Matt Kenseth is the man to beat in the 2013; there is no doubt about that. He has now won both chase races with his teammate, Kyle Busch finishing 2nd just like Chicagoland last weekend.
The NASCAR silly season continues on to New England this week (I mean the 2013 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup) as we head to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the second time this season. The biggest news yet again this week is what is happening off-track rather than the second race of this 2013 season full of parody and certainly, DRAMA.
Flat-track ace Ryan Newman stole the show in Cup qualifying with a blistering lap of 27.904 seconds....a new track record! Kasey Kahne will accompany Ryan on the front row with another pair of Chevy's taking up row 2 with Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch. Martin Truex Jr. was the highest qualifying non-chaser in 5th and Carl Edwards has the worst starting spot among chasers in 26th.
So, what have we learned lately? Well, if one cheats, one must not do so in a fashion that allows them to be quickly caught. Caught by everybody. Caught on scanners, radios, and in full view of millions at the track and watching on television. Nothing good can ever come from that. That is, if one decides that they must cheat in the first place.
After the week's worth of who is in, who is not, who has been naughty, who has been wronged, we got back to racing. Sadly, the most exciting thing about the day was watching Kyle, Larry, and Kenny discuss the week that was. The race, for me, turned out to be a bit of a let down.
Once we get past all the chaos and controversy surrounding Richmond; it becomes apparent that we still have a championship battle to talk about! Thirteen...yes, thirteen racers will battle tooth and nail for the coveted Sprint Cup trophy and they have ten races to get it done.
This past week has been unprecedented and historic for the sport of NASCAR, with the sanctioning body announcing the two major penalties, the first for Michael Waltrip Racing on Monday and then Friday announcing probation for Penske and Front Row Motorsports, as well as the historic placement of a thirteenth driver into the Chase, Jeff Gordon.
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.
It has been said that there has been cheating going on in NASCAR since they first started. Yes, advantages were sought, but usually it was to make the car go faster in order to win, not to throw the race in order to fix an outcome.
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.
