Kathy's Pit Stop

Johnson wins the so-called Indy race

Jimmie Johnson held off Carl Edwards in the final laps of the race, or what NASCAR wants to call a race.

The big story was the tires, as they had been all weekend for the Cup series and instead of figuring out something to do about it, NASCAR had the wonderful idea of calling competition cautions about every 11 laps or so.  It was ridiculous, they knew how horrible these tires were and they even brought in a truckload of tires intended for next weeks Pocono race to use if the teams needed them, but the teams still had to use up all the Indy tires first. 

The tires were horrible, they knew they were going to be horrible and yet they still went on.  They probably would have been better off using the Pocono tires and we probably would have had a better race than we did today.

Then, if that wasn't enough, the announcers had to add to it, talking all about how the top cars were either Gibbs, Roush or Hendrick.  What a joke!  Jeff Burton ran in the top ten for practically the whole race and they hardly mentioned him, unless someone was passing him.  Allmendinger ran up front, but they hardly mentioned him either, I just wish these announcers would actually just call a race instead of throwing their preferences into it.  Burton did good, but if you listened to the commentators, he was a non-factor and not even up there.

And because of all these tire problems, it shook up the points and it's sad to say that most drivers that dropped positions didn't deserve it, but were just a result of these horrible tires.

And now we get to go to another boring race at Pocono next week, but after this so-called race, that one will probably look exciting compared to this one and that's hard to do since it's usually just a follow the leader race.

Your thoughts?

It's the #14 and Office Depot/Old Spice for Stewart in 2009

Tony Stewart had his press conference today and confirmed that his car number would be the #14 and would be co-sponsored by Office Depot and Old Spice.  Stewart picked the #14 because of his admiration of A.J. Foyt, someone he considers to be his hero.

It's going to be strange not seeing Tony in #20 Home Depot car that he's made famous and it'll take getting use to, but as long as he's happy, that's all that matters for him and his fans.

Still no word on who'll drive the second car or any timetable where we can expect an announcement on it either.  Until they do, we'll just have to keep guessing and hope he picks a good one.  I'm hoping Newman.

Also, I wanted to add a congrats to Benson for winning tonight's truck race.

Your thoughts?

Benson and Edwards get the wins

Benson pulled out the win in the truck race, once he got out front in the end, there was no stopping him. 

The biggest incident/tussle came when Sprague and Chrissy Wallace got caught up in a wreck.  It was really hard racing and Sprague was being true to how he usually races and wasn't giving Wallace much room when she was under him.  They raced for a few laps side by side until the wreck happened.  It was hard racing, but that didn't stop her from being upset about the whole incident and the fact that she thought he was pinching her down on the bottom of the track.  I'm sure Sprague has a different view of the incident, but "that's racin", still, it was nice to see some fire and know that even though she may make some mistakes, as all newcomers do, she's not afraid to go toe to toe with the big boys.

Hometown native Carl Edwards won the Nationwide race, as with most races he's won, once he got out front there in the end, he just kept extending his lead.

The big wreck in the race came with only 84 laps to go, but delayed the race for almost a half hour as it brought out the red flag to clean up the mess on the track.  Cassill got into Wimmer and then that brought about a chain reaction.  Cassill was able to continue on with no problems at all, the other four drivers involved weren't so lucky, the only other one that actually was able to get the car back out onto the track was Steve Wallace, unfortunately Wimmer, Bliss and Sorenson were out with too much damage.  I was surprised with Wallace's attitude when they interviewed him, he didn't seem mad as he has been in the past over wrecks and just seemed more relaxed.  Could it be that Dad wasn't at the track that made the difference?  Could his Dad really stress him out that much?  Or is he just starting to mature?

The other talked about incident was between Reutimann and Keselowski.  Obviously Reutimann thought he was clear (or his spotter told him he was) and he moved up to apparantly block Keselowski, but the nose of Keselowski's car was there and he came across it.  It took Reutimann out and although Keselowski had considerable damage to the nose, the taped it up and he came back to finish fifth.

Your thoughts?

Busch wins again...a familiar story

It was no surprise that Kyle Busch won again, a familiar story this season.  This season is looking like last season except that it's Busch winning instead of HMS drivers.  For everyone else, it has to be frustrating, just as it was last season when the same driver wins over and over again.  Busch is definitely on a roll and it's his championship to lose, which I doubt he will.  He's in the position to experiment in the races leading up to the Chase or just go all-out without worrying about hurting anything.

The race wasn't spectacular, but there was a shakeup in the points due to the fact that some drivers on the brink of the Chase, or barely in it, did well and some did not.  The top 6 drivers in the points standings stayed the same, it's the rest of the standings that had some big movers.  Biffle and Harvick both moved up four spots, Stewart moved up two and Kenseth moved up one spot.  Hamlin, Bowyer and Kahne were the biggest losers in the standings, Hamlin lost five spots, while Kahne and Bowyer lost three.  Bowyer is now in 13th, twenty-seven points behind Hamlin, who is in 12th.

Your thoughts?

Goodbye Gibbs, Hello Stewart Haas Racing

Tony Stewart made his official announcement today.  It is what everyone had suspected, Stewart is now 50% owner of the new Stewart Haas Racing, what didn't happen was announcements about drivers or sponsors.

Stewart will drive one of the cars, who will drive the other is still unknown, although rumors have Newman and Truex in the mix.  It'll be interesting to see which driver does get the second ride, what the official sponsor announcement will be and if there will be any number changes, which is a possibility according to some.

So, the fans have some answers, Tony won't be at Gibbs anymore and hopefully the other stuff falls into place soon.  I guess the biggest question is - will Tony be able to turn things around over there and make them a competitive organization for the title?

I wish Tony the best of luck with his new team and hope he finds Victory Lane soon! 

Your thoughts?

Kyle Busch gets the win over Edwards in a green-white-checkered/caution finish

Nascar had to go to video coverage and scoring loops to see who won and Kyle Busch came out the victor over Carl Edwards.

It seemed like Jeff Burton and Ryan Newman both had targets on their backs last night.  Both drivers were caught in separate incidents, not by their own making, not once, but twice.  The second incidents for both, killed their chances at a decent finish and they both dropped in the standings.  Newman dropped two spots to 17th in the standings, making his Chase chances slimmer and Burton lost 2nd in points because of his last incident.

There were some surprise finishes by some drivers, ones we're not use to seeing up there, one in particular was Robby Gordon with a 6th place finish, way to go Robby.  Once again. other than a Gibbs car, Vickers got another decent finish, coming in 11th.

One driver that finished well, David Ragan, was a complete menace in the turns, just ask Kevin Harvick who was running up in 5th before being bump drafted through the turn and dropped down to like 14th.  He ended up finished 12th, but with Kenseths 3rd place finish, he dropped to 13th in the standings, two points out of 12th.  I was listening to the scanner and Harvick had a few choice words for the way Ragan was driving.  Funny how NASCAR said nothing to anyone who was bump drafting in the turns like they've done before.

I was surprised to see Tony get out of the car, he really must have not felt well.  I read they gave him like five bags of fluid after he got out of the car in the infield care center.  He supposedly hasn't been feeling well for a couple of weeks, but it hadn't impacted him until now.  Hope he gets well soon.

I have to say I was impressed with Jeff Gordon's post-race interview with him not lashing out at Edwards for dumping him, Gordon admitted to blocking Edwards so he wasn't really surprised that he got spun.  Still, I was expecting him to be mad about it, but he surprised me with his interview and I have to give him credit for that.

Your thoughts?