Sofa Sideline – Stewart Wins at Richmond (was that Richmond???)
Tony Stewart starts from the rear; manages to stay afloat in the sea of
disaster to take the win! On lap 373 Stewart took the lead from Ryan Newman,
survived a couple more restarts, and brought it home.
But what the heck happened to one of my favorite race tracks?? Complaints
about the sealer were justified as we watched wreck after wreck all day long.
For that matter, all weekend long. Saturday night rains washed out the event
after 66 laps, and the race was postponed until Sunday. And Sunday; it was a
long, drawn out day, with a one groove race track, and little room for the
passing definitely not indicative of what the race normally is like at Richmond.
I guess Tony Stewart aptly described it; "I love the people at Richmond
and the Raceway, but they gave us the worse Winston Cup race track I’ve ever
seen in my life," said Stewart.
Let’s hope that this doesn’t happen again, as Richmond is well-known for
great Saturday night racing, and the last thing the fans want to see is that go
down the tubes.
Those managing to survive to make up the remainder of the top ten were; Ryan
Newman 2nd, Jeff Burton 3rd, Mark Martin 4th, Jeremy Mayfield 5th, Matt Kenseth
6th, Jeff Gordon 7th, Steve Grissom 8th, Ricky Craven 9th with Jimmy Spencer
rounding out the top 10.
Well let’s talk about the good stuff; okay – Matt Kenseth; after going three
laps down while making repairs to the exhaust system at the start of the
restart, he came back to finish in seventh place. Where would he have finished
if that hadn’t happened? One might want to start looking at this team as a truly
viable contender in the race for the championship; the consistency and winning
mode seems to be in place.
Ryan Newman had a good day, breaking his bad luck streak. He ran hard, led
several laps, but Stewart seemed to be handling slightly better at the end of
the race to make the difference.
Steve Grissom had a great run for the Petty organization finishing in 8th
place. Let’s hope this continues; as this team doggedly makes strides every
week.
Not so good:
Okay, so Rusty thinks he’s going to win the championship…I guess that is an
explanation for some of the wild stuff he was doing out there. Regardless, the
incident with Ricky Rudd probably shouldn’t have happened. He shot up into the
leader, sending Ricky into the wall and causing the 28 to hit the wall, doing
considerable damage and ending Rudd’s day. Under the circumstances, Rudd acted
quite honorably considering that he probably was a sure bet to win the race.
Rusty claims the car just shot of the racetrack, and that he had no control; but
then he had a lap to slow it down. It just didn’t seem right.
The lap after this happened, Robby Gordon somehow managed to hit the water
barriers at the end of pit road as he was going in to make a stop. He claimed
the car just all of a sudden turned right??? RCR once again takes home a
demolished car!
And the other half of the Gibbs team, again, became a victim of
circumstances. On lap 166 Dale Jarrett got out of the groove lost control,
slammed into the 18, and sending him to the garage where he lost 47 laps while
making repairs to get him back out on the track. Labonte saw all this happening
in front of him, checked up, but Joe Nemechek, (subbing for Johnny Benson)
didn’t, caught Bobby’s rear bumper, and sent him spinning. Labonte
unsuccessfully to "gun it" doing a 360 to miss Jarrett, but
unfortunately it didn’t work.
Dale Jr. had a bad day as well; on lap 146 he just lost it coming off of turn
four. He got back out on the track, but finished in 36th position.
Jimmy Spencer and Jimmie Johnson got side by side going into the turn but
Spencer didn’t budge, and Johnson made the rookie mistake of thinking he would.
Johnson wound up hitting the wall and ending up in 31st place.
The "tough luck" list could go on and on; Nadeau, Harvick, Terry
Labonte, Rusty, again. The track claims they did the same thing as the norm with
the sealer; but it clearly wasn’t the kind of racing we generally see. Track
officials are also saying that they are not going to reseal again before the
September race. Sometimes it’s better to take the offense in a situation rather
than defense – meaning if there is a way to make it better, do what needs to be
done, not just say this is the way we always do it so it’s not our fault. Just
fix it!
On Friday night, Jason Keller picked up another win to regain the lead in the
Busch series points race. Bobby Hamilton Jr. led for a number of laps and it
looked like a sure bet for the win, but late in the race the engine blew, and
Keller took over the lead to pick up the win. Congratulations go out to Jason
and we’re looking for Bobby to get that first win some time soon.
This division is one definitely up for grabs as any number of drivers could
be the one to win the championship when all is said and done. We’ll have to keep
a close watch on this group as the season progresses.
Notes:
The Winston Cup Series is off this weekend in celebration of Mother’s Day.
The Busch Series will be in New Hampshire on Saturday and we’ll get a chance to
see how the newly widened surface runs and if the ability to pass is there.
The ARCA RE/Max Series is on tap for some Saturday night racing at Kentucky
Speedway this weekend, and the race will be broadcast live on Speed Channel
beginning at 8:00 p.m. Be sure to tune in!
That’s it for now.