Sofa Sideline – Watkins Glen

2001 Nancy Osterhoudt

Well things were pretty much the norm at
Watkins Glens this past weekend. With 12 laps to go, Jeff Gordon overtook Jeff
Burton for the lead, and that was that. It got a little "hairy" out
there when Elliott Sadler had a little run in with Johnny Benson with two laps
to go and the leaders had to get around him, but Gordon hung on. It’s looking
more and more like he’s unbeatable for the championship, but it is too early to
call. A couple of bad finishes, however unlikely, and the challenge would be
there.

Dale Jarrett admittedly showed less than
contender’s form by sending himself spinning out into the gravel not once, but
twice. He more than anyone knows, you can’t win that way, but I suppose that
doesn’t need to be said out loud.

Nice run for Jeremy Mayfield – yeah! He
started 39th and worked his way to third. I hope this is a turning point, and
we’ll see more from Jeremy from now on. Jerry Nadeau also had a decent finish
ending up in sixth place.

Dale Jr. ran in the top five most of the
day and had the lead for a while. He looked good through most of the race, but
with the squeeze play with Boris Said at the end of the race, Dale was the loser
and would up in 12th position. All in all, it was not a bad finish for Dale Jr.

Rusty – what the heck is going on? Engine
failure!!! And it was reported that it was caused by a disconnected hose????
Geez…stop this – we need to see you back in winning form, and soon.

I have to say that Robby Gordon probably
was well on his way to a first win when he was sidelined by a fire inside the
car caused by the telemetry box used by the broadcast network to track
statistics such as speed, intervals between cars, etc. This is not good. If
there is no guarantee that it will not happen again, they should be pulled from
the cars. It is as simple as that. What if it happens while racing almost 200
miles per hour at Michigan? A lot of times, its just annoying to us viewers
anyway, so the safety of the drivers, not the broadcast should be of utmost
concern.

Okay, so back to Robby Gordon. I’ll admit
he can handle a road course race. He should be able too, that’s where he came
from. But frankly I don’t understand all the "hype" surrounding him.
In all of his Winston Cup starts on "oval" tracks, Gordon has never
shown us anything. In fact, at times, he’s been somewhat of a menace. One has to
feel bad about what happened at Watkins Glen, but honestly, I don’t feel so bad
about his not having a ride.

After the truck race in Nashville last
Friday night, I had the privilege to give Joe Gibbs a ride (in my little putt,
putt cart) from the infield to the helicopter landing area. We talked about the
qualifying efforts for Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart, and Coach Gibbs thought
his team had a good shot at winning. Unfortunately that was not to be. After
having a rough race all day, on lap 70 Stewart went off course and into the
gravel in turn one (nice driving effort to plow out of it), and wound up
finishing 26th. Bobby Labonte, who is becoming more consistent in road course
racing, finished a solid 9th, but was never in contention for the win.

In the case of the Gibbs team you could
say better luck next time and it will probably ring true – the next race being
in Michigan after all.

Okay one last thing – let’s just keep
saying the points race is not over, the points race is not over, its too early
to call. One might begin to believe it.

That’s it.