Kathy's Pit Stop

Harvick wins Shootout!

Kevin Harvick won the Shootout on Saturday night, his win made him the fourth driver to win consecutive Shootouts.

After hearing he was sick and had absolutely no practice time in the car, I have to admit I wasn't optimistic about his finish, but he was apparently feeling a lot better and the car was running great, which is an improvement over last season.

He won when the field was frozen in a green white checkered finish, but I think it would have been hard for anyone to get by him. 

Ironically, Jeff Gordon pushed Biffle a little too hard in the corner after the restart, which brought out the final caution that ended the race.  The reason I said ironically is because he was the most vocal in the past about pushing and bump drafting in the corners, which made NASCAR come up with the no bumping in the corners rule in the first place before they relaxed those rules for this season.

Congrats to Harvick for the win and hopes of a better season this year!

Your thoughts?

Championships decided

Championships are all done now...congratulations to Ron Hornaday, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson for their titles.  We may not be fans of all of them, but they earned the most points during the season and won, so they deserve our congratulations.

Also congratulations to Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin for their race wins this weekend.

Montoya and Stewart even added some excitement during the Cup race with their little skirmishes on the track, which led to neither of them having stellar finishes, but at least it gave us some excitement.

Now all we have left is the banquets until the season starts up again, except this time it's just two banquets instead of three.  NASCARS brilliant (insert sarcasm) cost cutting move combines the Truck and Nationwide banquets and only the top 5 from each series gets to sit at the table.  Of all the cost cutting moves they could come up with, I think this one definitely isn't a good one, I think the top 10 from each should be celebrated as before and each series should be able to have their own banquet.

Your thoughts?

Wow! What an ending!

Congrats to McMurray for the win, he was at the right place at the right time when the final caution flew.

Dega has always brought us the big one, but this time we got two of them within a couple of laps of each other.  The first came when Newman got flipped and landed on top of Harvicks car.  There were a lot of tense moments for fans during that red flag, saying Newman was OK, but it seemed to take forever for them to get the car turned back over and get him out.  What did he think?  Well, he puts it all on NASCAR and you really can't blame him.  I mean how many times are they gonna change the restrictor plates to make the races "safer" and then things like this happen?  I wouldn't be surprised if there are changes made again using NASCAR's wisdom.

The second big one had Mark Martin flipping, although he didn't flip over and over again like Newman and actually landed right side up.  Mark tried to be good natured in his interview and laugh it off saying it's the way it is in racing, but you could tell he wasn't happy.

Unfortunately for Mark, Johnson lucked out and didn't get caught up in anything and although he didn't win, he increased his points lead over Mark.  Like I said before, unless something happens, which it didn't, Johnson would probably win the championship again. 

Your thoughts?

Wow...what a wreck!

Johnson may have dominated and won the race at Dover, but all the talk is the wreck that happened on lap 31 where Logano flipped during a four car wreck.  Logano was shaken up, but he was OK and was able to walk away from the car.  I may not be a Logano fan, but I was pretty surprised with his interview after getting out of the infield care center.  He didn't point fingers at anyone or place the blame on anyone because he didn't see the replay yet, he even admitted he wasn't sure what happene.  With as shaken up as he was, he wasn't sure he wanted to see the replay yet. 

Congrats to Johnson for winning the race, Martin is still in the lead though, should be an interesting run between these two.  Also, props to Logano for how he handled everything, maybe his teammate should take some pointers from that after the way he acted after the Nationwide race.  :)

Your thoughts?

The Chase is set

First congrats to Hamlin for the win.  That was a crazy race, but then again, Richmond usually is.

The Chase is set and surprisingly Vickers is in and Busch and Kenseth are out.  Although I was hoping Vickers could make it in, I was pretty sure that Kenseth was going to keep his spot in the Chase.  Fans of them or not, Kenseth and Busch both handled themselves nicely in their interviews after the race, yes they were disappointed, but I think they both handled the interviews well.

While Mark Martin may lead the standings right now, my pick for the Championship is Tony Stewart.  Nothing against Mark or anything, but my personal favorite would be Tony.

Your thoughts on the race, Chase and championship?

Kahne wins Atlanta

Kasey Kahne made a pass on Kevin Harvick after the final restart, took off and won the race.  It was nice to see in Kahne get the win, although I was rooting for Harvick to make it two races won this weekend.  That wasn't meant to be when his own teammate, Clint Bowyer, spun and brought out the caution, essentially ending the chance of the win for Harvick because his car was better on the longer runs, still a second place for Harvick isn't bad considering his dismal season.

Only 1st through 4th in the standings have clinched a spot in the Chase, Stewart, Gordon, Johnson and Hamlin.  While Edwards sits in 5th, you'd think he'd be safe, but he's only 105 points ahead of Vickers in 13th, so mathematically, he's not safe.  One more race to go to decide who's in and who's out, next weekend at Richmond.  It's fairly close, Edwards (in 5th) is 105 points ahead of 13th, which isn't quite safe and on the other end you have Kenseth in 12th, only 20 points ahead of 13th.  So it looks like Richmond will be very interesting and we'll see the kind of approach these drivers make.

Congrats to Kahne on the win.

Your thoughts?

Busch wins Bristol

Kyle Busch ended his slump of bad luck with a win at Bristol, holding off Mark Martin. 

Martin led the most laps but came in second.  He actually did get alongside Busch, but got a little loose and being the gentleman racer he is, he backed off so as not to wreck both of them out.  I've seen Martin save loose cars before, so I have to wonder what would have happened if he had kept pushing hard instead of backing off, could he have gotten by Busch or would Busch still have won?

The double-file restarts didn't pose huge problems like some thought it would.  I think that if the track hadn't been repaved, adding the second groove, it would have added a lot of carnage, but it really didn't add any additional problems.

The win and problems with others, keeps Busch within reach of the Chase, although as of now he is still out.  He does still have to worry about how Kenseth does and also Vickers, who is only 5 points behind Busch.

Your thoughts?

Vickers wins from the pole at Michigan

He came close yesterday to a win in Nationwide Series, but today Vickers was able to hold on and win, from the pole.  His win gives Toyota their first Michigan win.  It looked like it was going to be a nail-biter there during the last few laps, until Johnson ran out of fuel, then we were left to wonder if Vickers had enough, obviously he did.

I also want to let the readers of of the blog know that some comments have been deleted by the higher-ups and I am to keep and eye on them so they don't get out of hand.  Comments that go way overboard with vulgarities and personal attacks will be deleted from now on.  If you have any questions on that feel free to send me an email.

As for the Nationwide race yesterday, I was hoping for Vickers to win that one also, but it wasn't meant to be.  He got loose there at the end and that allowed Keslowski to go high and get by both him and Busch.  It was a racing deal and although Busch has every right to be upset about it, he didn't have to do what he did after the race.

Your thoughts?

Stewarts wins at The Glen

Tony Stewart was the winner of the rain delayed race at Watkins Glen and leads the points standings by 260 points over Johnson.  At this point both Stewart and Johnson have 3 wins this season giving them equal amount of bonus points going into the Chase, only Martin has more wins (4), but he's sitting in 11th in points right now.

But the big news from the race other than Tony winning, was a big wreck that happened with only 27 laps to go and brought out the red flag for about 20 minutes.  While there were multiple cars involved, Hornish, Gordon and Burton took the biggest hits.  Luckily everyone is OK, no one was seriously hurt, although I'm sure those three are very sore this morning.  They were able to talk to Gordon and Burton and both admit they're sore, Gordon already has his back problems and Burton made a joke saying he's "too old for this".  Hornish left before anyone could talk to him, apparently he's ok and is assumed that he's not mad at Kahne or anyone. 

Your thoughts?

Keslowski wins the first Nationwide race at Iowa

Keslowki passed Busch with 8 laps to go and ended up winning the race.  The two battled for a while there, but Keslowski pulled it out in the end.

I guess being a new track to everyone, it helped lead to a slew of cautions, surprisingly a lot of the cautions were for wrecks for cars running near the front.  I think the one that confused me the most was the 12, 66 and 6 wreck, it was one of those what were you thinking moments I guess.

I wouldn't mind them holding a Cup race there, but we all know that won't happen.

Sorry about the absence last weekend, was a bit under the weather.

Your thoughts?