Sofa Sideline – J.B. Rock Solid Performance
Finally – Johnny Benson gets that elusive first win – congratulations go out
to him on a terrific performance at the Pop Secret 400 in Rockingham, North
Carolina. Mark Martin was on him ’til the bitter end, and even said he was
overdriving the car trying to win. But Benson was not to be outdone again, and
hung on to pick up the win.
Tony Stewart basically had a dismal day, finishing one lap down but managing
to wind up 14th. That allowed Mark Martin to once again be a serious threat in
the championship race. He is not just 87 points behind Stewart. However, just
learned that Martin’s car did not pass post race inspection – an illegal spring
and it’s reported that there will be some sort of penalty assessed on Monday;
possibly the loss of points may be a part of the penalty.
All the Roush cars finished well; with Kurt Busch coming in third, Jeff
Burton, fourth and Matt Kenseth winding up in eighth place.
You could say it was a rough day for the Chevy’s but Jeff Gordon finished
fifth, with Mike Skinner finishing in sixth place. Maybe it would be appropriate
to say that the DEI Chevy’s didn’t show us anything at all today. Michael
Waltrip was best at 19th, with Steve Park 24th and Dale Jr. coming in 34th.
The Dodge camp was pretty sorry for the day as well with the first Dodge
being the number 23 of Kenny Wallace in 13th. Next up was Jamie McMurray in
15th, with John Andretti finishing 18th.
It’s a tough race track and looks like most of the time spent by the drivers
is trying to keep from hitting the wall when the car would come off of three and
four and just drift up to the wall. Benson ran the outside lane quite a bit and
many times the thought crossed my mind that he was hanging out there just a
little too far.
Okay, I laughed out loud when Rusty and Jeff Gordon were banging each other
around. Rusty, being a lap car, was giving Gordon a run for his money, and you
knew after a while Jeff would just give him a little shove out of the way. Well
that happened, but then Rusty came right back at him; Gordon did a nice job of
just hanging on to the car after that one. A few minutes later, Gordon was right
back on Rusty’s tail and gave him a few good shots in the rear before Wallace
got out of the way.
For a while there it looked like Bobby Labonte was going to be right up there
vying for the lead, but the last pit stop did him in. Tires again were the
problem; the car being good all day, but at the end of the race not so good.
Labonte wound up in 7th place; all things considered not a bad run, but would
have liked to see him pick up a second win for the year.
With only two races to go, it still appears that Tony Stewart will get that
coveted title in 2002; he’s always strong at both Phoenix and Homestead, so
unless something major happens – he’s in.
Other Notes:
Being in the pits one gets to see things from a different perspective than
you may normally. As I’ve said on many occasions, I think that the fans should
be allowed in the pits – its part of sport, and so on…
But, I guess I’m getting tired of seeing the drivers get "haunted"
by fans when they are just going out to do their job. The security on pit road
was really lax and I watched this one lady run out to every driver heading to
their car during qualifying to get an autograph. There’s a time and place for
everything and on pit road during qualifying is not the time to get autographs.
Not until Jeff Gordon got bombarded by about ten people and then more started
coming did the officials do anything about it.
What was even sadder about this incident with Gordon is that when he started
walking down the road he was deep in conversation with Terry Labonte; then
suddenly this throng of people. Terry just kept walking; they weren’t jumping
all over him. Needless to say, that in itself was not too cool.
This is why there are new rules coming down next year, and this is why pit
road access for fans will more than likely wind up totally banned. Courtesy,
consideration, and just basic common sense are basically lost to the world when
fans see a driver coming, and it has become a sad state of affairs.
We had a chance to spend a few minutes talking with "Fatback"
McSwain regarding his new role as crew chief for Bobby Labonte. He’s excited
about the opportunity to work with this team; he’s anxious to show he has the
potential to bring home a championship with this organization. He left Robert
Yates’ group with no hard feelings; he just felt it was time to move on. He
knows Bobby wants to win another championship and get this team back on track,
and he has confidence in his ability to make that happen.
I’ve always been one to criticize Robby Gordon, but I have to admit that
having finally had an opportunity to speak with him one on one for a few
minutes; he’s a nice guy. He’s gracious and considerate, and I will say he has
improved over the last few weeks and had some fairly decent finishes – at least
the car has been coming home in one piece most of the time.
All this turmoil with Casey Atwood; is he fired, is he not? My opinion is
that he came up too soon, should have spent some time in the Busch Series to
gain that invaluable thing called experience, and now he’s basically been hung
out to dry. This is a talented young driver, who will probably have difficulty
finding another decent ride in Winston Cup.
I watched him walk down pit road by himself as he was going to qualify. He
looked sad and all this crap has got to have taken a toll on his confidence.
Let’s hope all this is not an end to a career that barely got started. Maybe a
step back to the Busch Series would be just the ticket at this point; get some
of that seat time, pick up a win or two, get some spirit back.
After witnessing an impromptu "press" conference by Jeff Gordon
outside his hauler just prior to Friday’s first practice session, what I saw was
an individual somewhat programmed with the "appropriate" answers
(surprise, surprise) but also, he was just plain fidgety. He couldn’t keep his
hands still; always moving; all this pent up energy. Not that it means anything;
I just thought it was kind of interesting and maybe a product of all that’s been
going on his life this past year. Just an observation, that’s all.
Okay maybe I’ll go out on a limb here and say Ryan Newman will move up to
finish second in points this year and then next year, be the winner.
I’ll have to think on that – let you know in a couple of weeks (lol).
That’s it for now.