Hip-Hip-Hooray!

We won't be doing the "Live on Type Delay" this year. Because of our location, our only internet option is dial-up, and, because we live in a multi-unit residence with shared outgoing telephone lines, the times at which we may go on line are limited. If the "Live on Type Delay" isn't posted as quickly as possible after the checker flag, it loses its appeal, and the limitations posed on us make it impossible to post before midnight or the next day. Besides, without MRN in Colorado Springs, there is no point in just repeating what we see on television. But enough about me.

There was no disappointment in the Bud Shootout, the Gatorade Duels, the ARCA race, nor in the Nationwide race and the Truck race. It was all action, and the NASCAR drivers in all three series' put on a great show. This is what we can see when NASCAR backs off on the officiating that keeps the drivers from doing what they can to try to win. This is the closest we can get to the old school racing we remember without bringing back the old school drivers in their prime.

There will be those who will complain about the delays in the Daytona 500 for track repair, but there was really no helping that. The heavy rains in Florida last week and the cooler than normal temperatures combined to cause problems in the track surface--problems that could have provided more action than was necessary. If the pot holes hadn't been fixed, and somebody got seriously injured or killed because of it, we would have once again heard more outcries about lack of safety, which would have undone the progress NASCAR has made toward appeasing the fans.

The only problem I had, personally, was the quality of the TV coverage. What happened to the coverage through the field? Listening to DW and Larry MacRenolds reminisce about the old days gets old when it starts sounding like an old drunk repeating the same story over and over again, as if he forgot he already told the story, or perhaps you didn't hear it right the first time. There was a race going on, and it would have been nice to find out what was happening behind the leaders instead of "where did he come from?"

As it was we had to watch the ticker to figure out where our driver was, with no information as to why he was falling back, or moving up through the field, and how that was happening. And, most of the time, the ticker was of little use, because before we got the information we wanted, it would turn off for a caution or commercial.

Two years ago, I would never have missed ESPN coverage over that on Fox, but last year's ESPN coverage was an improvement over previous years, and definitly better than what we had for the Daytona 500 coverage. Perhaps it's time for DW to retire from the broadcast booth. Maybe he could get a show on Speed or Fox Sports where he can reminisce about the days when he was driving. Okay, he already has a show like that, but it really takes away from the race coverage when he is supposed to be calling the race. To be honest, I would rather listen to the cynical, dejected, and bitter Kyle Petty than the same old stories from Darrell Waltrip over and over again.

A crazy thought: Wouldn't it be fun if, instead of Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip, and Larry Mac in the booth, we had Mike Joy, a Kyle Busch fan, and a Dale Jr. fan instead? That should make the color commentary quite colorful.

Speaking of commercials, there were some good ones. There wasn't as much sponsor participation in the sense of the Super Bowl type commercials we have seen in the past during the 500. Budweiser and Coke stepped up, and their commercials were real winners. The Kasey Kahne pit stop Budweiser commercial was excellent, as was the Coke commercial with Tony Stewart breaking into the old Barry Manilow Coke jingle, "I'd Like to Teach The World To Sing."

Now we know that Stewart can sing better than Carl Edwards, which really isn't saying much.

And I got a kick, the first time it was shown, out of the idea of Kyle Busch driving a pink car with kittens, bunnies, ponies, and baby seals painted on it, and with "I love you" written on the wing. Maybe if Kyle had "I love you" written on the spoiler of his truck Saturday night, he wouldn't have angered so many drivers while he was driving as if he could he could make up nineteen laps.

You have to admit, Kyle did put on quite a show Saturday, whether you like him or hate him. Timothy Peters won that race in a very exciting finish that showed his very real talent from a driver without that much experience in the series. Peters prevailed over some very aggressive driving on the part of Todd Bodine, who has come to believe he is the only driver who deserves to win the truck race at Daytona. Bodine crossed the finish line in second place, sliding sideways.

Say what you will about restrictor-plate races, the finishing laps of the Daytona 500 were very good. Taking advantage of all three green/white/checker attempts NASCAR now allows, the drivers gave it everything they had. When, on the third try, they finally made it to the white flag lap, Greg Biffle pushed Jamie McMurray into the lead on the backstretch. McMurray, who had been running well the entire race, then got another boost from Clint Bowyer going into turn three.. Suddenly, seemingly "from out of nowhere," Dale Earnhardt, Jr. passed eight cars as if they were standing still, and was right behind McMurray, the leader, as the field entered the final turn. The crowd, who had stayed through it all, was on its feet, cheering wildly.

Jamie McMurray drove with everything he had, and crossed the finish line first, a car length and a half ahead of Earnhardt, Jr. It was a very emotional victory celebration for McMurray, who, at the end of last season, didn't even know if he had a ride for 2010. McMurray is arguably the most well liked driver in the Cup Series, and he showed that he deserved the second chance he was given by Earnhardt-Ganassi/Felix Sabates Racing and Bass Pro Shops, his sponsor. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, by the time the victory lane interview was over. And it was heartwarming to see Da Biff enthusiastically congratulating McMurray after the race, as it was to see him happy to be partly responsible for Jamie's victory.

And it was good to see Earnhardt, Jr performing well, once again, at Daytona. It was also good to see him do a post race interview without a lot of stammering and looking at his feet. Jr. is showing all the confidence in himself and his team he didn't show last year, and that new attitude makes a promise of good things happening for the 88 team this year.

Still, the Daytona 500, being a restrictor-plate race as it is, doesn't really give us an indication of what the rest of the season will be like. We can be reasonably certain that Stewart-Haas will be working on their restrictor-plate program, since, even after their performance in the Duels, they obviously didn't have the cars to perform competetively in the long race. We can also safely assume that Jeff Gordon will continue to try to prove that bump drafting isn't a good idea. But other than that, there is no telling what the season may be like for these teams. Will Jimmie Johnson once again amaze the world by winning a fifth consecutive championship, or will some other team finally figure out a way to beat him? We probably won't have any idea of that until October, but we will be watching.

At any rate, it promises to be a good season, with the new "let the drivers be drivers" approach NASCAR is taking. And we are looking forward to the return of the spoiler blade we will see, hopefully, by April. Let the games begin!

Hey, we almost made it through this entire post without mentioning Danica Patrick.

Oh, well.

On Type Delay: The Firecracker 400 (AKA The Coke Zero 400)

Even if we don't really like restrictor plate racing, we are drawn to the potential wreckfest with great anticipation. Even though much of the racing is out of the driver's hands, there is just something about it that makes it exciting. It's not the kind of racing we normally think of as racing, but that's exactly what it is--racing in an abnormal definition. Anything can happen, and that is why we watch, and have fun watching.

Besides, no matter what the sponsor's name is, this is the Firecracker 400, and it is on the Fourth of July for the first time in many years.

Jeff Gordon leads the first lap on the outside lane. With help from Denny Hamlin, Kurt Bush takes the lead by splitting the two lines on lap 3, leaving Jeff Gordon hung out to dry. Hamlin takes the lead on lap 5. There will be a lot of this throughout the race, so we will eventually lose track of every lead change.

Lap 10 and the cars are spread out in single file for the most part. This is normal for a night race at Daytona Early in the race, the drivers are working on figuring out what adjustments they need, or will need for the changing conditions. We won't be seeing a lot of aggression this early in the race. And on lap 13 just as we wrote that last sentence, Mark Martin and Matt Kenseth make contact, and Martin goes spinning into the infield. Montoya almost gets by without getting hit by Martin's car, but it was only almost, and Juan Pablo gets by with some damage to the rear end body work of his car. The leaders pit. Kurt Busch slides through his pit and loses time in the pits. Stewart gets out of the pits first, and lines up on the inside row. Restart on lap 17.

By lap 18, the drivers up front are again in single file. Kurt Busch, who restarted in 27th is already up to 19th, a result of the advantage given to position by the new double file restart. On lap 22 the top five are Stewart, Johnson, Hamlin, Jeff Burton, and Kenseth. The top six are pulling away from the rest of the field.

That Burger King commercial that they showed in the sub screen got me. I was thinking "Oh no, not now, not today," when Stewart was reporting a vibration and a car that had its handling going away, with Darrien Grubb trying to keep him calm and trying to keep him on the track for just five more laps. It takes the King, not King Richard, but creepy King Burger King--who just happens to be riding along in the car--to calm him down by giving him some french fries. It was a very clever commercial, and it reminded us how appropriate it is that Stewart's part time sponsor switched from Subway to Burger King. Tony Stewart is nothing if he isn't a burgers and fries guy.

Casey Mears spins out and hits the inside wall on lap 28, bringing out the second caution. The leaders pit and at the restart on lap 31, it's Stewart, Hamlin, Kenseth, Sadler and Johnson in the top 5. Hamlin takes the lead on lap 33, and then has to move down to block a hard charging Kyle Busch. On lap 34, it's Hamlin, Busch, Stewart, Kenseth, and Johnson in the top five. Things settle down again by lap 36, and the lead cars are once again in single file.

Stewart gets to the outside and around Kyle Busch on lap 45, and moves into second, then slingshots around Hamlin and takes the lead on lap 46 with not drafting help. This is one of the things we like about the Sprint Cup car--the cars can pass for the lead without help, by using the old school maneuver of draft and slingshot.

Hamlin tries to race Stewart side by side, gets hung out by himself, and falls back into line in the fourth position. Montoya gets lapped on lap 50. On lap 51, the top five are Stewart, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, and Kurt Busch, who seems to have recovered from his earlier pit snafu with some authority.

Bad news for Junior Nation, as Jr has fallen back to twenty-fourth, and is reporting some serious handling issues.

Matt Kenseth pits under the green, dropping out of third place, on lap 56. This turns out to be the old "pit just before the caution" strategy as the caution flies on lap 57after Sam Hornish, Jr brushes the wall and leaves debris on the track. Kenseth stays out while the rest of the field pits. The first five out of the pits are Stewart, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, and Denny Hamlin. Kenseth will lead the restart on lap 61. Stewart starts to take the lead, but gets stuck by himself and drops back to fifth. But he hooks up again, finding the right place to be at the right time, and one lap later finds himself in third, behind Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch.

Now it's hard to listen to radio chatter without thinking it's just another ad. But Johnson is having some handling problems, but is managing to hang in among the top six.

On lap 72, with weather reported on its way, Kyle Busch moves up the track, allowing Stewart to pass below him, then Stewart takes the lead. On lap 73, Carl Edwards moves into the third position. Hamlin gets the lead back on lap 74. On lap 76, the top five are Hamlin, Stewart, Edwards, Kyle Busch, and Jimmie Johnson. On lap 77 there is a big wreck on the backstretch, involving Dale Jr, David Stremme, David Reutimann, Kasey Kahne, Michael Waltrip, Reed Sorenson, Brian Vickers, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Newman, and Jeff Gordon, among others. There are actually thirteen cars involved. Joey Logano barely avoids the wreck. The leaders pit on lap 80, and Stewart's excellent pit crew and pit position get him off of pit road first, once again giving him the lead.

John Andretti stayed out, and is scored in the lead. He pits before the race goes green, and the restart is on lap 82, with Stewart first, followed by Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, and Kurt Busch. Hamlin takes the lead on lap 83.

On lap 89 the top five are Hamlin, Stewart, Kyle Busch, Edwards, and Jimmie Johnson. Jamie McMurray pits out of ninth position on lap 99. Caution on lap 102 as Reutimann cuts a front right tire and hits the wall. The leaders pit on lap 104. Stewart again gets off of pit road first. Johnson has some issues in the pits because he is too close to the wall. He was in fourth, and comes out in nineteenth. McMurray is scored in the lead, but he pits again. The top five at the restart will be Stewart, Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, and Jeff Burton. Stewart holds the lead, thanks to a very healthy push by Kyle Busch, and the top five on lap 109 are Stewart, Kyle Busch, Burton, David Ragan, and Matt Kenseth. Hamlin gets dropped back to 12th.

With 45 laps to go Hamlin has made it back into the top six or seven. Kyle Busch gets hung out, and Burton moves into second. Busch moves back into the field, breaking up the potential Roush train of Ragan, Kenseth, and Edwards, then moves back into third, with 42 laps to go. With 39 laps to go, David Ragan and Kurt Busch make contact while going four wide--at Daytona--and bring out a caution. The leaders all pit again with 38 laps to go.

Stewart comes off of pit road first, Edwards second, Kyle Busch third, after having to avoid Robby Gordon entering his pit. Jeff Burton comes out fourth, and Matt Kenseth is fifth. Things should be picking up some now. The restart will be with 35 to go. The weather that was coming has broken up, according to radio chatter between Bob Osborne and his driver Carl Edwards. Edwards takes the lead, after Kyle moves up to the outside, but Stewart also moves tho the outside and falls in line in third. Jeff Burton takes the lead with 33 to go, after Stewart drafts him and follows him into second. Now Stewart takes the lead with Kyle Busch behind him. Jeff Burton drops back, and gets involved in a race with Montoya, who has made it from being a lap down, to getting a free pass, and is now battling for a top five position. Johnson moves into fourth. Burton cuts a tire and has to pit. With 30 to go, the top five are Stewart, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, and Montoya. The top four cars are almost two seconds ahead of the rest of the pack.

With fifteen laps to go, the caution flies because, as far as we can tell, Kyle Busch suggested that there had to be another caution before the end of the race. Joking aside, there must have been debris, as the cleaning crew is on the track. This is going to be fun. Everybody pits. Off of pit road, it's Stewart, Kyle Busch, Hamlin, Johnson, and Kenseth. Wow.

It looks like Stewart will take the inside lane, which will put Hamlin behind him. Johnson is behind Busch. We love these "shootout style" restarts. 12 to go and the green flies. Hamlin pushes Stewart to a clear lead, then Johnson moves down behind Stewart and takes second. With ten to go, it's Stewart, Johnson, Hamlin, Kyle Busch, and Kenseth. With nine to go, Scott Speed, running in fifteenth, gets tangled with somebody and hits the wall. Logano once again does a good job avoiding the wreck. Caution. The top five are Stewart, Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Johnson, and Kenseth.

Now Stewart will have Busch behind him, and Hamlin, on the outside, will have Johnson behind him. We expect the Gibbs drivers to team up after the restart, and Johnson will help his technical team mate, Stewart. Just speculating here. Getting caught up in the excitement of the moment.

Being nerve-wracked is a rush, restart with five to go. Stewart gets the edge on the restart. Johnson gets down behind Busch, leaving Hamlin out, but Hamlin gets down in front of Johnson. So now it's Stewart, Busch, Hamlin, and Johnson in the top four, running nose to tail. Two to go. Right at the end of the lap, Kyle Busch gets around Stewart after a push from Hamlin on the outside, but Hamlin falls back, and Busch is on his own. Down the backstretch on the final lap, Johnson, running in third, catches up to Stewart, and starts pushing him. Stewart gets up behind Busch going through turn three. Stewart goes low, and Busch blocks, Stewart goes high, and Busch goes to block, and runs into Stewart's bumper. Kyle wrecks, Stewart wins, what a finish!

Johnson finishes second, Hamlin third, Edwards fourth, and Kurt Busch fifth. Marcose Ambrose, Brian Vickers, Matt Kenseth, Juan Montoya, and Elliott Sadler fill out the top ten.

Stewart doesn't like the way he won, but we feel that both Stewart and Busch were doing what they had to do to win. Stewart was already on Kyle Busch's right rear quarter panel when Busch moved up to block him. "I wanted to give him (Busch) a good finish...I apologize if I did something wrong, but I don't think I did," lamented Stewart in victory lane.

Indeed, Kyle Busch's wreck collected Kasey Kahne and Joey Logano, among others, so it was an ugly victory. But it was a victory, and, in the end, that's all that matters.

Live on Type Delay: The Daytona 500

The Daytona 500 is touted as the biggest race of the year for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Indeed, it kicks off the season, it shows us what the teams have, and what they've been doing during the off-season, and it does have a prestigious history. And after two weeks of preliminaries and media hype, it's Day has arrived.

A few unimportant questions about the pre-race programming, first. Do we really need a "Digger" weekly animated series? What is "country" about "country music" these days? Was the guy singing the "Star Spangled Banner" trying to sound like Adam Sandler?

Anyway, it hasn't rained yet, the cars are rolling off of pit road, and the crowd is going wild. So is Rev Jim. The thrills are about to begin.

One more question before the start, though. Does anybody get the impression that they are going to "let" Mark Martin win? I would certainly hate to be the Kyle Busch who takes away the win if Mark is leading in turn four of lap 199.

Martin Truex, Jr, from the pole, led the first lap, with Jeff Gordon in second, running around the track in the inside lane. On lap 2, Mark Martin takes the lead, passing on the outside with help from Kyle Busch. By Lap 5, Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth have both moved up nearly twenty positions, after starting in the back of the field, and Kyle Busch soon takes the lead.

On lap 8, Aric Almirola spins out, and the first caution of the day flies. On the restart, it's Kyle Busch, Mark Martin, Bobby Labonte, Dale Earnhardt, Jr, and Carl Edwards in the top 5. The green flag flies on lap eleven.

Since we are stuck with TV only this week, it's commercial break time. The AFLAC commercial wasn't too bad, but the UPS ad with David Regan driving the car into the building and riding the elevator, in the car, was awesome.

Two minutes of racing and another commercial break.

Competition caution on lap 25 to check tires. The restart is on lap 30 with Kyle Busch, Dale Jr, Carl Edwards, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon in the top five. Edwards falters at the restart, Gordon moves all the way up to third, and Johnson moves into the top five. The field splits into two rows, with Tony Stewart, who had restarted in ninth, after starting the race in the rear of the field, leading Carl Edwards on the inside, and everyone else on the outside, with Kyle Busch still leading.

Wow lap 35 and we have already had a lot of racing. Earnhardt is now leading the outside line, but drops back a little. The inside line consists of race leader Kyle Busch, and the rest of the top three Jeff Burton, and Matt Kenseth. Earnhardt is in fourth place, racing on the outside with help from Jeff Gordon.

Lap 39 now, and Earnhardt and Busch are racing wheel to wheel, with Kenseth behind Busch, and Denny Hamlin behind Junior. Exciting stuff going on. Does Dale Jr have the lead for lap 40? It was close, but Kyle Busch is scored with the lead. Now on lap 41, Busch moves up in front of Earnhardt, Jr, to give the outside line a try, but Kenseth is moving up, so Busch moves back down.

Busch is the wild one, so far. He moves up the track and down, switching lanes as each line becomes faster than the other. This is crazy, but it sure is fun to watch.

Finally, on lap 45, Kyle Busch and Dale Jr pull away from the rest of the pack, with Busch in first, and Jr in second. A few car lengths behind them, Tony Stewart has taken third place, leading the rest of the pack.

With Stewart in the lead of the rest of the pack, they catch Jr and Kyle on lap 50 and fall into single file. On lap 52 it's Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Carl Edwards, and Jeff Gordon. Now things seem to have settled down a bit. Lap 54, and the front four have checked out on the rest of the field, and Tony Stewart follows Jr on the outside, as he takes the lead from Busch, and then Stewart drops down to the bottom in front of Busch and takes the lead from Jr. Caution, as Travis Kvapil hits the wall. It looks like Kvapil is going to the garage. Sam Hornish pits, his car is overheating and tajpe and debris are removed. Pit stops on lap 56, and the cleanup crew is on the track.

The running order has changed in the pits. Jr missed his pit stall on the first try, and had to take another lap and return to the pit lane. Hornish takes the lead, having exited the pits while the rest of the field was entering. Stewart is second, being the first one out of the pits after Hornish, Kyle Busch is third, followed by Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards. Hornish had to drop back, and Stewart takes the lead, running on the outside. Kyle Busch is threatening on the inside line. Allmendinger moves up to third, behind Gordon. Allmendinger falls back. Jamie McMurray and Denny Hamlin have hooked up on the outside, and McMurray moves into third.

Lap 56 and everybody is two by two. Gordon leads the outside line, while Stewart maintains the lead on the inside. Gordon makes a move on the outside in turn four, with help from Kyle Busch, but Stewart, with Hamlin right behind him, maintains the lead. The next lap features nearly identical action, and neither Gordon not Stewart show any sign of giving up the race for the lead. Now both the radio and television have simultanious commercial breaks.

Normally, we would expect the race to be tame at this point. If the action continues the way it has been, this could be a long post. When the commercial is over, Gordon has the lead, Kyle Busch is second, Jamie McMurray is third, Denny Hamlin in fourth, and Stewart fifth, in single file. Then Stewart tries to lead a charge in the inside lane, but doesn't have enough drafting help, and falls back to seventh. These guys are racing as though it was only three laps to go, and we are still 25 laps away from the halfway point. Ryan Newman had to pit for a loose wheel. Good idea to pit before something bad happened.

The front four have moved ahead of the rest of the field, with Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, and Jamie McMurray in the top four. Caution, as Joey Logano and Scott Speed contact each other on lap 88, just beyond the exit of turn four. It has been a horrible week for Joey, but we cut him slack, as this is his first superspeedway race in a Sprint Cup car. For that matter, it's Speed's first superspeedway race in a Sprint Cup car. Now, as they return from the commercial and show the replay, it looks like Scott Speed had brushed the wall and rebounded into Logano, which shot the kid down the track and into the inside wall.

Simultaneous commercials again, and the radio broadcast seems to be fading, which is why we were TV only at the beginning of the race.

Kyle Busch left the pits first, and takes the lead. Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Jamie McMurray, and Matt Kenseth will follow him to the restart at lap 86.

Busch and Gordon momentarily step out by a few lengths, and the top five are single file, as Stewart tries to lead a charge on the inside lane, further back. Three wide now, and it is hard to tell who is where.

By lap 89, Gordon has fallen back to fourth, and they are going three wide for that position. That's nothing, around Jimmie Johnson, back around twelfth place, they are going four wide through the trioval. They settle down a bit, then four wide again coming out of turn 2. Johnson almost loses it, and makes a great save.

After everything gets somewhat sorted out, on lap 92, the top five are Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, AJ Allmendinger, Matt Kenseth, and Martin Truex, Jr.

Lap 95, and Gordon has led a charge to second place. We have to be wondering now, if this race is so wild before half way, what will the last lap be like? Lap 97 is when Gordon tries to take the lead, but Busch blocks him and maintains the lead, followed by Gordon, Hamlin, Edwards, and Stewart.

Stewart takes fourth from Edwards at the halfway mark. Things still haven't settled down behind them. On lap 102, that wild bunch is now racing for fifth. Simultanious commercials again, so we miss whatever action ensues from that.

On lap 109, the front twelve are in single file. Kyle Busch is still leading, followed by Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Jamie McMurray, and Jeff Gordon. Dale Earnhardt, Jr is challenging Gordon for fifth. Now the top four make some distance ahead of the field. Jr and Gordon are still racing, Gordon gets hung out, and Earnhardt, Jr takes his position. Gordon continues to fall back. Gordon seems to be having problems, and takes to the pits on lap 114. Jimmie Johnson also pits, so if Gordon needs drafting help, it is on its way. Both the 24 and the 48 cars seem to be having handling problems.

Hornish, Jr pits with steam issuing heavily from under the hood. Juan Pablo Montoya, and Brian Vickers also make green flag pit stops, now.

David Stremme's right rear tire went flat, and his right rear quarter panel has been destroyed, and the fifth caution comes out, on lap 118. The tire exploded while Stremme was in front of a very heavily populated group of cars, and, miracalously, everybody gets by him without incident.

Oh, man, Dale Earnhardt, Jr has to take a penalty for working on the car while the tires were outside the box. At Daytona, all four wheels have to be inside the line of the pit box, before the car can be serviced, and Junior had the front right tire barely over the line. They are being held in the pits by NASCAR. It wasn't Kyle Busch's fault. Just thought that should be mentioned.

After the pits, Elliott Sadler is first, his teammate Reed Sorenson is second, Kyle Busch is third, Matt Kenseth is fourth. After the restart, Vickers falls in line on the inside lane, in front of Dale Jr, because both of them are trying to race back to the lead lap. Jr has to drop down below the yellow line to avoid Vickers, then, as he comes onto the track, he runs into the back of Vickers, Vickers shoots up the track, and IT'S THE BIG ONE, ELIZABETH!

Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Scott Speed, Jamie McMurray, and Carl Edwards all take damage. There are cars spinning in the infield everywhere. Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, and Robby Gordon were also involved in the carnage. .

Hamlin's, Johnson's, Junior's, and Edward's teams are able to effect repairs in the pits, so they are still in the race, so to speak. Just watch, this will probably turn into a victory for the #48 team.

Now it looks as though there will be a rain delay. Only a short delay, and restart after 132 laps. Sadler in the lead, Sorenson is second, then Kenseth, Burton and Allmendinger. Dale Earnhardt, Jr starts in 31st place, the first car one lap down.

On lap 139, Paul Menard (surprised?) makes contact with Jeff Burton, and then richochet's off of several cars like a pinball caught between bumpers, and another caution comes out. Hey, Dale Jr fans, Junior gets the free pass. McMurray's team has completed repairs, and the #26 car is back on the track.

Elliott Sadler is in the lead and wishing for rain. Matt Kenseth is second. While the caution is still out, however, more cars pit.

Restart with 58 cars to go, and the top five are now Sadler, Kenseth, Sorenson, Allmendinger, and Stewart. I believe, with one more pit stop neccessary, they should be setting up for the finish. I was wrong. Matt "Kensiss" Kenseth hooks up with Kevin "Out of Nowhere" Harvick to challenge for the lead. Kensiss takes the lead with Harvick right behind him, and another caution flies as Almirola and Hornish make contact further back in the field, and Almirola careens into the infield. Those cars were packed close, and it could have been much worse, but somehow, mass carnage was avoided. Johnson gets the free pass.

It is irritating when DW says "Kensiss" for "Kenseth." It is just as bad as Rusty saying "Kennifs."

52 laps is still outside the pit window, barely, so nobody on the lead lap pits. The Fox crew is attributing that strategy to the possibility of rain, as well, and now it is raining. The top five are now Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, AJ Allmendinger, Clint Bowyer, and Elliott Sadler. If the race restarts, it is still anybody's race.

The red flag is being displayed. Rain delay. It is still early, we may get to see the race continue.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr, interview. He is not happy. He has had a very bad day. Even Jeff Burton is mad at him.

The race has been called, and Matt Kenseth is the winner! It is always good to see another first time winner at the 500. We would have liked to see a shootout to the end, but Nature didn't agree.

It was an adrenaline-pumping race anyway, and perhaps we couldn't have taken any more excitement, so Nature was just looking after us. The Daytona 500 has always had some very wild moments, but this was one of the wildest.

Somehow, because the race was called early, we still feel robbed. Congratulations to Matt Kenseth, and his crew. We should also offer congratulations to AJ Allmendinger for his third place finish, and to Tony Stewart for getting a top ten finish (eighth) in his first points race as an owner/driver.

Can You Hear It?

The roar of the engines is getting louder as we gear up for another season of stock car racing. Thanks to a change in scheduling, The Toyota All Star Showdown begins the season tonight, with qualifying and the Toyota Open from Irwindale Speedway. The All Star Showdown features the best of NASCAR's weekly and touring series, including the Camping World East/West, and the new Whelen All American Series, formerly the Dodge Weekly Series. Here we will see the up and comers and the grizzled veterans of the stock car beat and bang in some of the most exciting short track racing there is. Watching the action tonight and tomorrow at 10 PM ET on Speed TV will certainly get us fired up for the 2009 racing season.

The true harbinger of the new season, for most of us, is the Rolex 24 Hours At Daytona Grand Am race. This is one of the most grueling closed circuit races in the world, and there is never a lack of determination on the part of any driver or team to be in the lead. That means hard racing on the Daytona Road Course for the entire 24 hours. There will be carnage. The coverage begins Saturday, at 3 PM ET. on Fox, and continues at 4:30 PM ET on Speed TV.

David Donohue, the son of the Late and Great Mark Donohue, has taken the pole for the Rolex 24, setting a new track record while doing it. Other notables in the race include Danica Patrick, and Casey Mears, driving the Richard Childress Racing entry, and three time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion, Jimmie Johnson.

With the Daytona 500 still weeks away, it is refreshing to interrupt our sado-masochistic obsession for football with some good old fashioned racing. I am looking forward to this weekend, when the roar of engines will once again fill my living room. Not only do we hear it, we feel it! Happy 2009 racing season, everyone!

Live on type delay: The Firecracker (Coke Zero) 400

It is fitting that Dale Jarrett is the Grand Marshall for the "First Coke Zero 400" because he was the original member of the Coca Cola racing family. And he is still good at plugging his sponsors. We just expected a more enthusiastic "Gentlemen, start your engines!" from him.

The cars that qualified from outside the top thirty five in owners points dropped to the back of the field before the start, though they aren't required to by NASCAR. They will need to pit as soon as possible to put the belts on their engines that they ran without for qualifying.

And here's the start. Pole sitter Paul Menard maintains the lead for the first lap, and the lead pack settles in to single file.

By lap 2, as predicted the 21 car driven by Jon Wood has entered the garage to switch the car from qualifying trim to race trim. Jeff Burton's car is the last one in single file, and the cars behind him are running side by side. A few more laps and they are running side by side from Tony Stewart's ninth place and back.

The first six cars are still in single file, with Menard in first and Dale Earnhardt Jr just behind him. Stewart leads the second pack in seventh place. I still don't have a lap counter visible on my television screen. but this is an older set with issues. That creates an issue for me.

Back in thirteenth place, with ten laps gone, Jeff Gordon is in the middle of three wide racing, he gets out of that dangerous situation and takes the spot. He says his car is loose, but so is everyone else at this point.

Cool moment of the race part 1: Mark Martin bump drafting Tony Stewart. If only some of the other drivers in the race could see how the real pros do it. Actually something else that raises the Wow Meter is Dale Earnhardt, Jr's camo paint job. Awesome.

Dale Jr takes the lead on lap 18, and then Allmendinger cuts a tire and the first caution comes out. Pit road is open on lap 20, and everybody takes it. No fancy strategies here, it is just a matter of who is the fastest on this pit stop. Kyle Busch takes the lead from the pits.

Paul Menard is in second, Robby Gordon is third, but he will pit, and, get this, Dave Blaney is in fourth. Jr had some problems in the pits David Ragan restarts third.

Jr and Travis Kvapil team up and gain a bunch of spots shortly after the restart. There are a bunch of cars including Vickers, David Ragan, Jr, Regan Smith, and now Tony Stewart, all racing hard for the top five spots. Now we are seeing two wide racing. and play by play becomes difficult as so much is happening. After all this chaos, settles a bit, around lap 32, Kyle Busch is first, Jr is back in second, Dave Blaney is third, Brian Vickers in fourth, and Mark Martin in fifth. That was some wild racing for a while.

Lap 34 and Tony Stewart is making a move for the top five, with the help of Jeff Gordon, it looks like. He has been working with Jeff Gordon, but now Gordon is in the inside line, and Stewart on the outside, so they will change sixth position back and forth for a while. After a while Smoke moves into forth, and Dale Jr takes the lead.

Stewart and Martin are working together again, and Stewart moves into third. We are impressed by the racing that is going on back at the fifth position this is pretty wild. Mark Martin has settled for fourth place, but doesn't want to stay there, and races Stewart for the third position at every turn. The #20 car looks to be a bit stronger than the #8, but it is fun watching two of the best drivers ever race each other for position at Daytona. This doesn't look all that much like the restrictor-plate racing we have seen before. Martin and Stewart are racing hard without much drafting help.

Ryan Newman spins out and brings out the second caution of the race at lap 44. It looks like a one car incident.

Kyle Busch beats them out of the pits again, and takes first place, with Juneyah in second and Stewart in third. Again, the pit stops are all four tires and fuel, with no radical strategies. Boris Said was the only car one lap down, so he gets the free pass. Jon Wood is seven laps down after his car's readjustments. Allmendinger is out of the race.

Mark Martin restarts in fourth and Jeff Gordon is fifth. That line of Stewart/Martin/J Gordon should be formidable if it stays together.

It doesn't stay together long. Earnhardt, Smoke, and Martin move to the outside and leave Kyle hanging dry. Earnhardt takes the lead, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin stay in line with Jr, and take third and second, while Stewart tries to hook up with his team mate. the eighteen and the twenty cars fall back, though, so on lap 58, it's Earnhardt, Martin, and Jeff Gordon in the top three. Now Stewart can't find a friend and has fallen back to fifteenth. Johnson started in thirtieth and is now in the 11th position. After things settle down again, Kyle Busch makes it up to eighth place, Johnson is around ninth, and Sam Hornish is in tenth, and Stewart is in eleventh. Clint Bowyer is somewhere in that mix as well.

Behind the lead pack of three, there is still plenty of hard racing going on. Matt Kenseth and Elliott Sadler are battling for fourth, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson have also joined that mix. Stewart takes tenth from Bowyer, Hornish falls back to twelfth, and Kasey Kahne is also in the race for the top ten. By the time the commercial is over, Kahne has moved into ninth, Jimmie Johnson into seventh, and Tony Stewart is eighth.

A caution comes out as Greg Biffle and last week's hero, Juan Pablo Montoya get into each other. It looks like the contact came because Biffle didn't see Montoya and moved up on him, pinching him into the wall. Montoya's hero status is safe. At the time of the caution, Jr is first, Martin second, Jeff Gordon is third.

Earnhardt maintains the lead coming out of the pits, Jimmie Johnson crowds Jeff Gordon off of pit road and takes second, and Kyle Busch takes third. Tony Stewart is out of his car, replaced by JJ Yeley. We don't know what this means at this time.

Johnson, in the lead, is blocking aggressively as he does at Daytona, but Matt Kenseth gives Jeff Gordon a good shove on the outside, and now it is a close race for the lead between the three HMS team mates. Hamlin and Kyle Busch are right behind him.

Now there is some really wild stuff going on up front. Denny Hamlin lives up to his Daytona reputation and forces Kyle Busch to make an incredible save. Kyle finally gets his car under control and moves down to the apron. He comes out by himself in thirty-seventh way at the rear of the pack. No caution.

Things have settled down a bit, and Jeff Gordon leads, Dale Jr is in second, Jimmie Johnson third and Mark Martin is in fourth. After some more movement around fifth place, a different black car moves into fourth, and it turns out to be David Gilliland. He looks fast, and tries to move around Jimmie Johnson, and does, without drafting help. Now Gilliland is going for second, and passes Dale Jr on his own.

It turns out that Tony Stewart is being treated for "flu-like symptoms." It is probably better that he get out of the car than risk passing out in the middle of the race. We can remember what happened when Dale Earnhardt passed out in the car at Darlington, if we remember correctly, in 1997.

Montoya has rejoined the race, and Biffle has now joined Allmendinger in the "out of the race" list.

Elliot Sadler cuts a tire and brings out a caution on whatever lap this is. It seems to be just in time for Jeff Gordon, whose engine is acting up. Gordon once again has problems getting off of pit road, and Gilliland almost missed his pit box and had to be pushed back, so the top three will change after this all gets settled down. Kyle Busch took responsibility for the run in he had with Hamlin earlier, and Hamlin also took responsibility, because they have forgiven each other.

It looks like Earnhardt, Jr takes the lead with forty-six laps left to go. This is another wild and exciting restart. Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman team up on the inside to challenge Earnhardt's lead, But Jr is in line with Jimmie Johnson. Hamlin takes the lead. David Ragan, who has been very impressive in every race this year, has moved into second.

Jr gets back to the bottom and gets the lead back. Kyle Busch has made it all the way up to seventh place and is in the mix for the top five. Hamlin takes the lead again with the help of Jeff Gordon, but the 88 car is fast, and takes the lead before the lap is over, also with the help of Jeff Gordon. That fast #38 car with David Gilliland at the wheel has also made up some position after the pit stops, and he is influencing the lead pack. Good news for Yates. I bet somebody wishes they were sponsoring that car now. They would have had about $2 million worth of advertising just today if they had.

The race for the lead is still active, and Jr retakes the lead. With less than forty laps to go, we are talking fuel mileage now. Another caution, and all fuel mileage calculations are out the window. Gilliland got hung up on the outside, there was some contact with Ryan Newman, and, as cars checked up behind them, Jeff Burton gets turned. Newman and Burton's cars look as if they didn't get too much damage, so this could go down as more great saves.

Hamlin comes out of the pits first, and his team mate Kyle Busch comes out in fifth. Does anyone doubt the "Rowdy" kid's driving ability now? Probably, but we won't dwell on that, as we have officially declared Jr Nation off the hook over in the comments section at Do You NASCAR?

Michael Waltrip and Boris Said didn't pit and are scored in first and second places. David Ragan is penalized due to a refueling safety violation. Waltrip pits and Said restarts in the lead.

After the restart, Earnhardt emerges as the leader, Jeff Gordon is second, and before we get a run down, McMurray and Vickers back in twentieth spot get tangled up and another caution flies. Before the caution, we see that JJ Yeley, in Tony Stewart's car has make it up to sixteenth. That should help protect Stewart's points position, if nothing bad happens. We know the real racing is about to begin.

Kyle Busch will restart in third, Hamlin is in fifth, so that must mean Jimmie Johnson is in fourth. After some very tight racing in the front of the pack, Jeff Gordon comes out in the lead, with Kyle Busch in second. Johnson is in third, and none of these guys want to give anything up. Junior got shuffled all the way back to tenth. But now Johnson got shuffled back further. Hamlin gets turned and Ryan Newman found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they make contact and bring out another caution. We are doing a happy dance, because now we are certain there will not be a fuel mileage race now. Johnson has to pit, and will restart deeper in the field, but with fresh tires.

Good for JJ Yeley, he will hold twelfth position at the restart. Hang in there, Palindrome Guy.

21 laps to go, and it's Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and Mark Martin, and before the lap is even done, there is another wreck caused by another chain reaction. Ragan got Yeley loose, but Yeley saves it. Behind them, cars get checked up and Jeff Burton and Casey Mears are the victims.

No matter, Yeley is restarting in eleventh. He has to stay out of trouble.

Seventeen laps to go. Gordon is still in the lead, Kyle Busch in second and Martin in third. Earnhardt is moving up with help from a big hit from behind. Kahne is trying to wreck Yeley who is trying to get away from him because the #9 car is about to lose a tire. Yeley is making me nervous, but it is not his fault, there are a lot of crazies around him.

Jr has moved into third, behind Kyle Busch, but I am still watching Yeley, hoping he can get a good finish in that 20 car. We catch our breath as another caution comes out, but this will mean another wild restart. That restart will be with less than ten laps to go. The Wow Meter is jumpin'. To paraphrase one of Tracy Morgan's Saturday Night Live characters, "This is crazy!"

Can we go eight laps without another caution? I wouldn't bet on it. There are about eleven drivers that can and want to win up front. I have to agree with Kyle Petty on that camera shot. Yeley is dirt tracking on the pavement, turning right to go left. Kyle Busch takes the lead with four laps to go but J Gordon is challenging him and on the outside. Jimmie Johnson spins, Yeley narrowly avoids trouble but does, and this looks like it could have been the big one, but wasn't. It looks like four cars got in trouble, but we don't count it as the big one unless at least seven cars are involved. It looks like Johnson got the worst of it. Yeley spun, but avoided serious damage. It will be a Green/White/Checker finish.

Kyle Busch starts in first, Jeff Gordon is second, Carl Edwards is third, Kenseth fourth, Gordon gets turned by Edwards. still green. door to door racing between Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards and cars are wrecking like crazy behind the leaders, It will be close between Busch and Edwards to see who won. Wow.

They have to check the scoring loops to see who was in the lead at the time of the caution. Kyle Busch wins. Wow again!

The people sitting in the front row of the grandstands once again get pelted with beer and beer cans, but there seem to be more cheers for the most hated driver in the sport than there have been in the past, not counting Sears Point. In fact, the boos and cheers seem to be about equal. I just wonder how long it will be before all the tracks on the Cup circuit ban coolers and canned beverages.

I can see why people like restrictor-plate races now. There was a lot of excitement here. It has taken me a long time to warm up to it, but Talladega caught my interest because it was a very good race. The entire final lap could be counted as The Big One, as just about everybody from eighth place back wrecked.

Unofficially, JJ Yeley finished twentieth, which drops Tony Stewart back to twelfth place in the championship point standings. Kurt Busch, who had so much trouble during Thursday's practice finished fourth. Matt Kenseth moves into ninth place with his top five finish.

Although we don't like to see races won under caution, which seem to be happening a lot lately, this was a pretty good finish. There was a high amount of drama as we were waiting on the scoring loop decision. The race could have been better, but for Daytona, it was great.

Oh, by the way, even though a Coke Racing Family driver didn't win, Kyle Petty announced that you can still get a coupon for a free 20 oz bottle of Coke Zero by logging on to www.cokezero.com before July 13th.

A short rant and a long preview

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day. It is a day in which we remember that our nation was born in freedom and that we still enjoy that freedom to this day. We know that no society which is dependent on a government in order to exist can be free, and we celebrate that we are allowed to take personal responsibility, and to be individuals without depending on our government. Independence Day is a day of celebrating freedom, of the ability to do what we wish as long as we don't interfere with the freedom of others. Theoretically of course.

We can tell our politicians, whose very existence depends on our dependence on the government, to go jump in a lake, but we can't make them do it.

Political statement aside, Independence Day is our midsummer holiday, and we always find something fun to do; watch the local fireworks display, listen to a free live concert in the park, or patriotic music being played by the local orchestra, cook-outs with friends and family, an extended fishing trip, the list of things to do on the Fourth of July holiday is long.

For many years, the holiday has meant, for race fans, the Firecracker 400. As sponsorship became necessary to cover the costs of running a NASCAR event, the name has changed, but it will always remain, in our minds, the Firecracker 400, whether the sponsor is Pepsi or Coca-Cola.

Since the early 1980's, the Firecracker 400 has been run with restrictor-plates on the engines, as speeds on the 2.5 mile superspeedway at Daytona began to reach heights that presented danger to life and limb. The racing itself suffered as the restricted horsepower did not allow the cars to catch the lead car by themselves, and it did away with the ability to slingshot around a car in front. It also created the dangerous situation of cars racing near 200mph mere inches apart, and the terrifying "big one" that results from the slightest slip-up or mechanical failure.

Still, there are positives to that sort of racing, as we have been able to see just how skilled the NASCAR drivers really are, driving with precision to prevent those big accidents. We see the importance of co-operation as drivers team up to become drafting partners, to gain an advantage to make their way to the front. And, to be fair, the restrictor-plate racing at both Daytona and Talladega has become better as the teams have used years of experience to make their cars more competitive.

With the introduction of the new Sprint Cup car, we have also seen the return of the slingshot pass, which has brought some excitement back to racing at the Superspeedways. That is, one car can accelerate in the draft of another and pass the lead car by breaking out of the draft while it is accelerating.

We never know what to expect at a restrictor plate race these days as the mechanical characteristics of the cars are always changing as the teams try to make the best they can of the "flying brick," a reference to the handling attributes of the new car. The most recent restrictor-plate race at Talladega was not only one of the most exciting races of this type, but one of the most exciting all season, for example.

We won't see the kind of racing we saw at Talladega. Daytona is narrower and has an older, bumpier, and more slippery surface than the Alabama track. But that doesn't mean it won't be exciting.

There should be plenty of excitement near the beginning of the race, as many teams didn't really get a chance to check out their set-ups, due to the brevity of the first practice session and cancellation of the second, because of rain. This means that some teams will be entering the race with little idea of what they have for the competition, which can always lead to some excitement on the track.

We know that, at Daytona, a driver can start in the back of the field and make his way quickly to the front, and just as quickly to the back. We also know that there will not be one car break away from the pack with the lead, as we have seen at the intermediate class tracks. A car running by itself at Daytona is never a fast car.

In a way, the first 140 laps resemble a Formula 1 Gran Prix, in the matter that each team uses that time to plan and adjust to make their driver the one who leads the last lap, which is the most important one. It doesn't really matter who leads the rest of the laps. In fact, the leader at the beginning of lap 160 isn't necessarily the leader at the end of that lap.

The race should be fairly tame until the last twenty laps, the time at which individual drivers get aggressive, and partnerships begin to dissolve. By the last ten laps, there are very few partnerships left, as "give and take" becomes "take and take."

We will once again forego any attempt to predict the winner of Saturday night's Firecracker (Coke Zero) 400. Every time we have tried to do that on this blog, it looks like our favorite driver is about to win only to make a bad move to the inside on the last lap, or cut a tire, or get rained out while in the lead or having the best car in which to take the lead. But we be celebrating our freedom and enjoying the race.

Surprise!

In the modern day science fiction/horror classic "Alien." the space-suited investigators are exploring the wreckage of what appears to be an ancient spacecraft. They find the remains of a huge alien being, still strapped into the pilot's seat. Further investigation reveals a chamber full of egg-like objects. One of the explorers gets closer to one of the objects to get a better look when suddenly....
Ryan Newman wins the Daytona 500!
It was Roger Penske's first ever restrictor-plate victory, and his first Daytona 500 victory in his 36 year history as a NASCAR Cup team owner.It was Ryan Newman's first Cup victory in over two years, and his first Daytona 500 victory. For only the ninth time in the 50 year history of the Daytona 500, the winner came from a last lap lead change, this one brought about through the co-operation of no less than six Dodge Chargers working together. Talk about teamwork!
Suprises:
We have been speculating that it would take a lot of teamwork to stop the Hendrick Juggernaut, but the Hendrick Juggernaut hardly got out of the box. After a very long calm before the storm Jeff Gordon developed a fatal suspension failure and had to retire from the race. Later, during the storm of the closing laps, reigning NASCAR Nextel Cup Champion and pole sitter Jimmie Johnson got tangled up with DEI rookie Ragan Smith, in an accident that finished the end of his day, which had not been that good from the drop of the green flag.
With a little over six laps to go, Casey Mears, who had been running in the middle line, decided that he wanted to be the leader of the line that Tony Stewart and dedicated drafting buddy Dale Earnhardt, Jr were running. However, he made his move a bit too late, and got clipped by Stewart, who really had no choice, as Earnhardt was less than inches from his rear bumper.
A sidenote: If Tony Stewart had lifted a bit to avoid hitting Mears, and Earnhardt had run into the back of him as a result, would it be possible for Smoke to be more unpopular than he is now?
That left Dale Earnhardt, Jr pretty much on his own for the final run, which was not a very good situation to be in when it came down to the every man for himself portion of the race. Still, he managed to finish in eighth place, the best finishing position among the Chevrolets.
The expected (by some) conflicts among the volitile Joe Gibbs Racing team mates was something else that never happened. Nor did a continuation of the Tony Stewart/Kurt Busch conflict. In fact, Stewart and Dirty Kurty worked quite well together at different points during the race to move up throught the traffic, and in the end, raced each other very cleanly.
Tony Stewart said, after the race, that he may have made a mistake in making the decision to give up the lead to help team mate Kyle Busch on the last lap, but he had had the apprehension that if he had stayed in front of the charging Chargers on the last lap he could have been wrecked. So he opted to move out of their way in hopes that the alledgedly superior horsepower of his and Kyle Busch's Toyotas would be sufficient to get back in front of the Dodges. It wasn't, but the surprise here was that Smoke gave up a nearly certain win in favor of helping his team mate get a better finish. It may be surprising as well to those who know little about My Man Smoke that he admitted to making a mistake.
In the end, six Dodges finished in the top ten, the Toyotas of Stewart and Busch finished third and fourth, respectively, while the Ford of Greg Biffle, who finished tenth, and the Chevy of Dale, Jr. filled out the top ten.
Teamwork didn't work out for Roush-Fenway's David Regan and Matt Kenseth. Regan apparently misjudged the closing rate of the new Formula N car, and made a move toward Kenseth, lost control and wrecked both cars.
RCR had a similar incident between Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton. Burton had a chance to win the race, being in the proximity of team mates Kevin Harvick and Bowyer, But Bowyer also decided to move into line, and in doing so may have moved too soon, or too late, as he was clipped first by Harvick, then by John Pablo Montoya, who had meen moving up inside of Burton, and was sent careening into the side of Burton's car. After the incident, Burton expressed his displeasure with Bowyer, surprising many by showing that he can get angry.
Debunking the Myths (The "Snoops.com" section)
From various comments around the Web:
"Brian France and NASCAR are recieving bribes from Rick Hendrick to make sure that NASCAR policy is biased toward Hendrick Motorsports.
"Deals have been made to make sure Dale Earnhardt, Jr wins the Daytona 500"
"Toyota has paid off Brian France to make sure they dominate the field, and end the competition from the Chevy, Dodge, and Ford teams."
Either NASCAR does a terrible job at meeting their behind-the-scenes obligations or none of the above accusations are true. In the end, neither Hendrick nor Jr. came close to being given the win, and Toyota was clearly outraced by Dodge. The race itself should be enough to debunk the above myths.
But wait, the conspiracy theorists who have come up with these ridiculous accusations claim that they do not watch NASCAR any more, so they will be stuck with their own silly little beliefs forever, having seen no evidence to prove them wrong. We should not pity them, because their predicament is of their own making, and they will never know what they are missing in what is shaping up to be one of the most competitive and exciting NASCAR racing season to date.
Granted, the Daytona 500, being unique in both qualifying and in car set-up rules, and is not a true barometer of what is to come the rest of the season, but we saw an indication of the level of competition that we can look forward to. As the teams find ways to make the car handle better, and to preserve the tires better, the racing will become better. Thus we will be likely to see some of the best racing ever in the coming weeks and months.

Oops, I nearly forgot to do this!

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It's time for the Big Show!

Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin.... - Jim Morrison "The Lizard King"
Indeed, everybody is in for the Big Show, The Great American Stock Car Race (as opposed to The Great American Race, the Indianapolis 500), The Superbowl of Automobile Racing, a.k.a The Daytona 500 gets the green flag today.
Those of us who have loved racing for a long time understand the significance of the "most anticipated event in racing history." It is not only the first points race of the season, but is perhaps the most coveted victory by the drivers and teams for the entire season. It isn't just the trophy, nor is it the prize money; it is the opportunity to have your name written in history along with names like Lee Petty. Richard Petty, Fireball Roberts, Mario Andretti, Dale Earnhardt, and Jeff Gordon. Racers who win the Daytona 500 become household words for generations to come. A Daytona 500 victory is more important to most drivers than the Championship points Cup itself.
Add to all that the fact that this is the fiftieth anniversary of the all-important race, and a victory today becomes even more prestigious.
It is not easy to pick a winner of this race, in any year, but, this year especially, there are even more unknowns than there have been in years past. The restricter-plate, which causes the cars to run together in close packs throughout the race, has been the instigater of many a multiple car accident, but this year the effects of the horsepower limiting device are even more unpredictable.
First of all we have a new car that has different aerodynamic properties, and a higher center of gravity than the cars we have seen over the last twenty years or so. There has been a limited preview of what to expect from this car, in the Budweiser Shootout and the Gatorade Duels qualifying heats. The car seems racier than the old car, although the handling appears to be unstable. It seems that the new car can close faster on other cars, and actually has the ability to pass other cars without as much drafting help as the older cars needed. On the other hand, there seems to be more work that needs to be done to find a set up that will allow the car to turn, and not be so tough on the right side tires that tire wear becomes a factor in the survival of the car.
The bottom line is, when it comes to the new car, everybody is a rookie at Daytona.
It seems that, because the car is new, and everyone has about the same amount of experience in it, the best picks to win would be those who have superior car control abilities, and those who are the most adaptable from one type of car to the other. This makes picking a top five fairly easy, but, at the same time, clouds the outlook on who has the best chance to win.
The media is abuzz about Dale Earnhardt, Jr for good reason. He won the Bud Shootout, scoring his first victory in 66 races. He followed that up by winning the first heat of the Gatorade Duels, last Thursday, making it look easy, and racking up the most wins of any current driver in the CoT at Daytona. There is no doubt that he is excellent at car control, which makes him a favorite to win. A car control driver can always beat a driver who depends more on horsepower to get the job done. It doesn't hurt that Earnhardt is the most popular driver, being the favorite of nearly 2/3rds of all NASCAR fans who have a favorite driver. With luck as important as it is in restricter-plate races, all that positive energy has to be beneficial.
Speaking about positive energy, Tony Stewart is fresh from celebrating being the very first Nationwide Series race winner. Denny Hamlin won the second heat of the Gatorade Duels last Thursday, which happened to be Toyota's first Cup win, and Smoke finished second. Joe Gibbs Racing seems to be on a roll, and headed in a direction that will make domination by Hendrick Motorsports very tough indeed. With Coach Joe Gibbs back in the shop, the key phrase is "the team comes first." That could be seen by the exuberance with which the drivers congratulated each other after Hamlin's win, and the comradarie between Stewart and Kyle Busch after they raced one on one to the finish of the Nationwide race. If these three drivers hook up together for the 500, everybody else better watch out. I would at least expect Hamlin and Stewart to finish in the top five, but Kyle, with his all or nothing style, could actually find himself a winner. It just depends on how his luck runs.
That doesn't leave Jeff Gordon out of it. He had a near win in the second of the Gatorade Duels races, and it was only the cooperation of Stewart and Hamlin that beat him. Gordon is one of the smartest drivers out there, as well as one of the most experienced, and if he can find a way to be the first to cross the finish line, he will.
Those are my top five drivers for the Daytona 500, but because of the fact that there are always so many unknowns and unpredictables anybody who starts the race has a chance to win.
Dave Blaney, for instance, stayed with Stewart in the Bud Shootout for the entire race, and finished in the top ten. Again, he teamed up with Tony in the second Gatorade Duels race, and probably would have had another good finish if it weren't for his characteristic bad luck that brought about engine failure. He is a much better driver than his record shows, in my opinion, and with better equipment this year, he just might be a dark horse contender for a Daytona 500 win. Wouldn't that be something, to have his first career Cup win be at the Daytona 500.
I would also watch Brian Vickers, who came back from a spin and a bad pit stop in the first of Thursday's Gatorade Duels to race his way into qualifying for the 500. Now that he is in, he can be hell on wheels, and should be considered as another dark horse pick.
I should also say, don't count out any of the Ford teams. they might not have had the best practice or testing speeds, but they are racy and they include some of the best drivers in the sport. The same can be said for the three Richard Childress teams.
So, before I find it necessary to name every driver in the field, I better bring this to a close so it can be published before the race, which is only a matter of hours away as I write this, No matter who wins, I think we are in for a treat. If the races leading up to this one are any indication, we are going to see some of the best racing at Daytona we have seen since the introduction of the restricter plate. So, enjoy the race, because the best prediction one can make is, it is going to be a Race.

More pre season fun!

I had a great weekend. It was good watching cars go fast on television again. It didn't quite bring the satisfaction five-hundred miles of beatin' and bangin' brings us, but it was racing and it did bring some thrills, to break what seems like the longest 11 week off-season ever. We should be happy we aren't football fans, because eleven weeks is actually the shortest off season of any professional sport.
The Rolex Grand American Series 24 Hours at Daytona isn't, in reality, a NASCAR event, but most race fans are familiar with the names of some of the drivers, and the sights and sounds are a nice break in the tedium of off season.
There were some records broken. Team Ganassi chalked up an unprecedented third straight victory in the event, with the #01 drivers team of Memo Rojas, Dario Franchitti, Juan Paul Montoya, and Scott Pruett, each an excellent and experienced driver in his own field. Due partly to the weather, partly to mechanical failure, and partly to the advanced level of competition, the attrition rate was high, and the #01 car crossed the finish line two laps ahead of the closest competitor, the #99 team of Jimmie Johnson, Alex Gurney (the son of racing legend Dan Gurney), Jimmy Vasser, and Jon Fogarty. Fogarty and Gurney were the Rolex Series Champions at the end of last year's season.
There were 23 caution flags, and 16 lead changes, both new records.
Daytona testing didn't tell us a whole lot about the new (CoT) Formula N cars. Just that the engines were working good, and maybe working with wedge, trackbar, and alignment adjustments to find that comfort spot for the drivers. Everything else is mandated by NASCAR to be the same for every team at Daytona. But now, at Vegas, there are a few more things the teams can work with. There is much more the Crew Chiefs can do as far as aerodynamics adjustments go than they could do at Daytona. As explained very well by Larry McReynolds on Speed TV, the rear wing and the struts that support it can be adjusted in several ways, in addition to changing the shape of the struts. Plus the front splitter is adjustable, to change the downforce on the front end, as well as the suspension adjustments that couldn't be done at Daytona.
So, once everyone found out how the track and the tires worked, they went to work on set ups and experiments.
Some of the experiments obviously failed, as both Tony Stewart and Jeff Burton had equipment failures in the front suspension and crashed, leaving their teams with only one car for California testing Thursday and Friday. David Regan's crew chief accepted responsibility for a loose condition he set up in his driver's car.
This brings up a point about the new Formula N car that may not have been forseen in the developmental stages. The car was supposed to make racing affordable by all the teams, but it seems that nobody can afford to wreck one.

"The car that Jeff [Burton] crashed is junk -- it'll be easier to replace it than it would be to put it back together," (RCR crew chief Gil) Martin said. "Anyone who thinks these cars will be able to take a beating better than the [standard cars] is kidding themselves.

"With the [chassis] recertification process and the tolerances we have to meet, it's easier and cheaper to just build a new one than to go to the effort of repairing one."

(from NASCAR.com)
It also seems that the car that was supposed to allow the teams to use the same car for everything from road courses to the superspeedways does not actually exist. In a NASCAR.com article from California Speedway, Kevin Harvick answered a question pertaining to the multi usefulness of the new Formula N car.

When he was asked during Thursday's lunch break at California Speedway if the chassis that Sprint Cup teams must use this season will enable organizations to use the same cars at different tracks, Kevin Harvick said yes, but only to a point.
"With these cars, you could use the same thing from a track like Bristol [short track] to here at California [intermediate, downforce track]," Harvick said. "We're using the same cars we had at Las Vegas, with minor setup changes.
"As far as the other tracks, we'll always have road-course cars and we'll always have speedway cars [for Daytona and Talladega]. But the interesting thing is, one of the cars we have here is the center section from one of last year's road-course cars, with new front and rear clips."
Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM

But we should remember that a similar situation came in play in the Rolex Grand Am Series in 2003 with the introduction of the Daytona Prototype (DP) car. As pointed out by Charlie Turner, of Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie--in an excellent article, by the way--the DP was suppose to be a safer and less expensive alternative for the teams than the purpose built sports cars that were being used in the series at the time. There were complaints and widespread non-acceptence, but after four years, the DP has made its own history. Perhaps this tells us we need to give the Formula N car a little more time.
So the experiments at Las Vegas testing resulted in the conclusion of "we know we better not do that again"
Once this week of testing is over, there is nothing left to do but begin the exciting, or, at least, much anticipated 2008 season. The Bud Shootout is a little more than a week away, with nothing in between now and then. Unless you want to watch that thing called the Daytona 500 of Professional Football, which I, personally can't get excited about. If they could only make the players about 3000 lbs heavier and 160 mph faster, maybe they could get me to watch.
Well I have rambled on enough now. This was supposed to have been posted by Tuesday at the latest, but it wasn't so I kept adding to it until I got this mess. Thank you all for bearing with me.

We're nearly there!

Are we ready for racing? I am, and there will be some real racing on television this coming weekend. The Rolex Grand Am Series 24 Hours at Daytona kicks off Saturday on Fox at 1 P.M.
"Why," you very well may ask, "should I be interested in sports car racing?"
My first answer would be that it is racing. It might not be the high speed bumpin' and bangin' that thrills us in the NASCAR races, but it still gives us a taste of some of that.
It really does amaze me how the drivers in both the Daytona Prototype (DP) and the GT classes start the race so aggressively, knowing that they have to make their equipment last 24 hours, but it is a race, and they not only have to make the car last, but they have to be the first one with the most laps to cross the finish line.
So the main reason to watch is to get that racin' fix. But even if that doesn't do it for you, the news that it means the Bud Shootout is only two weeks away will get you're adrenaline up! Yes! We're almost there!
Meanwhile in other news for those of you who, like myself, just cannot stay away from social networking sites, Infield Parking is back on line after a two week outage. Good to see them back, and I go there for fun while waiting for the season to start.
Also I have found a nice little forum whose logo I have placed on the side bar (it works now, for those of you who have tried it before, I had the link wrong, but it is repaired) Club Racing was founded for those who wish to get away from the troublemakers on the other forums. You have to register in order to see it, but, if you are known as a troublemaker on other forums, they know who you are and you won't be able to get in. Those of you who want a nice place to shoot the bull, check it out though. It is unique.

Daytona Session II Day II

Well, now we are getting to the meat and potatoes of Daytona Testing. The drafting session is showing us something, now, and the teams are adding to what they learned in the first session last week. The Dodges that hung back in time in the single car runs are running at the top in drafting practice.
Franchitti seems to be catching on rather swiftly, as could probably be expected. Not only did he get the fastest times of all the Dodges in the single car runs, but he hung in the top ten in the drafting tests. I have been lauding Regan Smith as the probable ROTY this year, but Franchitti is learning as quickly as Juan Pablo ("Johnny Paul" in my book) Montoya did. Maybe even more quickly.
Regan Smith, whose determination and drive remind me very much of Denny Hamlin, did bring his car up to the second fastest time in drafting, followed by the kid who is still a question mark in my mind, Paul "Daddy bought me a car so I can wreck the big guys" Menard. Actually, to Menard's credit, without much ARCA or Nationwide/NBS experience before he began his Cup career, the kid is learning the hard way. Anyway, the DEI cars seem to be at least meeting some criteria.
Tony Stewart, driving a different car than the one he took to the track Monday, posted the sixth fastest speed Tuesday afternoon.
Known as the guy who hates having to deal with the media, yet seems to have more media events than any other driver, Smoke had some interesting comments in Monday's Q&A session.

"HERB BRANHAM: We are joined by Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota. If you could just start off by telling us how your first day and a half of testing has gone down here.

TONY STEWART: Pretty good. We've not missed a shift yet, and that's the hardest part of what we've done the last day and a half. So other than that, it's just hold it wide open and ride around." (Ooh, the man can be snarky. As Tony Stewart fans, we expect and accept that. Besides, it's funny!)
(On the move to Toyota):
"Like I told you guys last year, I don't care if it's Kia or whoever, I just want to win races."

"Q. After all your experience does it get easier to handle the changes at this level, the changes of rules, equipment, engines?

TONY STEWART: I think everybody that gets to this level can handle it. I don't think it's a bigger deal having more experience. But this year it's not as big a change obviously. In the big picture it seems like a huge change because we switched manufacturers. But if we went ahead and made this change a year ago, it would have been a lot more dramatic than it is this year with the car that's the same for everybody. It's just literally a decal package and a motor package for the most part. I think it's less of a change this year than it would have been in the past."
(Highlighted by this blogger)
On his relationship with Crew Chief Greg Zippadelli:
"I think Zippy and I are now that position to where we don't see each other doing something away from each other. If one of us decides to retire, the other one is going along with him. If he says, "I'm done, I'm ready to do something different," then that's probably when I'll say I'm ready to do something different, too, or vice versa."

The complete chart of Tuesday's times and speeds can be found here

Daytona Session II Day One

Tony Stewart has made it clear to his fans and the media that testing is his least favorite part of racing in NASCAR. If he is going to be in a race car, he wants to be in it to race. In his autobiography, True Speed, he relates a story of how he got in trouble while tire testing in an Indy car for AJ Foyt. He was told to take a lap at a certain speed. But the car was so fast, that he wanted to see how it felt to go faster. He beat the speed he was supposed to be going by nearly six miles per hour.
When he got back to the pits AJ Foyt laid into him, telling him that if he couldn't do what he was told, he would get another driver.
In recent years, Smoke has been able to forego winter testing at Daytona, opting out with the excuse that he would be racing at the Chili Bowl Midget World Series in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an annual event that takes place during the same dates as Daytona testing. Mike McGlaughlin, and more recently, Mike Bliss. have been taking on the mundane duties of test driving the 20 car in his stead.
With the Formula N car being the only car NASCAR will be fielding this year, testing has been extended and additional three days, so the teams could do what they need to do with the unfamiliar car. Tony could compete in the Chili Bowl this year, but there would be time for him to test at Daytona as well.
So, Monday he was at the venerated track, taking the #20 Toyota for laps in single car runs, gathering data for Crew Chief Greg Zippadelli, and the JGR and Toyota engineers.
Smoke seemed less than enthusiastic after the second testing session, even though he had posted the sixth fastest overall speed for the day. He pretty much echoed Mark Martin's thoughts on single car testing, saying that you can't really tell anything from single car runs, and you won't learn anything about the car until you get into drafting practice.
"You don't know what the other teams are doing," he added, "They may be holding their cards close to their chest."
Indeed, it looked as though that was what was going on with the RCR teams who posted way down on the speed chart. Nonetheless, Kevin Harvick seems very positive in regards to what is going on in the Childress garage.

Q. Do you feel like today's test session was sort of the first step in getting you there to repeat the victory?

KEVIN HARVICK: Well, I liked the fact that our main goal today was to be the first ones on the racetrack, and we accomplished that. We came down here with kind of a specific plan to – engine wise with components that they ran, that they started with last week just to kind of get a handle on our whole company's, I guess, grasp of what car is the fastest and what car is not fast. So we're trying to sort that out between the six or eight cars that we have.

So we kind of came down here not with a speed plan, I guess you would say. It's just more of just kind of going through the plan of which cars, just deciding which car is which, and after we get through with that, we're still not done. We'll have changed two or three different engines and just going through those motions.

So we haven't really gotten to our cars. Clinton coming last week was great because right out of the box the car drives good, and there's a definite difference between the two cars. We kind of came down with a little bit different plan than normal but we accomplished our goal and that was to be the first ones on the track, so mission accomplished for the day

Toyota is now very upbeat, and I love the quote from this article on NASCAR.com:

Ty Norris, president and general manager of Michael Waltrip Racing, darted into the media center at Daytona International Speedway Monday afternoon and smiled as he referred to the speed sheet from the day's opening practice session.

"Look," he said, "it's just like last year -- only upside down."

Norris made a good point. After Monday's morning session, Toyotas ruled the top of the chart. Led by MWR's Dale Jarrett, the manufacturer's cars posted eight of the top 10 lap times.

The other top ten lap times were posted by Ganassi's Dario Franchitti in a Dodge, and, of course Dale Earnhardt, Jr in the #88 HMS Chevy.
Tuesday's half-hour overview on SpeedTV will be at 6:30 PM EST. For a complete listing of Monday's speeds, go here

First Sprint Cup testing session ends with Kyle Busch and Toyota on top.

Okay, so testing isn't a competition, but it is fun to treat it as such anyway. Every team had its own testing agenda this week, and so we didn't really see every team doing its best to get the fastest times.
Many teams, including the Hendrick teams, went for speed first, and then worked from there for the three day session. What I am excited about is that the Toyota teams went for speed first, and stayed fast for the rest of the session. Not that I'm a Toyota fan, I still like Chevys, but my favorite driver happens to be driving a Toyota this season. Besides, racing has always been more about the drivers for me than about the maufacturers.
But the real story in testing this week has been about the CoT, or the Formula NASCAR car, as I like to call it. Some teams, in getting a handle on the car, have been working with the balast, to try to lower the center of gravity, which, as we can see by the shape of the car, is probably a good idea. Others worked on suspension set ups that would preserve tires, which is a good idea considering the amount of blistering that was reported the first day. Most tested in a combination of areas. Needless to say, the information gathered will be applied to the testing session that will take place next week. So the speeds from these first three days of testing aren't a real preview of the upcoming Daytona 500.
We can, however get some kind of inkling of how racy the Formula N car will be at the 500 from what the drivers have said about the car itself in testing. Jeff Gordon, for instance, told Speed TV's Bob Dilner that he felt they had a handle on the car, and noted that it is easy for the second, third, and forth place cars to pass the car in the front of the pack, something Junior Johnson discovered when he accidently first took advantage of drafting in 1960. JJ Yeley was happy enough with his car that he declared that it would be racy come the 500.
Yeley's positive attitude carried over to other Toyota drivers. A.J. Allmendinger noted the improvement in Toyota over last year in this interview:

Are you happy with how the three-day Daytona test?

“I’m just happy with the whole team’s performance. Everybody back at the Red Bull shop worked so hard to get us prepared to come test down here, and all the guys here that put a lot of effort into these three days. I don’t think anybody has shown their best hand. Everybody is going to come back with a little bit more, but so are we. Toyota has shown us that they stepped up their program. We just need to go back to the shop and not let up at all. We’re pretty good, but we have to get better.”

In the same publication, Kyle Busch's excitement over the program tells us that there are good things coming for Toyota, not only at the Daytona 500, but for the season:

Are you surprised with how fast the Toyotas have been during this three-day test?
“Not, not at all. We knew that the switch was going to be good, and the reason we went to Toyota was for the pure fact that they want to go out there and compete and win races and win championships, so that's what we're here to do with them. The biggest thing was that it was nice to see the Red Bull stuff up there and Bill Davis' stuff going fast. I'm not necessarily sure if it's a lot to do with their engines or just the way that the Camry's front end is shaped or what exactly it is. For what we've got going on with our program and the Gibbs stuff, we're proud of the way we came out of the box strong.”

This, of course, is from the guy who posted the best times for the three day session.
What we can see from here, is that the season will be competitive, that the Toyota teams will be in the mix, and that we are very impatiant for the Daytona Speed Weeks to begin.
The complete list of posted speeds for Wednesday's testing can be found here.

Preason Thunder Day 2--Toyota's looking stronger

Even as interesting as it is to me to see the top speeds in the single car runs, I tend to agree with Mark Martin that this kind of practice really serves no purpose for the drivers and teams. You really can't tell what a car is going to do during a restricter-plate race until you get the cars running in packs.
So, if you just want to see how fast your car can go, the Tuesday morning session served more of that purpose, with Jimmie Johnson again leading the field, posting a speed of 184.763 mph. Jaques Villeneuve continued to show that he could go faster than he did before, placing the second fastest time. Travis Kvapil moved into third place, up from his ninth place after Monday's sessions, and Casey Mears' speed was fifth fastest Tuesday morning.
There were some tire issues with blistering, and Mears, after posting his fifth position speed, slapped the wall after cutting a tire. Elliott Saddler, Carl Edwards, and Jeff Gordon also reported tire blistering. But the purpose of testing is for the teams to figure out what they can do with the tires and the car, and it is up to the teams to figure out how to fix the tire problems, according to John Darby and just about everyone else connected to Goodyear or NASCAR.
So Tuesday afternoon meant that it was finally time for drafting practice. Now we can taste the real meat of testing.
Much to everybody's surprise or consternation, JJ Yeley finished the day with the top speed at a little over 187 mph, after finishing fifth overall in the single car testing. This continues the good news for Toyota, as fellow Toyota driver Kyle Busch had the third fastest time after drafting practice. Big brother Kurt had the second highest speed in his Penske Racing Dodge, while Joe Nemechek and Matt Kenseth filled out the top five. Johnson, who had led the first three sessions, ended up in ninth after Tuesday's testing, while AJ Allmendinger and Jaques Villeneuve fell completely out of the top ten finishing Tuesday's drafting practice in 21st and 19th place respectively. Still they got the practice in, and will get more practice Wednesday to see if the two newcomers from open wheel are learning anything about the cars. David Reutimann driving the Michael Waltrip Racing #00 stayed in the top ten, posting the seventh fastest speed in drafting practice. Reed Sorensen, Martin Truex, Jr., and Robby Gordon filled out the top ten Tuesday afternoon.
The complete list of cumulative speeds for testing so far can be found at Scenedaily, among other places.
The biggest NASCAR news Tuesday was not from testing, but from the world of the NFL, when Coach Joe Gibbs announced that he was resigning from the Washington Redskins. He is expected to return to his role as Coach and revered leader of the racing team that bears his name.
Wednesday's overview of Daytona Testing will be aired on SpeedTV at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Testing is Here!

To quote Speed TV's John Roberts, "The Holidays are over and it is time for a new season of NASCAR."

Though the phrase may seem premature at this time and date, it is not untrue. Preseason Thunder has begun at Daytona. The beginning of a two week period of testing at Daytona International Superspeedway has us dancing and jumping for joy! Finally, after seven long weeks, we get to see some cars going fast.
Monday's testing lived up to our expectations.
There isn't much gray area for the Crew Chiefs to work in on the new Formula NASCAR cars, in terms of gaining speed, so most of the work was on handling set ups and tire data. But lap speed averages are important to those of us who are mere observers, and we saw some of what was expected and many, to some, surprises.
It is no surprise that Jimmie Johnson topped the speed charts in both of Monday's sessions. His Crew Chief, Chad Knaus, in the tradition of the legendary Smokey Yunick, can find gray areas where there are none, and is well on the way to becoming a legend himself. There is no doubt the 48 team of HMS is continuing the momentum with which it ended the '07 season. The rest of the Hendrick Motorsports drivers who are participating in testing this week, Jeff Gordon and Casey Mears, also timed in the top ten in both sessions, Mears having the second fastest speed in both sessions, and Gordon posting third and sixth, respectively. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will not be testing until next week.
The surprises weren't really surprises for those of us who expected them, and were good news for those who's favorite teams happen to be driving Toyotas this season. Red Bull's A.J. Almendinger, Bill Davis Racing's Jaques Villeneuve, Hall of Fame Racing's JJ Yeley, Michael Waltrip's David Reutimann, and Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch all posted speeds in the top ten for their Toyotas in the first session. Speaking like a true racer, Jaques Villeneuve, remarked, "We still have to find more speed. The 48 car is going so much faster, so I know we can be faster."
And, indeed, he did go faster in the second session, posting in the top five, along with A.J. Allmendinger and Kyle Busch. The other two Toyota drivers who finished among the top ten in the first session, remained in the top ten for the second session.
Toyota definitely showed that they have improved over what they had for testing last year. Perhaps some of it is due to the inclusion of JGR in the stable for that manufacturer, along with Toyota Racing Division's policy of encouraging cooperation among it's various teams. But, mainly it is that Toyota had to improve its equipment, because, after all, it couldn't get worse than it was last year.
Chip Ganassi's Juan Pablo Montoya, 2007's Rookie Of The Year, finished the first session with the ninth fastest speed, and was the eleventh fastest in the second session. Travis Kvapil, in the #28 Yates Racing Ford finished with the tenth best speed in the first session, and seventh in the second, while Aric Almirola, for DEI drove the #1 Impala for the ninth best speed in the second session.
Image by John Dunagan - Fastlines and courtesy of Motorsport.com


For a complete listing of Monday's cumulative testing speeds, click here.
It should be noted that NASCAR's "room of doom" for technical inspection is unmanned for the Preseason Thunder sessions, as there is no need for inspection since testing is not competition. With that in mind, we should consider the fact that the teams may be doing more than pushing the envelope in some areas for the sake of tire stress and handling information, and that the speeds recorded Monday may not be accurate in use for comparison of team performance.
Tuesday is the drafting session, which should tell us a bit more about the cars and drivers, and how they may perform at the Daytona 500 in February.
Preseason Thunder coverage will continue on Speed TV Tuesday evening at 7 PM Eastern time.

Time's a gettin' near!

NASCAR Pre-Season Thunder begins this week and continues through next week. This is a definite sign that racing season is nearly here.
There are many reasons to be interested in testing this year. Personally, I am holding off on making any predictions for the season until after testing, mostly because the season is going to be so different in '08 than it was in '07. Oops, does that count as a prediction?
What I'll look for in testing:
New drivers Will Hornish, Dario, and Jaques start getting a handle on the car? They are getting opportunities here that will give them a chance to learn. We will see how they do in drafting practice, and maybe get a little insight into whether they will take to it as well as JPM did. We should also be getting a look at rookie sensations Michael McDowell, who has a huge racing resume at the tender age of 22, and Ragan Smith, who is showing the potential of being another Denny Hamlin.
Toyotas Of course. Will they post some top speeds during testing, and is JGR's addition to the Toyota fold making any difference now?
Action Something to do with racing is really happening. Daytona Testing shortens the off season considerably. We will get fired up for the new season, and will have something to get excited about. Speed TV will be airing a daily review of testing every day of the week, beginning Monday, Jan 7, at 7 PM ET