Halfway through Saturday’s Kroger 200 at Martinsville the championship hopes of James Buescher were slowing slipping away. Buescher was dropping through the field and soon a lap down as his No. 31 Great Clips Chevrolet refused to grip the racetrack.
Race number eight, of the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Chase for the Championship, will be held at the Texas Motor Speedway this Sunday. This speedway is well known for exciting racing and fast speed. The winner of this Texas sized race also gets to observe the tradition of wearing a genuine cowboy hat while firing a pair of six shooters into the air.
Did anyone doubt that Jimmie Johnson would lead the Chase points after Martinsville? Earlier in the spring race, he and teammate Jeff Gordon were headed for a 1-2 finish before somebody got greedy and the result was Ryan Newman winning. Never mind that Hendrick Motorsports owns this place, and if for not a strange turn of events, HMS would have won both races at Martinsville Speedway. As usual.
How could there not be some form of mayhem at the Martinsville Speedway last Sunday? The fact that the green flag fell on 43 cars lined up on a half mile track, shaped like a paper clip, alone said strap in and hang on tight. When the checkers fell on lap 500, it was fairly evident why a five time champion was looking like a six pack. His season long rival for the championship scored an impressive comeback run to at least keep the standings close.
Johnson started on the pole at Martinsville and captured a huge win, his sixth at the .526-mile track. Johnson passed Brad Keselowski with about 20 laps to go, and held off Kyle Busch down the stretch. He now leads the points standings with a two-point edge over Brad Keselowski.
Given that NASCAR is late coming onto the "zombie apocalypse" bandwagon, it comes to no surprise that it will be announced October 31st, that NASCAR will team up with the Remington and Winchester firearms companies for the 2013 Sprint Cup season and beyond, and that at all points-races, every fan in attendance will each receive a free double-barrel shotgun and four boxes of buckshot ammunition, just in case the zombie apocalypse occurs during one or more of the thirty-six stops on the NASCAR tour.
Seven down, three to go. In three races we will crown the 2012 Sprint Cup Champion. A very telling race occurred Sunday in afternoon in Martinsville and we saw some drivers lose, keep and gain some championship momentum.
She is a new mom and an intrepid ESPN pit reporter but in just a few weeks Jamie Little will be host as she returns to one of her favorite events, NASCAR After the Lap, in her hometown Las Vegas during Champion’s Week.
There is no doubt that the 2011 Chase for the Cup made the points race a lot closer with the addition of the 1-43 points system, but do the fans just want to see the real champion crowned?
It was truly a Tale of Two Cities kind of day at Martinsville last Sunday afternoon. You know, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times... It could not have been much better for Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski, who came away from the contest two points apart on top of the standings with three to go.
The 36-year-old Kligerman from Westport, Connecticut, will cap off Kaulig Racing's Free Agent Program by making his third Truck start in the No. 25 RAM entry for this year's finale in Homestead, Florida.
The 24-year-old Smith from Talking Rock, Georgia, outdueled teammate Layne Riggs, Ben Rhodes and the field during a 12-lap shootout to win in his penultimate Truck start with Front Row Motorsports in Ridgeway, Virginia.
Chandler Smith led a Ford sweep of the top four positions as he won tonight’s race at Martinsville Speedway. Ben Rhodes was second, Layne Riggs third and Ty Majeski fourth.
