Sofa Sideline – The Richmond Racing Event

Racing at Richmond is great!! There is so
much "racing" going on you don’t know where to watch next.
Congratulations go to Ricky Rudd who stood, undaunted, after being bumped and
overtaken by Kevin Harvick with seventeen laps to go, and proceeded to gather it
back up and "bump" back to retake the lead on lap 394. There was no
contest from that point on! Great race!!

Rounding out the top ten were; Kevin
Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace, Bobby Labonte, Tony
Stewart, Jimmy Spencer, Jeff Burton and Johnny Benson.

The race for the championship suddenly
looks like a race again (well sort of) after a 36th place finish by Jeff Gordon.
Lap 35 saw Gordon hit the wall in turn three when Sterling Marlin got underneath
Gordon and sent him sailing into the wall. Marlin was running third at the time,
but due to transmission problems, only managed a 32nd place finish himself.

Dale Jarrett wound up with a fourth place
finish coming from as far back as 33rd position. While watching practice on
Friday afternoon, it appeared Jarrett had substantial handling problems, and at
the beginning of the race there seemed to be the same problem. As the evening
progressed, it all came together as he gradually worked his way up to the front
to capture fourth place.

Rusty Wallace led 276 of the 400 laps and
seemed like he was bound to win. From my viewpoint, he appeared to lose
something in the set up after the last pit stop, which I guess was the case, and
he wound up fifth. With a couple more laps, he may have even lost that spot to
Bobby Labonte. Bobby struggled with handling for a lot of the race, but came on
at the end to wind up with a respectable sixth place finish. Not bad, but I’m
sure both these guys are wanting more!

The heartbreaker for the evening is what
happened to Terry Labonte. At times it was reported he was the fastest car on
the track, and he had worked his way up to the top ten. On his last pit stop, I
counted him in fifth place, but apparently the tail pipe had come loose after an
earlier brush with the wall. The pipe started dragging on the race track, and
after a couple of laps broke off and sent Terry into the first turn wall. You
could see the frustration on his face. What a shame when a great finish appeared
within reach.

Other notes:

Congratulations to Jimmy Spencer for his
win in the Busch Series on Friday. He obviously had the strongest car out there,
and there was no stopping him. He led 167 out of the 250 laps to take the win.

Tempers flared (again) as Greg Biffle
threw a punch at Jay Sauter after their second go-round during the race. Sauter
had spun Biffle around and he hit the fourth turn wall. An earlier incident
between the two had sent Sauter to the garage, but he was able to get back on
the track. It seems there was a little "payback" going on here.

These Busch guys are a pretty feisty lot.
There’s a real competitive spirit which sometimes leads to these little
"altercations." But what the heck, this has been going on in racing
ever since I can remember. It keeps us all interested, eh?

On a personal note – I have to thank Mike
and Jeff for the "lovely" seat cushion they gave me compliments of the
Virginia State Lottery. They are true Richmond race fans, and were kind enough
to give me the cushion as a gift (those seats get hard after awhile).

Winston Cup heads to Loudon, New Hampshire
this week. My roving reporters (Sandy and Dawn) will be there to provide on the
scene feedback.

That’s it for now.