Rating the Race – Bristol lived up to its reputation

Why I watched…

It was Bristol. Even though I cringed through the announcing, Saturday’s Nationwide race was a good one to watch as Kyle Busch beat out Kyle Larson by about 3 feet at the line for the win. It had hits, it had spills, it had thrills…and now we got to do it all again with the likes of  Tony, Jimmie and Junior and all the rest. And not a Rusty or a Brad to be heard from.

The race…

We heard from Tony Stewart…for nine laps. He cut a tire, found a wall, and then pegged his way to a 31st place finish. It could have been much, much better, but at no time was Tony last.

No, by the time Tony had his wreck, Mike Bliss had already found the garage. Bliss had ran three laps. Out of 500. Engine woes is the official reason. It might be just me, but if you can not build an engine to run 1.5-miles, 7920 feet, 95,040 inches, then for the love of God you should stay parked. If you have not leased at least three sets of tires, you should stay parked. If you do not have an entire pit crew, in proper gear, you should stay parked. If your war wagon consists of two lawn chairs and a cooler, you should stay parked. If Joe Nemechek can run 490 laps to wind up 29th, then you should, too…or stay parked. Unless you wreck.

Jeff Gordon was leading, with Matt Kenseth second, when Four-Time got two timed by an old tire leaving his attempted pass a dive bomb into the wall right in front of One-Time. Both wound up behind Nemechek in the final results.

We don’t hear much from Dave Blaney, but he was running steady in 15th with 180 laps remaining when he lost a tire and gained a wall. Jimmie Johnson did the same, though he did claim 22nd,  a spot ahead of Denny Hamlin. He found the wall, again and again and again over the final laps. It was the only way he could turn. If you ever played a NASCAR game on your computer, activated the invincible mode, and kept the throttle down, then you too know what it is like to drive the Hamlin way.

Ever run over the car in front of you in playing that game? Hamlin did, too! Denny got upset with Joey Logano and turned him into the wall. Logano finished last on the lead lap, in 17th, then tried to say “howdy” to Hamlin post-race. One Hamlin crew member pushed Joey, and one of Logano’s guys pushed back, then one of Joey’s boys got grabbed by the neck, who demonstrated what he thought about that in no uncertain terms, and we were off to the rodeo.

Oh, as for the race, with about five to go it remained anybody’s contest. In the end, Kasey Kahne managed to drive off with Kyle, Brad Keselowski, Kurt Busch, and Clint Bowyer packed up behind him to provide a spirited finish.

Rating the race…

You wanted racing, we got racing. You wanted torn up cars, and thanks to worn out tires we tore up some cars. You wanted some pushing and shoving, both on and off the track, and you have to be a happy boy or girl as we got some of that. You wanted a race where we did not know who would win until near the end, and Bristol delivered. You wanted a television broadcast that was entertaining and informative, where the announcers added, not distracted, from the action, and thanks to FOX we were rewarded. A damn fine way to spend a Sunday. I give this one a...9/10.