Good Bye

This will be our last post. We would like to thank our readers for your support over the last few months.

sincerely,

Brooks and Bryans

Finally a New Face in the Circle

Monday afternoon a new winner arises from the race at Martinsville.  Denny Hamilin finds his way to the winners circle after leading 138 laps and pitting with 8 laps to go, where everyone thought he gave up the race. But Martinsville is famous for pushing and shoving.When the green flag dropped Gordon had the lead and Hamlin shoves Matt Kenseth into the wall and blows by Jeff Gordon in the last quarter-mile for the win.  I think it is great to see a newer driver inside the winners circle.  Someone needed to find a way to beat Team Hendricks Jimmie Johnson and i believe that Denny Hamlin found the way to beat the Hendrick team.

Martinsville Qualifying

Friday’s qualifying session for the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 was rained out. According to NASCAR rules the drivers will be lined up by their position in the standings on Sunday. Because of the weather Kevin Harvick will be on the pole with Matt Kenseth on the outside pole. Rain tomorrow could threaten the race, according to Weather.com the forecast calls for rain and thunderstorms with a chance of rain at seventy percent. Weather in the Martinsville area does look better on Monday if in fact Sunday’s race is rained out. Jamie McMurry should be the driver to watch as he was the fastest in final practice. McMurry will start fifteenth.

Biggest Surprises

Five races into the 2010 Sprint Cup season and a few drivers have been able to make their mark early. The current top twelve in the point standings are as fallows,

1. Kevin Harvick

2. Matt Kenseth

3. Jimmie Johnson

4. Greg Biffle

5. Tony Stewart

6. Kurt Busch

7. Jeff Burton

8. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

9. Paul Menard

10. Kyle Busch

11. Jeff Gordon

12. Clint Boyer.

Biggest Surprise:

Paul Menard

I went back and forth between Menard and Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurry. What put Menard over the top was that five races in he is in the top ten. Before this season Paul Menard only had one career top five finish and two top tens. For a career Menard has an average finish of twenty-sixth. This season his average finish is fourteenth. Last season Menard finished the season thirty-first and has never finished higher than twenty-sixth. I think this is the season that Menard will quietly finish in the top twenty.

Biggest disappointment:

Mark Martin

One of my all-time favorite drivers has been pretty much a disappointment the first five race. Martin is currently sixteenth in points even through two of the five races he finished in the top 5. Some of Martin’s struggles can be chalked up as car problems. Martin finished second in the point standings (there should be a medal system in NASCAR as long as Jimmie Johnson is around) and even at fifty-one years old he is a much better driver than his current position. I don’t think it will be long until you see Mark Martin back in the top twelve.

Bristol Results

Photo from spokesmanreview.com

Finally racing returns at Bristol with the Food City 500. Joey Logano won his first pole of the season, however he didn’t lead for long. Kurt Busch led the first lap and ended up leading the most laps with 278 out of 500. Even with his dominance throughout the race Kurt Busch didn’t win. The winner of this weeks race was you guessed it, Jimmie Johnson. Johnson won his 50th career race, his first at Bristol.  Is anyone else frustrated with Jimmie Johnson? Is there such a thing as too much success? I will say yes to both. Dont get me wrong, Jimmie has done nothing wrong. He works hard with his team all week to get the best car out on the track on Sundays. But, it seems like Johnson wins every other race. In my opinion as long as Jimmie Johnson is running near the front the race is boring. The rest of NASCAR needs to catch up to the 48 team or its going to be (sigh) another championship for Jimmie Johnson.

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Just a Slap on the Wrist

As many of you know Carl Edwards has been placed on a three race probation by NASCAR after intentionally wrecking Brad Keselowski during Sundays race. From what NASCAR president Mike Helton said about the incident I think even he is in favor of harder punishment,

“There is a line. … and we’ll step in to maintain law and order when we think that line has been crossed, ‘There is a balance of wanting to do the right thing. … wanting the teams to race but us needing to maintain law and order too.”

NASCAR definitely backed themselves into a corner on this one. The same season when NASCAR is now allowing drivers to police themselves on the track and even encouraging their drivers to “trade some paint” this happens. NASCAR could have done a lot more to fix this problem before it even happened. Especially the dreaded wing that caused the car to go airborne should have been removed at the end of last season after the first wreck at Talladega. However there were some things NASCAR did right by not suspending Edwards. NASCAR now more than ever needs to stand by their new rules. These rules do make the races more exciting but these new rules didn’t cause this wreck. The point is if the car did not go airborne no one would be talking about this wreck today. The car is the problem not Edawards, not the rules.

Team Profile: Joe Gibbs Racing

Team Name: Joe Gibbs Racing

Team Owner: Joe Gibbs

manufacturer: Toyota

The former head coach of the Washington Redskins has a whole new set of problems coming into this season. Joe Gibbs has been in a rebuilding mode since their marquee driver, Tony Stewart left the team two years ago to form his own race team. Since that time Gibbs has reloaded his three car team with new young stars and should be a team on the rise.

Denny Hamlin

#11/FedEx

The 2006 NASCAR Rookie of the Year is coming back after a monstrous 2009 campaign. Hamlin won four races two of them in the chase last season and finished fifth in points. Denny quietly in my mind became the number one driver on the team over Kyle Busch. Hamlin is very underrated and does it the right way. It doesn’t seem fair that when people talk about the Joe Gibbs Race team we hear about the how good Logano is going to be, or the crazy antics of Kyle Busch, I want to hear much less about them and more about Denny Hamlin.

Kyle Busch

#18/M&M’s

Ahhh ive waited a long time to bash Kyle “The Wild Thing” Busch but im not going to today. No doubt Busch has a world of talent and a very brash yet colorful personality that draws in fans by the truckload. Like his teammate Denny “Shrub” also won four races but failed to make the chase finishing 13th in the points. Little Busch needs to keep winning races, and if it takes him needing to be himself to do it then so be it.

Joey Logano

#20/Home Depot

I don’t find it often that I can write about a professional race car driver not too much older than I am. The 19-year-old had big shoes to fill last year after jumping in Tony Stewart’s former seat in the 20 car. Logano last season became the youngest driver to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire, only nineteen years, one month, and four years old. I don’t know much about this racing phenom but I do know the future is bright for Mr. Logano.

Bad Blood Continues

The bad blood between Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards was brought to a boil at Atlanta today. For those of you who don’t remember Talladega last season, Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards were racing for the win when Keselowski got under Edwards and sent him flying into the fence as he rode to a win (A video is available on a previous post and below). Early today Keselowski got into Edwards yet again (I personally did not think it was intentional, it’s just racin’) and caused severe damage as Edwards and Joey Logano hit the wall. Edwards returned to the track laps down got under Keselowski, sent him flying on to his hood. Edwards was taken out of the race by NASCAR. A very upset Brad Keselowski told reporters,

“To come back and just intentionally wreck someone, that’s not cool, He could have killed someone in the grandstands.”

Keselowski was running sixth at the time of the crash. A video of the crash is posted below along with the Talladega crash, look at the similarity. This crash shows just how safe these cars have become but they still need work. This off-Season NASCAR needs to work on making sure these cars do not go airborne as much as they have. I know its only been two serious wrecks, but if these crashes risk fan safety then its two times too many.

Atlanta Results

Kurt Busch was able to win at Atlanta for the second straight year, but it took him two green, white, checker flag finishes to do it. Tire problems and some bad blood between drivers dominated the race.

Pole sitter Dale Earnhardt Jr had a rough race due to the rough race track. Earnhardt did not lead a single lap today and ended up finishing off the lead lap. Junior went into the pits early complaining of a loose wheel. The same problem made racing difficult for Hendrick teammate Jeff Gordon. He too started well but finished off the lead lap. In more serious cases drivers like Mark Martin and David Regan lost their tires. Over a dozen drivers complained of tire problems during the race. Bad Blood between Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski was brought to a boil today but thats a whole different post.

Besides the tire issues some drivers had great days. Kasey Khane lead the most laps and Paul Menard earned his first career top 5 finishing fifth.

Fun Fact: This is the first race of the season not to be won by a Chevy. (McMurry at Daytona and Johnson everywhere else)