The eventful NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regular season has finally come to a close, and we head onto the opening week of the 2013 Chase for the Sprint Cup this week at Chicagoland Speedway. It has been a fantastic regular season, filled with parody, the broadest spectrum of winners we've ever seen in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and of course drama.
NASCAR was faced with a very tough decision this past weekend...how to deal with a team that deliberately manipulated the chase outcome to benefit themselves? Four days later and race fans are still in an uproar over the biggest controversy to rock the motorsports world since the infamous "Crashgate" incident during the 2008 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix.
Sometime over the next ten weeks, at one of ten tracks hosting the Chase, Clint Bowyer will be sailing along. He will feel a sudden nudge in his left rear quarter-final, just a touch but enough to cause him to feel the car getting out from under him. Bowyer will try to save it, and come close in doing so but, alas, his car will find the wall. His race and his Chase hopes, done in an instant.
Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway turned into one of the most controversial races in the history of the sport. Fan response to Clint Bowyer’s well-timed and seemingly intentional spin that brought out a late race caution, coupled with an un-needed trip down pit road by Brian Vickers was unprecedented.
There was a lot on the line at Richmond Saturday night but was it so much so that it would actually push a team to deliberately alter the outcome in order to benefit themselves? When you're talking about a shot at the Sprint Cup championship; I'd say so.
In addition to a dose of roof flap drama, here is what else was surprising and not surprising from the 55th annual Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.
Under unexpected cloudy skies and even some rain drops, here is what else was surprising and not surprising from the 25th annual Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.
With a three hour plus rain delay pushing the Aaron’s 499 from day into a Talladega Night, here is what was surprising and not surprising from the Alabama 2.66 mile oval.
