Surprising and Not Surprising: Coke Zero 400
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[/media-credit]From drivers on ‘baby watch’ to the suspension of A.J. Allmendinger for failing his random substance abuse test, here is what else was surprising and not surprising from the Coke Zero 400 powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona.
Surprising: One of the most sought after drivers for this race weekend was surprisingly Kenny Wallace. This Nationwide driver and Speed on-air personality actually had two offers to drive, first as back up for Kevin Harvick, whose wife DeLana held off on delivering ‘Baby Otis’ (now Keelan Paul Harvick) until after the race and then for Sam Hornish, Jr., just in case he did not make it to the race track to sub for suspended driver Allmendinger.
“Well, that was drama,” Wallace said. “It was a feather in my cap for these car owners to think of my superspeedway driving.”
“It was a little uncomfortable for everybody,” Wallace continued. “What happened with all the sponsors and all the automakers, this was all people helping people at this point.”
Not Surprising: In the midst of a heat wave and in spite of starting at the back of the field due to post-qualifying tech issues, the proverbial Smoke rose to the top, of the leader board in this case.
Tony Stewart, in the No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet, sliced and diced his way to the checkered flag to score his 47th victory in the Cup Series, now 14th on the all-time win list.
This was Smoke’s third victory of the season, putting him in a tie with Brad Keselowski for Cup Series wins this year. This was also Stewart’s 18th win at Daytona International Speedway, second most all-time to Dale Earnhardt.
“The great thing about restrictor-plate racing is that 43 cars all have the same shot at winning the race,” Stewart said. “But that’s also part of what makes it frustration too.”
“It’s just being at the right place at the right time,” Smoke continued. “And when those last two big wrecks happened, we were in the right spot.”
Surprising: In spite of wrecking both on the track and on pit road, this driver salvaged a surprisingly good finish. Jeff Gordon, driver of the No. 24 Pepsi Max Chevrolet, survived the melee of the race and the final laps to bring his bruised vehicle to the checkered flag in 12th place.
“There were moments tonight when I felt like we had a car that could win,” Gordon said. “And then that wreck happened when we were trying to come to pit road that just changed our night.”
“I even got in the wreck on that last lap and still finished 12th,” Gordon said. “We don’t have much of a race car, but we got a 12th place finish.”
Not Surprising: Dale Earnhardt, Jr. continued to keep his streak of consecutive laps finished alive, in spite of being caught up in the final wreck of the race like so many others.
Although poised for a top-five, the driver of the No. 88 National Guard ‘An American Salute’/Diet Mountain Dew Chevrolet crossed the finish line in 15th.
“My mama told me she hoped the Cup race wasn’t as wild as the Nationwide race, but they always are, you know?” Junior said. “All these races are always like that and you just try to survive.”
“We just came up a little short.”
Surprising: After a tough season to date, Jeff Burton, in the No. 31 Wheaties Chevrolet, had a surprisingly good second place finish. This was his 11th top-10 finish in 38 races at Daytona and his best finish of the season to date.
“Well it certainly feels good to have a good finish,” Burton said. “We’ve had a miserable year.”
“To get out of Daytona with a second tonight is probably more than I can expect with all the wrecks and stuff,” Burton continued. “Hopefully we can build on this.”
Not Surprising: From starting from the pole to having a car at the front of the field for much of the race, it was not surprising that Matt Kenseth scored a strong third place finish. Yet it was also not surprising to see just how bereft the driver of the No. 17 Zest Ford was when the race was done.
“I’m really disappointed,” Kenseth said. “We thought we had one of the best cars.”
“I was hoping it was going to be me or the 16 in Victory Lane,” Kenseth continued. “I feel like my team kind of deserved to be down there holding the hardware.”
“We were in contention but we just didn’t get it done that last lap.”
Surprising: After a pit road mishap that turned this driver backwards and almost into Brad Keselowski’s pit stall and crew, Ryan Newman made a surprising recovery. The driver of the No. 39 Aspen Dental Chevrolet managed to finish top-five.
“After what happened on pit road, I really didn’t know what to expect,” Newman said. “But the guys did a great job with the repairs.”
“I’m just happy to bring a car home in one piece from one of these races.”
Not Surprising: Joey Logano, driver of the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota, continued to dig for a potential Chase spot, finishing fourth. Logano moved up two spots to 14th in the point standings after the Daytona race.
“It didn’t go as planned, but ended up pretty good,” Logano said. “So, we’ll take that for sure – a fourth place finish.”
“That’s how we’ve got to keep fighting.”
Surprising: Two drivers known primarily for past glories did surprising well at Daytona. Michael Waltrip, driving the No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota, and Bobby Labonte, behind the wheel of the No. 47 Kingsford Charcoal Toyota, finished ninth and tenth respectively.
“At the end of the race, I was confident I could push,” Waltrip said. “We just had a damaged car and probably pretty lucky we got a top-10.”
“We got close, but that was all we could do is get close.”
“We were a tortoise out there tonight,” Labonte said. “We just ended up missing those wrecks and that’s all that saved us tonight.”
Not Surprising: There were plenty of hard hits out there to no one’s surprise and one particularly hard hit befell five-time champ Jimmie Johnson. The driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet was involved in one of the ‘big ones’ on lap 123.
“We were all getting ready to pit so I was waving my hand out the window,” Johnson said. “And as soon as I let off the gas, someone got into the back of me.”
“I went down on the inside wall,” Johnson continued. “As I was spinning, I could see a lot of other cars were collected too.”
Surprising: Father of Chase Elliott, who has been tearing up the NASCAR ladder, made some headlines himself in the No. 50 Walmart Chevrolet. ‘Awesome Bill from Dawsonville’ was having a heck of a good race until crashing with many others on lap 123.
“We were just a victim of circumstances,” Elliott said. “But man I was proud of all those guys on Turner Motorsports and Walmart.”
“That’s the best I’ve run in a long time.”
Not Surprising: Frustration, to no one’s surprise, was the feeling of the day at Daytona International Speedway under the lights. Perhaps Carl Edwards, driving the No. 99 Subway Ford Fusion, summed it up best.
“Frustrating describes this whole type of event,” Edwards said. “It’s very difficult.”
“You’re just really trying hard not to wreck and ruin your day or other people’s day,” Edwards continued. “It’s a tough race.”
Jack Roush knew Kenseth wasn’t returning; No “surprise” involved
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[/media-credit]Jack Roush said last week that he was “surprised” that Matt Kenseth would not be returning to Roush Fenway Racing in 2013, but was he really? Roush is not a dumb guy and if you add all of the known information together that simply doesn’t add up. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was bound to move up to the Sprint Cup Series really soon. Do you remember Brad Keselowski? Keselowski was bound to be the next big thing at Hendrick Motorsports, but they simply didn’t have the space for him. It also didn’t help that NASCAR limited the teams to having just four cars per race team along with the economy that has forced Roush to make some serious cuts to his organization. This is primarily because he operates in both series which are both struggling attendance wise this season.
Brad Keselowski felt that he was deserving of a Sprint Cup ride following a couple of successful Nationwide stints for Jr. Motorsports and rightfully so, but there is always that risk of moving up too early. Keselowski struggled in his first season with Penske Racing. He managed to get just two Top 10’s and snagged 1 pole at the Chase race at Loudon, but it was far from what he had expected. Will the same fate fall on Stenhouse? If it indeed does, can he recover? Keselowski has proven now here in 2012 that he has put that year behind him and now he even leads the Cup Series in wins this season with 3.
Roush definitely knew prior to the announcement that Kenseth would not be returning in 2013. Just think about it. How was Kenseth acting the week prior when asked about his contract status? Kenseth was bitter and he really didn’t want to talk about it. Kenseth knew eventually that it was going to come out and he decided to do it during the middle of the season. Now, was that a smart idea? I honestly would have waited till the end of the season to avoid any morale issues within his team, but I think everyone who has been involved in NASCAR for a while had seen this coming.
Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle both signed contract extensions with Roush Fenway Racing very recently, which left Kenseth the odd man out. David Ragan was the odd man out at Roush at the end of 2011 because Roush felt that he had given Ragan too many chances and he didn’t capitalize on them. Ragan fell to the superiority factor of big race teams. Kenseth is leaving because he is simply the older man and Roush is open to more youth taking control. Ricky Stenhouse will be a great asset to the Roush team and we wish Kenseth the best as he takes the 17 number with him to another race team, most likely Joe Gibbs Racing.
Daytona, knock down them banks
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[/media-credit]This weekend we headed back to Florida for the second race held at Daytona International Speedway. The July race is known for hot temperatures, patriotism, celebrating our freedom and fireworks. The problem is that most of the fireworks come from all of the carnage on the track and in the garage.
Friday night’s Nationwide Series event featured 3-4 wide racing, two car tandems and race record of 42 lead changes among 16 different leaders. But the big one always raises its nasty head and causes heartache for the drivers, teams and even the fans.
On lap 65, the big one came out and collected Mike Wallace, Kevin Harvick, Joe Nemechek, Casey Roderick, Elliott Sadler, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Clint Bowyer, Danny Efland, Johanna Long, Kurt Busch, John Wes Townley, James Buescher, Cole Whitt and some others. It really does not matter who caused it because it’s this type of racing that brings this predictable unfortunate outcome.
Saturday night’s Sprint Cup Series race featured mostly two lane racing with the inside lane prevailing throughout the race. With the elimination the two-car tandems with yet again more rule changes with body modifications, the pack racing was back. But all of the so called fixes just put the drivers more into a small box.
On lap 153, Denny Hamlin got loose with possible contact with Greg Biffle and spun around, collecting Kyle Busch and then it was on, the first big one. On the final lap it all broke about again, no need to describe what happened; it’s a repeat over and over.
I would describe superspeedway racing like a virus. You go to the doctor (NASCAR) and they give you a prescription (restrictor plate) to eliminate the virus. You feel a little better but the symptoms still exist. So then you are prescribed something else (two car tandems, overheating, the big one, the yellow line, etc…) to combat the problems from the first prescription. Then you are prescribed something else to alleviate the problems caused from prescriptions one and two…… get the point? All in all, it’s a hard pill to swallow.
Obviously by now NASCAR does not have a good solution or even really wants to find a solution for restrictor plate racing. Maybe they feel it is good and exciting for the sport to get all crashed up. After all, crashed up cars are not costing them a dime.
I think the solution could be for the tracks themselves to step-up and find a solution to bring “real” racing back.
The easiest solution, probably not the cheapest, could be to reduce the banking. Daytona currently has 31° turns, 3° straights, and an 18° tri-oval and Talladega has 33° turns. Perhaps reducing the tracks to something similar to Charlotte, which is 24° turns, 5° straights, could reduce the speeds enough to allow the removal of the restrictor plates and then all of the rest of the mess should go away. The straightaway speeds maybe high, but if the cars have to brake more while entering the turns, then the overall speed should be reduced enough to meet NASCAR’s requirements.
Difficulty finding the right track configuration would be harder at the 2.5 mile track, but I am sure this could be done.
Bristol is attempting to bring back great racing, why not these two?
Five Questions With Colin Braun
For my next interview, I had had the honor to talk with Colin Braun. He is currently driving for the Core Autosport American Le Mans Series team. He formerly drove in the Camping World Truck Series and the Nationwide Series. Here is my interview with him.
Q: Imagine yourself not as a driver but as a race fan, if you were to do a ride along with any driver, other than yourself, who would you chose, which track and why?
Colin Braun: Whew – that is hard to imagine. I suppose I would like to ride along in a Formula 1 car at Monaco. But then again us race drivers aren’t good at not being in control…
Q: If you could have a track named after you, what kind of track would it be and where would it be located?
Colin Braun: It would have to be a fast, road course named after me. I love fast sweeping corners so that’s what my track would be about. I would probably have it in Texas since that’s where I’m from.
Q: What is your most memorable race?
Colin Braun: Well as of recent the race in Laguna Seca in the LMPC ALMS Core Autorsport car – it was just a great race and really nice victory!
Q: Who would you consider to be NASCAR’s bad boy? Golden boy?
Colin Braun: This is to tough of a question to answer… I take the 5th!
Q: What advice would you give someone who wanted to be a race car driver?
Colin Braun: Always work hard and never give up! You can achieve anything you set your mind on… Keep at it!
