Sofa Sideline – Kenseth Gets #2 at TMS
Matt Kenseth started last – finished
first! After a rain-soaked weekend in Texas, the running of the Samsung/Radio
Shack 500 took place on Monday. With 30 laps remaining, Kenseth took just two
tires on his final pit stop, and came out of the pits in the lead. Jeff Gordon,
running second, was unable to overtake Kenseth, and Kenseth went on to take the
win.
This is Kenseth’ second win of the
season; his first win was at Rockingham. Kenseth also gained points on point’s
leader, Sterling Marlin, and is now running a close second in the race.
Jeff Gordon broke his streak of bad runs
both at Texas and for the 2002 coming in with a second place finish. Mark Martin
drove a great race winding up third after several attempts to overtake Gordon
proved futile. Gordon made no mistakes, and Martin was unable to overpower the
number 24; settling for third place.
Rounding out the top ten; Ricky Rudd 4th,
Tony Stewart 5th, Jimmie Johnson 6th, Sterling Marlin 7th,
Jimmy Spencer 8th, Bill Elliott 9th, and Texas Terry
Labonte (yeah) finished 10th.
The two other Roush cars didn’t have
such a great day. Jeff Burton hit the wall finishing 39th, and Kurt
Busch wound up in 23rd after spinning in laps three and four bringing
out the caution on lap 309.
The other member of the Burton family also
had a tough day when the number 22 brought out the third caution of the day when
he took a hard hit between turns one and two. Burton was taken to the infield
car center where he underwent x-rays after complaining of neck pain, but was
later released.
Earlier in the race it seemed that the
race was all but locked up by members of the Yates team – Dale Jarrett and
Ricky Rudd had lapped up to 19th position, and led for almost half
the race, but just after lap 225 both Rudd and Jarrett ran out of gas before
making green flag pit stops. Rudd still finished fourth, but Jarrett, after
losing two laps, finished a disappointing 24th place.
Rusty Wallace – drove a strong race, was
passing well, led laps, once again looked like the "old Rusty," but at
the end of the race the car just seemed to "go away." Rusty finished
11th however, and is still faring well in the points race with a
fourth place standing.
Bobby Labonte had a tough day, again! An
ill-handling car, and an incident with Jeremy Mayfield on a restart with less
than 100 laps to go where Labonte caught the rear of Mayfield’s car with the
right front nose, sealed his fate for the day. Labonte finished in 30th
position and dropped to 17th in points.
Jimmie Johnson – another good run for
the rookie. That’s all that needs to be said.
Other notes:
Okay – the continuing saga of Robby
Gordon, (Richard Childress Racing), who wrecked yet another car when he just
lost it and hit the wall. There has to be a light dawning on someone at some
point here. Since he has managed to only have one decent finish, and has wrecked
a bunch of cars, why do we fans really need to care if he runs both the Indy 500
and the Coca-Cola 600 the same day?
And the same thing with Shawna Robinson as
she once again seemed to be "in the way" as evidenced by the hard hit
that Dale Earnhardt Jr. took after contact with the number 49 causing him to
back into the wall resulting in major damage, and winding up with a 42nd
place finish.
The frustration was noted as Earnhardt
remarked, "I think Shawna’s a good race car driver, but they better put
her in better race cars because she ran into me."
Shawna finished 12 laps down.
The O’Reilly’s 300 NASCAR Busch Series
race ended early when the rains came back on Saturday, with Jeff Purvis coming
up with the win. A gamble on a two-tire pit stop played out, and Purvis got the
win without ever having the lead under green flag conditions. Great for Jeff
Purvis, but tough for Jack Sprague who ran a great ran, and would have more than
likely come up with the win had the race stayed under green.
This week there’s lots of action in two
different places. DW will be driving in the truck race this Saturday in
Martinsville along with Kevin Harvick. The playful "bantering" that
has been going on between these two has sparked a "friendly rivalry"
and will no doubt sell many tickets for Saturday’s race – a great marketing
effort, and should prove fun for the fans as well.
The Winston Cup Series will also be held
in Martinsville this weekend for the running of the Virginia 500 on Sunday.
The Busch Series makes it way to the
Nashville Superspeedway with the Pepsi 300 scheduled to start at 4:00 p.m. on
Saturday, April 13th, with the ARCA/REMAX Series slated to go off on
Friday, April 12 at 4:00 p.m.
Great racing is all around this weekend…
That’s it for now.