Top of the Box

how the dr see's thing…

Is it cheating? or just using the rules?

Ok I will say it.. Are the Toyota’s cheating? The 18 of Kyle Busch is Sitting on the pole but will go to the back during the warm up laps and there is a few more who will join him, #00-David Reutimann and #47-Marcos Ambrose qualified fourth and fifth, but also had to change their motors after their laps and will drop to the back of the field. #83-Brian Vickers, who won the pole last week at California but had to forfeit it because of an engine change, and his teammate #82-Scott Speed also switched motors Friday. In all, five Toyota teams switched motors Friday. Now is the Toyota teams laughing at qualifying and just saying screw it we want the press for running fast in qualifying but are willing to move to the back due to changing motors? I am not a fan of the Toyota’s but I really don’t want to believe this, but look at the facts……. last week Vickers sat on the pole and had to go to the back now this week when they seen how good it worked for him there are 4 more teams joining him. Vickers came home with a top 10.

Now look at this, 3 of the top 5 qualifiers are going to the back. It was supposed to be like this:

row 1 18 Busch 2 Busch

row 2 48 Johnson 00 Ruitemann

row 3 47 Ambrose 39 Newman

row 4 9 Kahne 5 Martin

ok send the 18, ,00,and the 47 to the back and it changes the whole complexion of the front couple rows. Now it is like this:

row 1 48 Johnson 2 Busch

row2 9 Kahne 39 Newman

row3 29 Harvick 5 Martin

row 4 12 Stremme 14 Stewart

Scott speed has to go to the back too but he had to get in on points not speed so he don’t have far to go.

Now some will say that this is just a coincidence but is it? I s this going to be a thing that NASCAR will have to put in check? With say additional penalties? Or will it just be a fluke thing? I guess we will have to wait til Atlanta and see.

In other notes …. the rear of the field will have a couple new faces this week, #25-Brad Keselowski,will start 13th #78-Regan Smith,will start 18th #44-AJ Allmendinger,will start 19th #87-Joe Nemechek.will start 22nd #13-Max Papis, will start 26th #71-David Gilliland will go off 30th and #64-Todd Bodine will start shotgun on the field at 43rd All got in the race and #28-Travis Kvapil [1st DNQ of season], #66-Dave Blaney [1st DNQ of season], #73-Mike Garvey, #41-Jeremy Mayfield [1st DNQ of season], #09-Sterling Marlin, #36-Scott Riggs [1st DNQ of season], #37-Tony Raines and #51-Dexter Bean [who wrecked on his run] all got to load up early. Mayfield was almost late getting in line and his run looked like it, he was way off. So he will miss his first race as an owner. Kvapil who landed a few more races with Golden Corral restaurants didn’t make it in either. Well now we wait for practice and see how this will all shakeout..

Boyd’s is postponed due to weather see website for more info

http://www.boydsspeedway.com/index.php#

the dr.

February 28, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | auto racing | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Las Vegas and Boyd’s Racing.

Now we head for Sin City!!!!! Las Vegas here comes NASCAR!!!! This race has to have to coolest logo in the series, it is cooler than frost.

Well I don’t think it will turn the city upside down with excitement, but every little bit helps. The Roush cars are going to be strong, maybe Jeff Gordon and the HMS teams, but remember this is the year of new winners, ( I say that as we sit and look at a two time winner in Kennseth blast out of the gates with wins at Daytona and Fontana.)Ford drivers have shown that they are not going to roll over and die. Dodge drivers have something to look forward to with the new engine coming soon, Kurt Busch for the first time in 3 years is ahead of his baby brother Kyle, thanks in part to the new engine from Dodge.

Cheating.??? Surely not….. two Nationwide teams who were caught at Daytona with illegal parts on the cars have appealed..Brad Hicks, crew chief for JD Motorsports’ No. 01 Chevrolet driven by Danny O’Quinn, and Corrie Stott, crew chief for Stott Classic Racing’s No. 02 Chevrolet driven by Andy Ponstein, were each fined $2,000 for the same violation: Having a hollow jacking bolt instead of a solid magnetic steel bolt.

Now my question is this…. If you have a steel bolt that is supposed to be solid, and it was found to be hollow, how can you appeal?Jacking bolts are what sets the ride height on the car its one of the things you see crews turning when they make a pit stop, I will be posting my pick’s for the weekend in tomorrows blog hurry back now ya here?

Kasey Kahne, driver of the #9 Budweiser Dodge in the Sprint Cup Series and Dierks Bentley, multi-platinum country music star, have teamed up to present “Sound Check 9” music concert on March 5 in Duluth, Georgia to benefit the Kasey Kahne Foundation.
“I’ve been friends with Dierks for a while now and I’m excited that we are putting together an event to benefit charity,” said Kahne, a nine-time winner on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. “Dierks has been a long-time supporter of children’s charities, which is also the focus of the Kasey Kahne Foundation. So teaming up on this concert is a good fit.”
Tickets are on sale for $27 advance general admission and $50 reserved seating. A special offering of one-hundred VIP Meet & Greet tickets with reserved seating are available for $150 per person.
The show takes place at Wild Bill’s in Duluth, Georgia, which is approximately 23 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. Wild Bill’s is regarded as one of the best and largest country music and dancing venues in the country. The evening kicks off with a question and answer session with Kahne and other NASCAR drivers (TBD). Bentley, will perform afterwards.

http://www.wildbillsatlanta.com/

Boyd’s speedway is getting ready for the Cabin Fever 250! Dirt season is here!!!

The new BOYD’s SPEEDWAY is ready to bring back to life a winter-classic of long ago. Racers and fans will have two-days of racing action as the track resurges, the CABIN FEVER 250 WEEKEND event that was a long standing tradition of season opener races at the West Knoxville, track Atomic Speedway. Seven (7) divisions of race teams will make the haul to the recently upgraded facility located on the Tennessee / Georgia state line (literally the pits are divided one side in Ga and the other in Tn.) near I-75, for over $35,000. in posted prize monies. The CABIN FEVER will begin Saturday afternoon (February 28th), with races highlighted by a $3,000. to-WIN Super Late Model race. All other local divisions will run heat races for their features scheduled on Sunday, March 1st. They are in a holding pattern now due to the weather that is expected but this will be a great way to start the year by going to the races! Who know you may even see the dr there.

For more up to date information on Boyd’s check the website http://www.boydsspeedway.com/index.php

Ya’ll be good and hope to see ya at the races!!!!

the dr.

February 27, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | auto racing | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

the drs views of Fontana..

Well my picks didn’t fair too well for the race but lets look at some of my notes and thoughts for the race,

One thing that glares out at me is Greg Biffle’s mistake in the pits, did you see that? He over shot his stopping point by at least 20 ft.!! It wound up maybe costing him the race, but thats a whole nother story, even Bif knew he messed up…”They should fire me,” he said immediately after getting out of his car. “That was a pretty fast car. I just screwed it up trying to get greedy”.

Jeff Gordon was bad fast all night long, but it seemed getting beat out of the pits almost every time took its toll as when the end of the race came around he was out of tires and could not do a thing with the rocket fast 17 car of Matt Kennseth.

Jimmie Johnson has a few good runs but the adjustments made in the pits went the wrong way on one stop, and just never really recovered.

Kahne was never really any good until the last 50 laps getting the lucky dog to get back on the lead lap in 17th and slowly worked his way up to 12th but the end of the race.

Hendricks seems to have gotten a bad bunch of valve parts, the teams stated that a bad batch of parts being the cause of Dale jr and Mark Martins engine failures. Now are the Jr fans going to say that Jr isn’t getting the best money can buy due to his engine failure? I mean if the pit calls are going to be blamed on Tony Eury Jr. then surely its H.M.S. Causing his poor runs.

I seen on captthunder that Harvick is going to foot the bill for Moto cross star Ricky Carmicheal’s truck at Atlanta. A race that he was not scheduled to run, but now get this there is a catch, Carmicheal’s contract states that he cannot drive a truck with out Monster energy drink on it! So the will get a free ride at the Atlanta race. And who said lawyers are dumb?

51 cars on list for Vegas race.. guess NASCAR ain’t having to many problems filling the field.

Shelby 427 now that has to be the coolest name for a race in the world!!! I mean that is cool as frost! I love that name.

Lots of talk about Kyle Busch going to F-1….. well last I looked he had a contract with Gibbs til the end of next year, but we all know how contracts are….

Well thats my views for the race last weeks race tomorrow we look ahead to Vegas!

The dr.

February 25, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | auto racing | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The dr’s thoughts and picks

Vickers wins Pole award….. then gets a quick trip to the rear of the field for having to change an engine. Now is this going to hurt him? Nope it won’t … as long as he can stay out of trouble coming to the front, California is not a track where starting position is important, well you will talk to some who disagree, but really it’s not. Look at it this way, on last lap of the warm ups he can dip to the pits and top off his fuel, giving him a couple laps extra that other teams won’t have. Will it be a race winning move? No I doubt it. But it will give him a little bit of an edge over the other drivers up until the first round of stops, thus helping him get back to the front.

One thing that surprised me was how slow the 5 were who didn’t make the race. Mike Garvey looked like he was out for a Sunday drive, Sterlin Marlin must have had engine problems, but it was a full field. Many people were saying that NASCAR wouldn’t be able to put a full field on the track after Daytona, well so far so good.

Now lets look at the testing issues, recently Jeff Burton who drives for RCR had this to say.”Some teams are able to be productive without testing. Some teams are very test-reliant; I am in no way saying the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) can’t win the championship this year because I believe they obviously can, but if you look at what they did last year, they struggled early in the year. They went and did a lot of testing and got a lot better. If you didn’t have that testing, what could you have done in that situation? I think every team is looking really hard at how, under these rules, can you be effective.” Now everyone knows that the top teams in NASCAR all have the 7 post shaker rigs, a device used to simulate a certain race tracks surface, now this will be good for shocks and springs but it don’t do squat for tires, and last year with the weeping track where water was seeping out of the seams in the track causing problems left and right, testing this year would have been at a premium, but with no testing it seems to even the field out just a little bit, the race on Sunday will tell the tale.

Kasey Kahne three consecutive top-10s. he has only one bad finish in his last seven efforts, which came as the result of an engine failure in spring 2007; all other results in that time have been top-10s, including a win in fall 2006. This Richard Petty Motorsports team is going to have to step up and prove that the 3 cars in the top 10 at Daytona was not a fluke.

Matt Kennseth the hot “rouschkateer” this year coming off his win at Daytona he will be up front on Sunday .

Carl Edwards He has been a force to be reckoned with here for a while and Rousch has been a hot team here along with HMS as they have won 10 of the last 12 races in the spring.

Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon each have 3 wins each at Fontana so you have to put them in the mix. But is the lack of testing going to hurt the “super team”? Yeah I think it will.

A.J. Almendinger he posted the 8th best time in qualifying and I think he is going to be a real force as he bust his butt to get that full time ride. The dr has heard rumors that the sponsorship deal is a done deal just waiting on the ink to dry.

So there are my thoughts and my picks for Sunday’s race now we will see how close I am..

the dr.

February 21, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | auto racing | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

California Preview by the dr.

Now we go to California Speedway in Fontana Calif, (I refuse to call it AAA Auto Club speedway) This track has had 2 drivers who share 3 wins each here Jeff Gordon and his HMS team mate Jimmie Johnson. Jeff has more top 5 and top 10 runs here with 7 each.

If you go on stats for this track you will see that the winner has come out of the top 10, 17 times and out of the top 5, 3 times. Ford and Chevy has dominated this race with Dodge not taking a win as yet, yeah there has been a Dodge on the pole Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne have both put a dodge on the pole there and Bobby Labonte did get a Pontiac on the pole once. This is where Jeremy Mayfield backed into a race win in 2000 the April race here.

Joey Lagano the wonder kid didn’t have a very good Daytona and he is really wanting his first trip to California Speedway to be a good one, I see more of the same for him at California.

And I am not looking for any dark horses coming from the one car teams either. You may see one of them jump up on pole day with some good speed but I don’t see any of them being around at the end.

Lots of drivers hope to keep the momentum going with this trip to California, drivers who had a good finish in the 500 are looking to keep it wound up heading into this weekend. I know that the drivers who shocked everyone with a good run at Daytona like the Richard Petty Motorsports drivers, 3 of whom had top 10 runs at Daytona, and one who has done good at California Kasey Kahne, he is looking to get his Dodge back to a winning way after a bad finish at Daytona. Watch for these drivers to make a good showing there.

Richard Childress driver Kevin Harvick had a good show at Daytona and he wants to keep running good too. So there are lots of good drivers who WANT to make a good showing but how many will? That is the big question.

If you ask the dr……. I am looking for a Dodge in victory lane and a mix up of drivers who finish in the top 10. I am not looking for the same old drivers to be there at the end of this one either. I feel this will be a season for new winners and new pole sitters, so get ready to see some new faces.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be glad to see the track and put the ordeals at Daytona behind him, And I am sure that NASCAR has warned him and Vickers both to watch themselves and be involved with each other in another incident. Which everyone else will be waiting and watching for. I am sure that both drivers are tired of all the questions and remarks and just want to get back on the track.

These cars run as fast here at California as they do at Daytona and things happen so lets see how many cautions they throw, Pit strategy is going to be key here too, with mileage and tires very important, so lets watch for them to be ready to go on pit road.

The 66 car has lost one crew member to drug testing, no substance listed yet but the suspension is indefinitely. So it must be something…..

So are you ready? Me too…… now lets go racing…
the dr..

February 19, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

the Dr’s recap….

Grab a cup of coffee and let’s sit back and look at the past week, …….

Oh there was lots of feel good stories that were floating around , all the single car teams put together at the last minute, trying to get in the “big race”, the ones who had to go home, yeah lots of feel good stories.

But this past weekend there were 3 races,

Truck race Friday night, new rules, lots of changes in drivers and teams, team that won the title last year now defunct. New teams with new drivers, new teams with old drivers new rules now only 5 guys over the wall instead of 7. Yep lot’s of good stuff, and it came down to the last few laps and Kyle Busch trying to get around Todd Bodine to win … didn’t happen, but it was exciting to watch the blocking and bumping that went on.

Nationwide race on Saturday lots of new thing here too teams and drivers both. Few miscue’s to cause a crash or two but here too it came down to last lap heroics by Kyle Busch running second to Tony Stewart, and Busch trying to use the bumper to get the win… didn’t work here either… Stewart wins….and Busch’s move cost him second place, he wound up 4th.

Then we get to the big one, the 2009 Daytona 500. well it wasn’t quite 500 miles thanks to mother nature….. I guess she had had enough too and she sent in the rain…..but you know, I was really surprised that Kyle Busch who had tried to use the bumper on Friday and Saturday to get a win got mad when he was on the receiving end of the rough driving stuff. When he was handing it out it was ok, but when he was a victim of someone else using it he gets mad… go figure..Kennseth wins rain shortened race…now we go out west…..

Can the 48 team over come the 120 point hole they found themselves in after Daytona? The points standings looks kind of funny now with some new names…..but how long will it stay that way?? not long trust me. As the teams go to the next race you can bet the bad luck of some of the teams at Daytona will turn around and they will find themselves getting back to the top. Now the excitement begins….

The biggest surprise to me was the finish of the RPM cars 3 cars in the top ten. And if the 9 car of Kahne hadn’t of went agricultural racing they might have had 4 cars in the top 12. Good run and the 44 and the 43 ran good together and done a good job of staying out of trouble… is this a sign of things to come?? you bet it is. Better watch out for those Dodges…

the dr.

February 17, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | auto racing | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Blocking again??? The 500

I really hate to beat a dead horse……BUT I got to this time. Look down a blog post or two and you will see my views on blocking in NASCAR, and I hate to say I told you so BUT….. there was a driver Brian Vickers who made a comment that really bothered me, Vickers is a young gun so to speak, he has had a couple shining moments and one not so shining moment at Talladega but we wont go there (right now), anyway he made a statement that really got to me….he said””That’s super speedway racing,” Vickers said “You watch your mirror [and] you try to keep the guy behind you, behind you. My goal is not to let him pass me. People blocked me the whole race — they’d turn left and try to keep me behind them. That’s part of super speedway racing. “ he also said “My goal was to keep Junior [Earnhardt] behind me and I went to block him,” Vickers said. “I beat him to the yellow line and then he just turned us. He hooked me in the left-rear and typically NASCAR penalizes … I think [Jason Leffler] was penalized five laps [Saturday] for doing the same thing.

“I guess they’re not going to penalize him for it. It’s kind of sad. To wreck somebody intentionally like that in front of the entire field is really kind of dangerous. That’s my biggest problem with it, but apparently he wanted a caution pretty bad.”

I hate to bust his bubble but that is NOT racing. not short track , not intermediates, not super speedways. That is NOT racing period.! And then to turn around and blame Dale Earnhardt Jr. (whom I am not a fan of by the way) that is wrong, and bad karma is a bi**h.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had this to say when Dr Dick Berrgren asked him if it was accidental.Yeah, it was accidental,” Earnhardt shrieked. “I don’t want to wreck the field. The rain was coming, it was time to try to win the race and I was trying to get back on the lead lap. So I had to run hard. If Vickers could have just held his ground, I had a good run — I was a lapped car anyway and wasn’t battling for the lead. But he drove me down into the grass almost and I didn’t have much control of my car after that.”

I really hate to but I have to give Jr. credit for his actions and the way he answered the question. Real stand up stuff there.

On the the rest of the race, rain shortened, some wild driving the last few laps once everyone realized they were racing to the rain not the end.

Bad day for wonder kid Joey Lagano as he pulls a rookie mistake and then blames it on someone else another rookie Scott Speed but both were running hard and it was not really anyones fault other than these 2 rookies driving over their heads.

Larry Mac was quick to blame Scott Speed for the ordeal, but later changed his view .He must be on the Lagano P.R. Wagon payroll too.

H.M.S. Had a high of 13th Jeff Gordon had that one teammate jimmie johnson would up 31st. 120 points out of the lead.

Take out the blocking and the rain, it would have been a great race! …seriously though, It was a good race, it got the season started and we all got our racing fix. Now its “OK NASCAR what cha got next?” now the real season starts ….. Daytona season is over and now we can go racing, how many of the teams will go to the next race??? more on that later in the week.

The dr.

February 16, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | auto racing | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Daytona 500 Announcers

Look out here comes the 2009 Daytona 500!!New drivers with new teams and a clean slate in the points race, every driver is tied for 1st! I am excited and thrilled to get the season underway. Alas I also have one fear of the coming season..  Yeah ……. Announcers, yeah that’s my fear for the coming year, since I watch most of the NASCARS on TV it has become a point of …well…. not really sure what you would call it. Its not really fear, but it sure isn’t confidence, I know they are going to mess this up sure as the world. Let’s look at what we got to look forward to today, we won’t even get into the pre-race garbage but lets look in the booth…….

Today we get D.W. Darrell Waltrip, yeah he is a past champion, but his is starting to live up to his early nick name of Jaws (thanks fletch), because of his big mouth. Anyone else besides me notice that D.W. Has had Toyota on his shirts during the past week? All the other announcers have “Speed” on the left pocket of their shirts, D.W. Has Toyota on the right pocket of his shirts. Now here in Ga. We call that a “conflict of interest.” Now who is responsible for this? I would venture to guess that in his deal with his brother and thru his former truck ownership role he has a contract with Toyota and he has a rider in the contract that states he has the right to put Toyota’s logo there. Now what he is getting for that could be as little as $500.00 or as much as $2500 every time it appears on screen! Just depends on how the rider is worded…. but anyway………Now if you listen today see how many times he mentions Dale Jr…..or how he was talking the other day with so and so… the only time he will mention a new name is if they are in a wreck or if they are holding up a leader. He will ramble on about what he thinks is the magic setup for these cars. Or how good Kyle Busch is in that new Toyota.. he will promote Toyota the whole race you watch, then we have the wonderful insight of Larry Macreynolds and his washed up mindset. Hey if he was any good at what he does he would be on someone s box….TV don’t pay that good. This is the same man who told us the first part of January that none of the teams were testing! Then the very next day drivers are talking about the tracks they were testing at…… yeah he is on the stick ….His information on setup on these cars is from what he hears, he has no real experience with actual set up on these cars, and trust me there isn’t a crew chief in the pits who will tell what they are really doing, they will give him or anyone who ask, some some lame pre approved sound bite and Larry Mac takes this to be the gospel fact. And then we have poor poor Mike Joy, he tries best he car but he is walking proof that stupidity really does rub off after enough exposure. Watch carefully as he starts out good and slowly slides down the scale to the level of the other two , well, oh hell , they are IDIOTS!!!!!

But that folks is what we get, I think next year I will set up a live pod cast of some kind MY call of the race, yeah that will be an idea to check into……I got a couple people in mind to bring in the booth with me….. Fletch, how bout it? Wahoo? You game? And with me and fletch as the two color men, we can get Red Zone as the straight man…..this just might get wings…. what does everyone think???

Hope you have a good day and your favorite driver has a good day.

The dr.

February 15, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | auto racing | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Blocking….. its gotta go!!!!

This is is going to make a few people mad, but it needs to be brought up. That is blocking, years ago it was almost as bad as cheating to block someone, but now a days its starting to be considered ok. Lets look at what it does, it causes drivers to have to make evasive actions which in turn causes drivers to hit each other , which in turn gets drivers hurt.

I don’t know where it started to be acceptable but now it is starting to get out of hand. In the second of the duals it was Mark Martin who for years has been known for his clean driving style, but in the duals he made a blocking move that carried Kyle Busch up to the wall and almost into it. Friday night it was used by Busch on the last lap to almost take Rick Crawford out coming to the line.

As I have said many times here on top of the box racing is about racing, not bumping contrary to popular belief rubbin is not racing, rubbing gets drivers hurt. Yeah it happens some times and yeah it can not be avoided but that don’t make it ok.(Here comes the part that will make a few mad) Lets look back at the 500 that we lost Dale Sr., he was blocking, he was doing it to give his son and his driver Mike Waltrip a chance to break away and go for the win, (sort of a conflict of interest I think driving for one team and using that equipment to benefit a team you own) in his effort to let the 2 DEI cars to go battle for the win, he caused a massive pile up that cost a lot of teams cars and Dale Sr. his life.

But blocking has come to be acceptable, and it is going to lead to more drivers getting hurt or even killed. This is a dangerous sport, face it, these cars are 3600lbs missiles a weapon and to use them like this is not going to do anything but get someone hurt, if you can’t outrun a car then let it go, don’t make all these crazy moves to stay in front of it. F-1 has made provisions for blocking due to drivers getting hurt in the melee’s that have followed blocking incidents. NASCAR should learn from them before someone gets hurt.

I am sure that there will be a bunch of folks who can give all these excuses that “oh because NASCAR has put restrictor plates on cars you have to block” arguments well horse feathers. That don’t fly, is it ok to put drivers lives on the line just because of a rule, that is to help even out races? NO!!!! it is not.

So please NASCAR PLEASE do something about this before we loose another driver like we lost Dale Sr. Racing can be fun and exciting with out this blatant blocking crap, but someone has to step up to the plate and make a stand against it. As we sit down to watch the 2009 500 watch for yourself at some of the moves drivers are making to block and as a result of blocking and see if you really think it is a good idea.

The dr.

February 14, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | auto racing | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Duals….Good show!

Man that was some racin today!!!!!!! The duals proved to be a good sign of things to come it seems. With each of the 2 races giving the fans some great action and side by side racing.

The first of the duals was marred by Bill Elliott losing a transmission on the caution lap, hope he has called his brother Dan to get him a new tranny! (Dan was the 3rd Elliott brother with Bill and Ernie who made up the famous #9 Coors team.)

Scott Riggs in the new team put together by Tommy Baldwin was the feel good story of the first race and also the excellent run by Jeff Gordon who held off all comers for the win and then was greeted by his young daughter in Victory lane.

The second dual was more of the same with the real battle being toward the end of the race and at the back of the field to see who was going to make it in and the feel good for some was Jeremy Mayfield who managed to race his way in through the help of some last minute pit stops …

The thing I was most impressed with was the amount of team work I saw, lots of teammates working together the 31 of Burton and the 29 of Harvick ran good to finish 14th and 18th respectively. But the ones I was really impressed with was the RPM team mates of Almendinger, Sorensen and Sadler working to get all 3 of them in the race.

I think the race Sunday will be a good race, most of the slower cars were weeded out today and Sunday we should get some really good racing in.

The Chevy’s and Toyota’s were fast today and I know they will be fast on Sunday, but they were fast last year too. And a Dodge won the race. So we will have to wait and see, I was also surprised that there wasn’t more mistakes on pit road today by the drivers although there was a good bit of confusion. The 42 of JPM pitted in the wrong pit box, a couple drivers over shot their pits, Dale Jr. and one jack man got hit while on pit road, he was just a few seconds late leaving the wall and his own driver hit him on the way in, reports are he is ok and a full recovery is expected.

Well now we just have to wait til Sunday or watch the Nationwide series and the trucks Friday and Saturday…

CAN’T WAIT!!!!!!!!

the dr.

February 13, 2009 Posted by drflavio309 | auto racing | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments Yet