes that this team is going to struggle to make the Chase For The Championship’s 12 team cut off is frankly naive.
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In our final segment, HOORAH for an interesting one liner from Kyle Busch overheard from his in car radio during the Sprint Cup practice session last Saturday. Busch apparently didn’t like the shock package, and the car’s overall handling, and said “it feels like something that (team mate) Joey (Logano) would want to drive. That apparently wasn’t the case because at the time Busch was 22nd on the speed chart while Logano was seventh.
By the way HOORAH to Joey Logano for driving his last Sprint Cup race as a teenager. He turned 20 years old last Monday.
HOORAH to Kasey Kahne who, following a four tire pit stop last Sunday, came over his radio and said “my front tires are like a dysfunctional family. The right tire isn’t working and the left one doesn’t like it.”
HOORAH to NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon for losing a go kart race to a 15 year old girl in the name of a very worthy cause. The event was last week’s Ultimate Speed Charity Challenge held at Victory Lane Karting in Charlotte. 15 year old Jessica Dana took some time off from school and drive across the country with her family from their Washington state residence to participate in this event. Dana has only been racing karts for approximately eight months but does have a back ground in drag racing that began at the age of eight. She set fast time in qualifying which more than earned her the right to race against Gordon in the feature race. The young lady won that race by leading every lap and a very gracious Gordon greeted her in victory lane to thank her for participating in the charity event.
That leads to an additional HOORAH to Gordon for hosting this event which benefited the Jeff Gordon Foundation. The proceeds were used to purchase state of the art cardiac/respiratory monitors for patients at the Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital. The event raised over $250,000.
WAZZUP with Sprint Cup driver Kevin Conway declining the offer of a back up driver when he was so ill during last Sunday’s Coca Cola 600? The driver of the ExtenZe Racing/Front Row Motorsports Ford reportedly had extreme stomach cramps as well as multiple cases of vomiting inside of his driver’s helmet. Driver Michael McDowell, whose team had already exited the race, was in Conway’s pit to take over the car. Surprisingly Conway declined the offer and instead chose to tough it out to the finish. He was heralded by the Fox Sports television media as being a tough guy.
I’m sorry, I just don’t get that. In the world of NASCAR racing a smart guy has more value than a tough guy anytime. There was no reason for this driver to continue under such extreme conditions. It’s not like the team was a pivotal player in the race. In fact, they finished 35th seven laps down. A driver under such ill conditions could have developed a focus problem that in turn could have created an on track situation. If the driver didn’t want the exercise the option of getting out of the car, then someone from team management should have taken the initiative and made the call.
The absolute final WAZZUP of the week goes to yours truly for once again making an observation regarding Dale Earnhardt Jr in front of the girlfriend who forever remains a card carrying, T shirt wearing, member of the Junior Nation. During the Coca Cola 600 Earnhardt came to the pits with a very hot water temperature due to the presence of debris that was lodged in the car’s front splitter. The debris had the characteristics of some fan’s lunch and consisted of an empty soda cup, potato chip bag and a plastic sandwich bag. Earnhardt wound up finishing 22nd in the race.
That led to a comment from yours truly who suggested that maybe Junior’s latest endorsement contract involved a waste management company and collecting trash on the race track was part of the deal. I was quickly informed about the potential of having dinner alone at McDonalds. Please don’t worry about yours truly. I’ve been there, done that and that “Big Mac” was really good.
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