Over the previous weekend in Indianapolis we witnessed the emotional joy of another first time winner during the NASCAR Sprint Cup’s 2011 season. We witnessed the joy of a father and son moment in victory lane and we watched the race winner’s father, after 35 years of sponsoring cars at Indy events, get the opportunity to join his son for the ceremonial kissing of the bricks. OH yeah, a high profile NASCAR Nationwide Series debut was halted by a double back flip on a motorcycle. With those thoughts in mind, let’s begin with:

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignright” width=”241″][/media-credit]HOORAH to Paul Menard for becoming NASCAR’s fourth first time winner of the season following an outstanding performance at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Part of that performance included his ability to conserve fuel, during the late stages of the race, that allowed him to pass race leader Jamie McMurray with four laps remaining. HOORAH to the winner crew chief, Slugger Labbe, who also did an outstanding job on the pit box especially in the area of monitoring fuel mileage.

HOORAH to John Menard, the race winner’s father. The owner of Menard’s Home Improvement Stores has been a long time sponsor of his son’s racing career. He’s also been a long time sponsor of Indy Racing League teams during the annual running of the Indianapolis 500. The elder Menard has always dreamed of participating in a victory lane celebration at the famed Brickyard. After 35 years of trying, and mega millions in sponsorship fees, he finally got that moment and got to share it with his race winning son. The sight of the two of them arm in arm during the victory lane ceremony was emotionally charged.

HOORAH to Paul Menard for becoming the latest player in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Chase for the Championship wild card drama. His first ever Cup win moves him to 14th in the standings and places in him contention, with race winner Denny Hamlin 11th in points, for a wild card starting berth in the Chase line up.

HOORAH to the wild card angle NASCAR introduced into the championship line up procedure this year. It’s actually been a lot of fun examining all of the potential angles and doing the math in order to track who’s going to make the Chase.

HOORAH to Jeff Gordon, who finished second in the Brickyard 400, for that last ditch charge to the front that had us all paying attention. In the waning laps of the race, Gordon was informed that he was good to go on fuel. At the time he was approximately 12 second away from the race leader. The four time Cup champion put the hammer down and trimmed that margin down to 0.725 seconds before he ran out of laps and time.

WAZZUP with the Brickyard 400 turning into another fuel mileage race that we’ve seen so many times this year? There were times when some of the front runners were barely above NASCAR’s mandatory speed limit while trying to save fuel. Okay, I’ll concede the point that it does add some drama to the latter stages of the race and it does make a crew chief earn his paycheck. Having made those concessions, there’s no way a fuel mileage ending is ever going to top the drama of two drivers racing door to door to the checkers without so much as a thought to what’s left in the fuel cell. That’s what I’d like to see more often.

WAZZUP with that lap 121 caution that was triggered by four cars barreling their way towards turn three? The end result was a Landon Cassill spin while a handful of cars went sailing through a grassy strip that created front end damage to their cars. If IRL cars can’t do four wide there, in the Indy 500, then common logic says that four wider and heavier NASCAR stock cars certainly can’t do it. This caution flag should have never happened.

WAZZUP with driver Marcos Ambrose getting a penalty for jumping the restart? It seems that everyone’s favorite Aussie changed lanes before he crossed the start-finish line. Amazingly, we’ve seen more than a few times lately. That’s a NASCAR no no as well as a drive through penalty. It also raises the question: how many times is this infraction going to occur before the drivers get the message that it simply won’t be tolerated?

WAZZUP with only 138,000 seats being sold for the Brickyard 400? The problem here is the fact that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has seating for 257,000. Sadly those remaining approximate 119,000 empty chairs were highly noticeable on television. This situation is, of course, another by product of our national economy. It’s a time when American families are having to make major cutbacks in their budgets and family recreation is a highly targeted area. Realistically, in this economy, 138,000 turning out for literally anything is actually pretty good.

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The HOORAH for making chicken salad out of chicken do do belongs to NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Timothy Peters who won the AAA Insurance 200 at the Lucas Oil Raceway At Indianapolis. On Lap 91 Peters found himself spinning out and making his way to pit road with a flat tire. The incident placed Peters on a different pit cycle from the rest of the field and that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The crew spent the remaining pit stops making adjustments on their truck and also got their driver track position. Peters passed James Buescher, with six laps remaining in the race, to claim his first win of the season and his third career win. That’s getting it done Mr. Peters.

Another chicken salad HOORAH goes to Kyle Busch for his tenth place finish during the Sprint Cup’s Brickyard 400. Busch had a full day on his hands at Indy that included lengthy repairs following a collision on pit road. This was followed by a little right side wall contact at race speed. Oh yeah, he was also credited for an early race yellow flag because a water bottle somehow escaped from his car and landed on the track. After a very long and hot day at Indy, I’ve never seen a driver so happy over a tenth place finish.

A never before issued WAZZUP for making chicken salad out of chicken do do. only to see it turn to do do again, goes to NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Elliot Sadler who had a horrible Saturday at the Lucas Oil Raceway At Indianapolis while participating in the Kroger 200. The process began when Sadler crashed his Kevin Harvick Inc Chevrolet during qualifying and start the race at the back of the line. After apologizing to the team for the incident, Sadler grabbed some tools, crawled under the car and helped his guys with the repairs. He deserves a HOORAH for that. Only a veteran would even think about helping with the crash damage. During the race Sadler drove like the proverbial bat out of hell and became a major player during the race’s waning laps.

Unfortunately, it all unraveled for Sadler on lap 200. Following a restart for a green-white-checker finish, Sadler spun and collected Austin Dillon, his Kevin Harvick Inc team mate. He had to settle for a 16th place finish and took a hit in the championship points standings.

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HOORAH to Brad Keselowski for a late race charge that allowed him to win the Kroger 200, Benefiting the Riley Hospital For Children Nationwide Series race at Lucas Oil Raceway. Keselowski passed Ricky Stenhouse Jr with three laps remaining in the scheduled 200 and then had to survive a green-white-checker finish before parking his Penske Dodge in victory lane. It was his second win of the season and his 14th career series win.

HOORAH to team owner Richard Childress for making three appearances in victory lane within a period of nine days. That delightful journey began on July 22nd when his grandson, Austin Dillon, won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Nashville. The following Thursday his other grandson, Ty Dillon, won his sixth ARCA Series race of the season at the Lucas Oil Raceway. Then of course Childress capped off the celebrations by joining his Cup driver, Paul Menard, in victory lane following the Brickyard 400 win.

HOORAH to NASCAR driver/team owner Tony Stewart for his latest career milestone. A long time alumni of open wheel racing, Stewart won his first ever WOO, World Of Outlaws, race July 27th at the Ohsweken Speedway in Hamilton-Ontario-Canada. To get that first win Stewart had to hold off a late race challenge from series icon Sammy Swindell. Stewart has been firmly entrenched in the WOO Series for many years now as a team owner and has three team championships to show for it.

WAZZUP with the horrible luck that prevented Travis Pastrana from making his NASCAR Nationwide Series official debut at the Lucas Oil Raceway event? The action sports hero had a very busy schedule that weekend. He was in Los Angeles on Friday night to compete in the annual X Games. He was supposed to fly to Indiana later that night for the Nationwide Series event on Saturday and then fly right back to California for Sunday’s final day of the X Games. It all went horribly wrong-two times. On Friday night Pastrana was going to attempt the 720, a double back flip motorcycle jump. It’s a trick he been working on for nearly four years now. The first attempt resulted in a crash. So did the second attempt which, sadly, also resulted in broken bones, in his right foot and ankle, that required surgery. There was no way the Nationwide Series debut was going to happen after that.

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In some final thoughts HOORAH to Roush Fenway Racing for the retro paint scheme, on David Ragan’s #6 Cup car, honoring Ned Jarrett’s induction into the NASCAR Hall Of Fame. It was a classy thing to do for a true NASCAR icon and gentleman who deserves this type of recognition.

HOORAH to country music superstars Reba McEntyre and Rascal Flatts for their patriotic music performances prior to the start of the Brickyard 400 Cup race. McEntyre performed an emotionally charged medley of “America The Beautiful” and “God Bless America”. The harmonies of Rascal Flatts, performing “The National Anthem”, were pristine.

The final WAZZUPS of the week involves NASCAR team marketing and the placement of sponsor brands.

WAZZUP with the new fangled racing caps that makes it so difficult to see the sponsor’s logos? These are the caps that has the logos on the extreme left front of the hat. During national television interviews, where camera shots are often close and tight, you can’t see the logos on the hats at all. It makes me wonder why the public relations squads, who represents drivers and their teams, hasn’t noticed this yet. There’s two obvious solutions: first, have the driver stand completely still while located on the left side of the television personality. Then you have a chance of the sponsor logo being seen. The second solution is even easier: have the PR people pass out the old style of hats. Frankly the new racing hat design is kind of goofy looking anyway.

WAZZUP with the new fangled sunglasses, with their mega sized lenses, that the young drivers seem to prefer these days? At the beginning of a television interview these drivers have a tendency to remove the glasses and place them on top of their racing caps again blocking the sponsor’s logos. Also again, why aren’t PR reps picking up on this?

Actually these new sunglasses really aren’t that new fangled. Those of us who recall the disco years probably owned a pair of them. (A brief pause here for someone, not yet born before 1975, to ask “what’s a disco”?) The bottom line here is: doing anything and everything to display your sponsor logo is a good thing. Doing anything that hides the sponsor logo is bad.

Perhaps it was caught up in the commotion of Paul Menard’s first victory. Or because it was Menard in victory lane and not Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer or Jeff Burton but Richard Childress was the winning car owner Sunday in the Brickyard 400.

[media-credit id=66 align=”alignright” width=”238″][/media-credit]The win in Indianapolis was as surprising as Childress announcing last season that his organization was going back to four cars. Childress though, knew that it was all a matter of putting the right people in the right places.

“I’m just so proud of that whole Menard team,” said Childress. “I caught a lot of flack back early last year when we decided to go with four teams. I’ve been watching Paul ever since he won the Nationwide race. He doesn’t tear equipment up, he’s consistent, he’s really good. Got a cool head on him in all situations.”

Childress said he knew that once the right situation presented itself they’d win and that bringing over Slugger Labbe as Menard’s crew chief and having the support of John Menard was also important to the deal and the team’s success.

It took Menard 167 races to find victory lane and a few different organizations before he landed at RCR. Childress was prepared to make him a winner and looked forward to all four of his teams being contenders. Menard started the season off as one of the more consistent drivers on the circuit before backsliding through the points.

Whispers though still started about whether Menard could be working toward his first career win. When practice started Friday Menards wasn’t among those to watch and by his account they were off. But Childress saw the car come to life on Saturday and it gave him the confidence to lean into Menard’s car on Sunday and tell him it was going to be his day.

Pulling into victory lane on Sunday suddenly wasn’t as farfetched as everyone thought. And it certainly didn’t come from Menard lucking his way into the win either. He battled back from a pit road penalty and going through the grass to avoid a spinning Landon Cassill with 41 laps to go.

From there it was about nursing his draining fuel tank and proving the critics wrong and Childress right.

“For a first-year team to come out like this, it’s very gratifying,” the team owner said. “They work hard, Slugger is as hard a working guy as you’ll see around the shop, the racetrack. The first time with the four-car team, I don’t think we were as prepared coming in. I said we’ll be more prepared, we know the mistakes we made, and we’re sure not making them now.”

For Childress it was the fourth time in 2011 that he’s been to victory lane. Prior to Menard’s win he celebrated on three different occasions with Harvick. The organizations other two teams, Bowyer and Burton have struggled lately but Childress believes that things can quickly turn in their favor as quickly has it has against them.

In the end though, some things stay the same. Childress again was standing on the frontstretch of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, perhaps with a driver he and most others thought he’d never be standing with, preparing to kiss the bricks. It was the third time he would do so as a car owner.

“It’s eight years from 1995 to 2003 and eight more years till today,” said Childress talking about his wins. “It doesn’t seem like we’ve been coming here 18 years. I remember coming in here the first time I think in ’93 to do our test with Dale. The first time the cars ran down that front straightaway and though, ‘Man, would it be cool to win at Indy.’”

It was August of 1995 when Childress and the man who he would rise to the top of the sport with won the second running of the Brickyard 400. It was Earnhardt’s 66th career victory but it was as special as the first one for he and Childress. Except, the two didn’t kiss the bricks that day and Earnhardt never would.

Harvick replaced Earnhardt in 2001 and in 2003 he too won at the Brickyard. It was the fourth career win for Harvick and the second Brickyard win for RCR. Then, 16 years after standing with Earnhardt in the sunset, Childress was walking to victory lane for a third time with a third driver.

“To be here again 18 years later [from tire test] and to win with Paul, Slugger, this whole group, to win for RCR, I couldn’t be happier,” said Childress. “Kind of got to pinch myself. I hope it ain’t eight years more before we win it. I’ll be a old man by then.”