[media-credit name=”Credit: By Jerry Markland, Getty Images for NASCAR” align=”alignright” width=”232″]
[/media-credit]NASCAR once again further soured its reputation following the Finger Lakes 355 at The Glen by manufacturing the end of the race. Kyle Busch had the dominant car of the afternoon and made a daredevil move on the final restart to pass both Brad Keselowski and Marcos Ambrose to take the lead. Busch had a pretty decent gap with about 4-5 laps to go.
The tide was just about to turn. Bobby Labonte blew up crossing the start finish line and no caution was thrown by NASCAR. Really? All of a sudden, Marcos Ambrose and Brad Keselowski began to close in on Busch significantly. Something had also broke on the No.18 car according to Keselowski which had begun leaking even more fluid on the race track. Busch went wide going into turn 1 and heading into turn 2, Keselowski made contact with the No.18 which sent him around and into the wall. Ambrose and Busch then duked it out for the win slipping and sliding in all the fluid.
Jeff Gordon did not have a good car all day long until the final run and had made his way up to 10th before heading into turn 11 on the outside of Matt Kenseth. Gordon hit oil and crashed. Gordon went from 10th to 21st on the final turn. NASCAR pretty much gave the finger to all the race teams and did this purposefully to create a manufactured ending. The objective of this was to have a surprise winner in the race. This can be seen as either a success or a failure depending on your personal definition of “surprise winner.” Now, you can’t blame NASCAR for what happened to the No.18 or the No.47?
You can blame NASCAR for putting the safety of the drivers in danger by not throwing the caution. Do any of you remember the 2004 MBNA “A Salute To Heroes” 400 at Dover? Casey Mears had blown up in the back straightaway and clearly had leaked oil all over the place. Kasey Kahne at the time was leading Mark Martin was on his way to his first career win. Kahne hit the oil coming into turn 3 and wiped out and numerous other cars crashed as well. Jeff Burton and Brian Vickers spun and collected some damage. Most notably, Matt Kenseth pounded the outside wall and had a decent car throughout the afternoon and he was none too pleased with NASCAR.
So, there is really only two explanations for what happened at the Glen this afternoon. Either NASCAR didn’t know about the oil (Fat Chance) or they let it go to create an “exciting” finish. I’m going to be quite frank with all of you and say outright that today’s race was boring. There was not much action at the front for the lead. If you don’t factor in green flag pit stops and how guys can get some extra points for running a couple extra laps, we really only had three leaders during the race. NASCAR’s objective was to keep the race green and let the oil change the result. It failed on all parts.
Busch spun off Keselowski. I don’t think oil factored in much to the equation of him spinning out. Yes, Busch was slipping in oil, but he attempted to block Keselowski’s attempt to take the lead and it failed. This created a scenario between Ambrose and Keselowski. If these two were to all of a sudden spin in the oil this would have also factored in Jimmie Johnson, Clint Bowyer, or even Sam Hornish Jr. into the equation.
All I have to say is this new 2013 model can’t come fast enough and I sure as hell hope it’s worth watching.
