For the third time this season, NASCAR presented a race worth watching. I am talking about those who demand an entertaining three-hour experience if they are going to spend the time to take it all in. Talladega delivered.
“It’s been a good day for us. All we concentrated on was qualifying and obviously, we had some good adjustments to the car right there at the end and I was actually able to drive the car without screwing it up. It was definitely a good lap for us and came at a good time.”
Ford has done nothing short of dominating the 2018 NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series (MENCS) season. Eleven races into the 36 race season and Ford has managed to find their way into victory lane six total times. While it is true that four of the six wins came with Stewart-Hass Racing driver Kevin Harvick, the other Ford drivers in the field have been strong.
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.
It looks like the new ride height rule has crew chiefs and engineers scratching their heads about how to make the car handle at Daytona. Thankfully they have a couple of days to run simulations and get a plan together and hopefully bring us an action-packed Daytona 500.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. started on the pole at Talladega. Most years, that is just par for the course. In this, his final season, it was a return down memory lane. Talladega is where anything can happen, where any lead lap car has a shot to win it, and a where one’s dreams can go up in flames, smoke, and mangled metal without notice.
Stewart-Haas Racing filed a $31 million breach of contract lawsuit against Nature's Bakery on Friday. The lawsuit accuses the company of refusing to pay millions of dollars it owes the team to sponsor driver Danica Patrick through 2018.
Michigan. A big track, a fast track. Sadly, not exactly a legacy event, like winning at Daytona or Bristol or Talladega or Indianapolis or Darlington or either road course. What it is, is a track where legends have celebrated since 1969. In fact, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, Richard Petty, Dale Jarrett, and Bobby Allison have combined for 46 victories there. That is a lot of suds for a lot of Hall of Famers.
Since they dropped the racing from 500 miles to 400 miles at Pocono, it has drastically improved. I can't explain why, but eliminating those extra 100 miles changed the way the drivers attack the track.
Rain. Just bloody lovely. Who, outside of California, really needed the wet stuff all that bad? When Alfred, Lord Tennyson said, “Bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North,” he obviously was not talking about the rains of Michigan. Those black clouds still managed to tease one driver into dreams of winning delights, just before breaking his heart.
