The Final Word – Bristol leaves three hanging in, and three seeking to take their spots in Atlanta
Usually we care about the big names, the pied pipers leading the way. At Bristol, there was some excitement as Matt Kenseth held off two-time winner Kasey Kahne to win his fifth of the season and locked a spot in the Chase. It was an exciting finish, but in the scheme of things as to what is most meaningful at the moment, not so much.
Just as Jimmie Johnson running into the back of a spun also ran to take out his radiator meant little. Just as Clint Bowyer, who led 50 laps and recovered from a spin out and a collision, winding up 14th to secure a Chase place. Or Carl Edwards having his car blow up early or Kevin Havick leaving with the rear of his car torn to pieces or Kyle Busch surviving to come home 11th did not exactly make the headlines. All of those boys were going to head to Atlanta still in a playoff spot no matter what.
Kurt Busch, now that was another story. A loose wheel led to a damaged rear hub that led to time in the garage and a 31st place result. Going in he had a six point cushion, but that deflated and now he is six out behind Joey Logano. Logano had been the first man out, but now he is in. Brad Keselowski had been in by eight, but after getting tangled up in a wreck with just over 50 to go the defending champ wound up 30th and four points in arrears. A win for the two former champs would sure come in handy about now, as it would for Jeff Gordon who is 11 points in the weeds.
With the points from Bristol pushing Kahne back into the top ten and Logano in by points, Martin Truex Jr retains his wild card spot while Ryan Newman regains the other. At least for the moment. At least until the smoke clears at Atlanta.
Rating Bristol – 7.5/10 – The racing was not exactly up to Bristol standards, but there was enough wrecking and other surprises to keep it interesting.
Johnson, Bowyer, and Kenseth are locked in, while Harvick, Edwards, Kahne, and Kyle Busch should be a week from now. Barring disaster, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Greg Biffle should still be holding a spot in the Chase heading to Richmond, though a win by Kurt Busch, Gordon, or Keselowski could put Logano, Truex, or Newman in jeopardy. Sunday in Atlanta would be a good time for some of the boys to have a good day. Five times in the past Gordon has shaken the bubbly there, while Gene Haas’ new favorite has had the pleasure three times. Enjoy the week.
Furniture Row Racing’s response regarding Kurt Busch’s decision not to sign contract extension
Surprising and Not Surprising: IRWIN Tools Bristol Night Race
From NASCAR children National Anthem singing to cars colliding and tempers flaring, here is what else was surprising and not surprising from the 53rd annual IRWIN Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Surprising: Disappointment surprisingly abounded atop the Chase leaderboard, with both point’s leader Jimmie Johnson finishing worse than 36th for the second week in a row and second place Chaser Clint Bowyer being spun out while in the lead, finishing 14th.
“This racing stuff happens,” Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Dover White Chevrolet said after finishing 36th. “Luckily, we had a big point’s lead that we can kind of deal with right now.”
“We’ve locked into the Chase and certainly want to clean things up,” Johnson continued. “We’ll keep after it and be back again next week.”
Having once had been in the lead by over 70 plus points, Johnson is now just 18 points ahead of the second place driver Clint Bowyer.
“I felt like we had a shot at winning and then I got spun out by a lapper, of all things,” Bowyer said after the race. “It hit that left-front tire, and the car never turned the center (of the corners) as good the rest of the night.”
“I’m really just disappointed … because we had a really good car,” Bowyer continued. “Absolutely nothing went our way all night.”
Not Surprising: Although he has been a bit quiet over the last month or two, the resurgence of Matt Kenseth at Joe Gibbs Racing continued, with the driver of the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota rolling right into Bristol’s Victory Lane for the fifth time this season.
This was Kenseth’s 29th win in 496 Cup Series races and his third victory in 28 races at Bristol Motor Speedway.
“The last month and a half, two months has been a little bit more of a, I hate to say reality check,” Kenseth said. “We’ve struggled just a little bit more, haven’t quite had the speed so it was really, really encouraging this weekend to get to the track and be really fast.”
“It’s a huge win for us,” Kenseth continued. “The Bristol night race is one of the biggest races of the year.”
“I’m glad we were able to pull it off.”
Surprising: The driver of the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet seemed surprisingly befuddled at the end of the race in spite of finishing runner up under the Bristol lights.
“I didn’t get it done,” Kasey Kahne said dejectedly. “We ended up second and it was a good point’s day but I didn’t figure out how to win the race.”
“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” Kahne continued. “I think at the end of the day I just don’t wreck people.”
This was Kahne’s ninth top-10 finish in 20 races at Bristol and his 11th top-10 finish of the season. He also moved up three positions in the Chase standings to the eighth spot.
Not Surprising: Joey Logano, riding the wave of momentum from last week’s race win at Michigan, not surprisingly proved, at least in his own mind, that he has the mettle to make it into the Chase.
The driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford finished fifth and moved up three spots in the points to the tenth position.
“We came from the back three times to get a top-five finish,” Logano said. “They can’t put us down and can’t keep us down.”
“We deserve to make this Chase and if we keep doing this on days that they’re trying to put us down, we deserve it.”
Surprising: Although admittedly hoping that the leaders would wreck each other so he could score the win, Juan Pablo Montoya surprisingly credited his third place finish to, of all things, a speeding penalty.
“I got caught speeding there with like 170 to go or something and that kind of hurt us,” the driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet said. “But I’ll tell you the truth, I think it helped us because if it would have played right, we probably would have run out of gas.”
“It made it more interesting,” Montoya continued. “I really cooked the front tires there at the end but it was fun.”
This was JPM’s fourth top-10 finish in 14 races at the Bristol Motor Speedway.
Not Surprising: Well, it was Bristol after all so, to no one’s surprise, there were a few tempers flaring, especially after a late race wreck took out many of the best cars, including some Chase contenders.
Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick, who do have a history with one another, had a rather vigorous discussion on pit road after the wreck when Harvick pulled into Hamlin’s pit stall and Hamlin gave him a shove out of the box.
As a result, Harvick jumped out of his car and beat a path to the door of Hamlin’s car to have a few words about the incident.
“I just saw the No. 11 shoot across the track,” Harvick said. “He said the No. 56 got into him and so I just wanted to know what happened.”
“He just told me his version of it,” the driver of the No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet said. “It’s all good.”
“It’s Bristol racing.”
Harvick finish 34th but maintained his fourth spot in the point’s standings while Hamlin finish 28th, well out of Chase contention in 25th in the point’s standings.
Surprising: In spite of some greetings from Smoke’s recovery bed, the Stewart-Haas Racing team had a surprisingly tough day. Mark Martin, subbing for the ailing Stewart, finished 20th with Ryan Newman right behind him in 21st and Danica Patrick in 26th.
“We had some tough luck and a few things that we could’ve done better, but we were pretty fast at the end,” Martin said. “That’s why I go home feeling good about it because we were able to improve the car and get it competitive.”
“This one is behind us and hopefully we’ll move ahead from here.”
“I really don’t know what happened there,” Newman, behind the wheel of the No. 39 Quicken Loans Chevrolet, said. “A couple of guys around us made contact and that triggered a big mess.”
“Our Quicken Loans Chevrolet was damaged pretty significantly; it was a handful to drive those last 50 laps with,” Newman continued. “I basically tried to just stay out of everyone’s way and bring the car to the finish.”
“There is nothing you can do about getting into the wall and having damage,” Patrick said. “We came back as best as we could and made the car as good as it was at the end.”
“We will take it and move on.”
Not Surprising: In spite of finishing top-10, Jeff Gordon, driver of the No. 24 Axalta Coating Systems Chevrolet, could only talk about opportunities lost at Bristol, especially after gaining just one position in the standings to the 13th spot.
“I think we were better than that,” Gordon said of his seventh place finish. “I don’t know if we had enough for Matt but we fought hard and gave it our best effort.”
“Gained points on 10th but not as much as we could have,” Gordon continued. “But we gained something.”
Surprising: While the Truex brothers were excited to be racing against one another yet again, both Ryan Truex, making his Cup debut, and Martin Truex, Jr. had surprisingly difficult days.
Young Ryan Truex spun and hit the wall, retiring his No. 51 Seawatch Chevrolet after 39 laps to finish 42nd in his first ever Cup effort.
Brother Martin had a very hard crash late in the race, causing him to finish 35th in his No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota. Although maintaining his wild card status thanks to his win, Truex Jr. also suffered in the point standings, losing two positions to 14th.
“We ran up towards the front all night,” Truex Jr. said. “Just disappointed.”
“They start wrecking and you’re an innocent victim,” Truex Jr. continued. “We didn’t deserve that tonight.”
Not Surprising: Another brother duo, this one with the surname Busch, had eventful days at Bristol as well, with Kyle Busch having to start from the rear of the field to finish 11th and Kurt Busch suffering wheel hub issues resulting in a 31st place run.
“Yeah, I guess we had a right-rear hub fail where the studs pulled through or they weren’t tightened,” the driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing/Sealy Chevrolet said. “We just rode around.”
Kurt Busch lost three positions in the point’s standings, falling to the 12th spot. Kyle Busch remains in the fifth spot in the standings, 82 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson.
Surprising: There was a surprising first-of-the season engine failure at Roush Fenway Racing and it happened to none other than the race lap leader Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Fastenal Ford.
“I didn’t have any warning,” Edwards said. “The car was almost perfect and the engine ran awesome until it broke.”
“The engine ran great until it blew up, so if we run like that the rest of the year, it’s going to be awesome.”
Not Surprising: Marcos Ambrose finished top-10 for two weeks in a row and he said that the devil made him do it.
“That’s two top-10s in two weeks and we’ve got to take that,” the driver of No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion said. “Yeah, I guess a little bit of the Tasmanian Devil comes out in me at this track.”
“This is a really aggressive track and you’ve got to be aggressive all night,” Ambrose continued. “You’ve got to gnaw on that steering wheel and I just like getting up on the wheel like that.”
“These are good nights to test your mettle and see what kind of man or lady you are out there and get after it.”
The Cup Series will head next to Atlanta for the next to the last race before the Chase begins.
All-Star Race Venue Change?
Dale Jarrett this week suggested that the All-Star Race be moved from Charlotte Motor Speedway to Bristol. Stating that these drivers have all grown up on short tracks, I’m assuming he isn’t taking into account Danica Patrick or Juan Puablo Montoya, who both have not ever thought about driving short track or dirt track cars.
When I first heard this brought up, I took the typical approach of, “Why change something as historic as the All-Star Race?” Then I realized that the last several years that I have not enjoyed the All-Star event as much as I once did.
Perhaps this isn’t such a bad idea after all. I mean think back to this weekend’s race, we saw plenty of cautions, plenty of beating and banging on each other, tempers flared, and despite the fact that there wasn’t a ton of passing for the lead, there was still some and a good bit of drama as the laps wound down.
Granted true NASCAR fans don’t want a ton of carnage during a race, we mainly want to see meaningful passes, people getting held up in lap traffic, and the leaders trying to figure out how to navigate that lap traffic in a confined space. Drop in something like Bruton Smith did this year and give a bonus for winning each segment and we the fans win almost instantly.
Obviously the segments and rules would need to be tweaked a little bit to be more entertaining for a smaller venue. Whereas this year’s segments were twenty lap events in the first four sections, with one final ten lap shoot out, I would plead with anyone listening that they make the segments longer, work with Goodyear Tires and build some give up into the tires and then let the boys have at it. Let’s think outside the box a little more here since we are basically playing with house money and throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. Currently the only ones allowed into this star studded event are: Any driver that has won a race in that year or the preceding year, then any Sprint Cup All Star Race winner within the last ten years, Any Champion of the series in the past ten years, The top two finishers in the Showdown, and the fan vote winner, (whom is determined the night of the event).
Let’s expand the eligibility to anyone who has won a race in any of the three top touring series in the last five years. How great would it be to see a Ron Hornaday, or some rookie that snagged a victory in the Nationwide Series getting a one off deal to run in the All-Star Event? And since we are doing that, then obviously we have to let any champion in those three series in the past five years into the event as well. This will automatically give us an expanded field, if there are teams out there willing to take a run at that tasty thought.
Of course we would allow any Cup champion in the last ten years in, since that is what like three now? (Just kidding I know it’s four). I know I am just thinking loudly, and these things may seem like madness, but let’s play with this thought a little more. Let’s allow the top three finishers in the Sprint Unlimited All-Star Showdown Race presented by about seventy different sponsors whom we don’t even know, or whatever they plan to call it next year, I just call it the qualifying race for the All-Star Shootout.
The last rule on eligibility that I would make is a simple one, once you win the fan vote you are ineligible to win the fan vote again for three years. I am tired of seeing the same select few people win this part of the process before the night even gets started (Danica Patrick and Dale Jr, I am looking directly at you two).
Now to the matter of segment and race length, let’s start out slow and actually build towards something and learn a little from the trucks being on dirt this season. The first segment is twenty laps, and only green flag laps count, the second segment is thirty, and again only green flag laps count. The third segment would be forty-five laps, and a fourth segment would be fifty both with only green flag laps counting. I liked the idea of how where you exit pit road is where you line up, and a few years ago NASCAR gave us the fans a chance to participate a little more with each segment. At the beginning of each segment there would be a brief five minute voting process to determine the number of spots to invert at the end of the segment. This way the drivers and crew chiefs don’t know where they will be starting until the final sixty lap segment, which would be run for an extra payday for the drivers favorite charity. Let’s make it about giving back to the community that has been supporting this sport for so very long.
This would actually add a certain level of excitement back to the event, of course it would have to be run under the lights, if a driver is able to win all five segments then of course that team earns an extra million dollars for their favorite charity. Again I want this to be about the fans, because isn’t that what this event is supposed to be about? Isn’t the All Star supposed to be about giving us an extra layer of entertainment? Something extra for us to believe that our driver is simply the greatest person out there, would this instantly fix what is ailing NASCAR these days? Probably not, but it would at least give us something to cheer for again, and one final thought? Bring back the pit crew challenge the day before qualifying, show case the teams and let them factor heavily into the outcome of the event.
