Anyone see my clipboard?

By Mike Harper

The AMD at the Glen brought an end to a very exciting weekend of racing. The ARCA RE/MAX Series and the Craftsman Truck Series delivered bumper to bumper drama in Nashville, while the Busch Series and Nextel Cup Series played bumper cars on the road course at Watkins Glen International.

If you watched the Craftsman Truck Series race on television you weren’t disappointed. The action was just as hot and heavy off the track as it was on the track. Most of the drama surrounded the No. 5 team of Mike Skinner.

The Skinner team experience an incredible fire in the pits which caused their catch-can man to do more than a stop-drop-and roll. He caught on fire and had to stop-jump over the pit wall-and roll. The scary incident even had Mike Skinner’s wife Angela, jumping off the back of the pit box to safety. In the end, no major injuries were reported.

With three laps to go in the Truck event, Todd Bodine moved Skinner up the track to take the lead. On the last lap, Skinner caught Bodine and repaid the favor, except he took both drivers out of contention. Johnny Benson benefited from the Skinner-Bodine skirmish and won the race. In the meantime, the cameras caught an angry Angela Skinner on top of the pit box and after settling down for a moment, if not seconds, she spiked her clipboard on to pit road. After the race Bodine said, "Skinner and I are supposed to go on vacation in a few weeks. That should be interesting."

Did NASCAR change the outcome of the race?

As much as NASCAR tries to keep the field level for all competitors, I’ve got to wonder if NASCAR could’ve looked at the Kurt Busch incident a little differently before they penalized him for entering pit road while it was closed.

While I agree the red "closed" lights were on before Busch hit the "official" commitment line on pit road, I also think Busch had no choice but to enter pit road. When Busch committed to pitting, pit road was open and the green lights were on. However the red lights flashed on just feet before Busch got to the official commitment line.

In my opinion, NASCAR had no choice but to make the call the way they did. My problem with the penalty is NASCAR could’ve made a judgement call as they have done on many occasions in the past. Busch had committed to pit road when the lights were green and the replay shows this fact. The mistake is where NASCAR placed the official commitment line in the first place. On this road course, the line should’ve been moved back towards the entrance of pit road, thus ultimately not allowing the drivers access to immediately jump back on the track. The horrible placement of the official commitment line caused Busch the race.

Is the Lucky Dog rule a joke on road courses?

I’ll admit, I was on the side of racing back to the caution flag. I liked the strategy of the leader making the decision of who could get their lap back and who couldn’t. But I understood the need to keep drivers safe and accepted the new rule.

It’s times like today when I really question the Lucky Dog rule. Due to a problem with the rear-end on his car, Kyle Busch had to take his car behind the wall and lost five laps while his team fixed the issue. When the checkered flag dropped, Busch finished the day 9^th on the lead lap, because throughout the race he was awarded five Lucky Dogs. In my opinion, that’s crazy!

Will Kasey Kahne make the Chase?

It’s looking like the No. 9 team has lost all their momentum that they had earlier in the season. I also believe the Jeremy Mayfield issue has taken a toll on the entire organization. It’s easy for me to see the reason’s behind Mayfield’s termination, but at the same time I agree with Mayfield’s comments from several weeks ago about Ray Evernham not being at the track with his Cup teams.

I’ve personally seen Evernham at the side of Erin Crocker while he works on her development. I find it odd that Evernham is spending so much time on Crocker, while his primary teams suffer. Kahne was solidly in the Chase at one time, but now that he has fallen outside of the exclusive Chase group, I believe Evernham needs to put his development program into the hands of those working for him. Somewhere within this organization the job of getting their teams into the Chase isn’t getting done and I honestly believe this was Mayfield’s point all along.