Officially, Saturday night’s race was not billed as the Bristol Busch Brothers 500. Those two boys are almost always front and center at the venue. Even when they do not want to be.
If we determine who is an actual contender, versus being just a pretender race in and race out, based on an average 20th place result, our field would be reduced to 22. Add William Byron and Jamie McMurray to the bottom of our list, and that is all you need to be concerned about.
We all tune in for the potential excitement, but the storylines set up the race. At Pocono, we witnessed Jimmie Johnson make his 600th career start. We wondered if the Big Three would dominate yet again. We also wondered how the bad boys, and maybe a few bad girls back at the shop, would fare after 13 cars failed post-qualifying tech.
Stage points? We don’t need no stinkin’ stage points. Pit late, then say hello to my little friends. Fresh tires. Now, they proved to be the key to victory at Sonoma.
With just two rounds of qualifying, Kyle Larson ran the fastest time in the second group with a time of 75.732 seconds averaging 94.597 mph. He will lead the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup 38-car field in the Toyota / Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.
Australia. If there was any road to success on Sunday, it was to be a native of Australia. Perth-born Daniel Ricciardo led from start to finish to claim the Monaco Grand Prix. At Indianapolis, Toowoomba’s own Will Power kissed the bricks and drank the milk. Unfortunately, the last Aussie to drive a Cup car was Tasmanian Marcus Ambrose four years ago.
It was a nice prelude to the All-Star Race in Charlotte on Saturday. First, we had a down and out established team show some life by taking the front row. The pole went to a former champion just a week after he ran his first race of the season.
NASCAR officials announced Wednesday morning that driver Spencer Gallagher has been indefinitely suspended from NASCAR for violating the sanctioning body‘s substance abuse policy.
Talladega was sweet. That was the kind of action that captured my attention as a kid, watching Wide World of Sports. As Jim McKay so iconically put it all those years ago, “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport... the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat... the human drama of athletic competition.” That was Sunday at Talladega.
