NASCAR BLOG

Dale Earnhardt Jr finally got a good finish in New Hampshire this weekend. He’s been one of the most underperforming racers in the Sprint Cup for most of this year and some of the other racers have been quietly beginning to question whether he should even be included any longer. And some of them have quietly started started saying that he’s only there because of his deceased father. But yesterday in NH, he was able to jump into the 13th spot. The early ending due to rain might have stopped him from being in the top of the leaderboard, but he was racing in the top 10 and top 5 frequently during the race. Hopefully he will be able to get in there more frequently. It seems, for now, that the challenge posed by the other racers has really done the trick.

When Jeremy Mayfield was suspended from the NASCAR world last month, he was enraged. He disliked that he was accused of taking methamphetemines, and apparently immediately volunteered to give another sample. He has sued NASCAR to be reinstated. They have a countersuit that accuses him of defrauding the organization and keeping them from earnings and profits. He says that he has not ever taken such drugs, certainly not prior to racing. He remains suspended for the foreseeable future and it will be interesting to see where the whole situation ends up. Hopefully the charges are false and he will be able to rejoin the Sprint Cup and such.

The Sonoma NASCAR Race will be coming next weekend and they just held the qualifiers yesterday. Brian Vickers has won the pole position for this race, which puts him in a good position to make his big move. He’s not been able to get any kind of big results so far this year, but with the pole position, he might actually be able to do it. Kyle Busch will also be in the front row and it should be a good race for all of them. Meanwhile, Tony Stewart is in 4th place from the qualifying round, but he was very disappointed with that result. 4th place isn’t a bad position though, so it’ll be fine and we’ll see in a few days who actually wins!

One of the biggest stories right now is that Danica Patrick might be considering a move into the NASCAR field. There are also reports that she has become disinterested in the prospect. She likes feel of NASCAR cars, and enjoys the extra visibility it would give her. It would probably be more lucrative than her current engagements in F-1 and Indy Car racing. But it also means that she would have to commit to many more races each year and that she would therefore be unable to do much of anything else with her time. It sounds like she’s deciding against it, but there’s nothing wrong with creating a bit of drama and interest in the meantime. Any PR is good PR, right? Plus she hasn’t gotten enough attention as a driver in the last several years, so this might be just the jump she needs!

Mark Martin was able to win the Life Lock 400 race this weekend in Michigan, having come back from 3rd in the final lap. Jimmie Johnson looked like he was going to win, as he was leading coming into the final lap, but he ran out of gas and dropped back. Greg Biffle was next in line, and he also ran out of gas and disappeared. Finally, Mark Martin, the famous 50 year-old racer was able to take the lead and won the race. This is his third win of the year and his experience at conserving gas was able to take him all the way (although, he also ran out of gas just before finishing, but was able to literally coast to victory). It was a better end to the race than anyone would have expected and we should watch this guy for future interesting racing moves.

The NASCAR world has been having a lot of challenges during the last little while. Obviously the biggest challenge is the auto industry’s difficulties. There are buyouts and bankruptcies and all kinds of other things that cause regular people to lose their jobs. Crews and teams are starting to downsize as well, because that’s how the terms work. How can the auto industry eliminate people while the company is paying millions of dollars to sports team branding? Also, some of the attitudes of some NASCAR people are starting to bug folks. There is Kyle Busch’s smashing of a custom guitar given to him as a prize. There’s the drug problem that a few of the racers have had recently. NASCAR is and always will be fun to watch, but I personally identify with the more normal kinds of guys rather than the ones who seem out of touch sometimes.

The Pocono 500 race happened yesterday and it was a decent one. Tony Stewart, who started the race in the last position, was able to win it after 200 laps. It was a lot of fun to watch them, because there has been a lot of argument between some of the racers in the last few weeks. Particularly the battle between Dale Earnhardt Jr and Kyle Busch, after Earnhardt moved his crew chief out in favor of another one, hoping that he would be able to improve his results over the course of the Sprint Cup. Finishing in 27th place out of 40 was probably not where he hoped to start that run. Tony Stewart won partly through judicious use of his juice (fuel) over the last dozen laps or so. Stewart is one of the best racers and now he finally has his first win as an owner.

NASCAR has just changed the rules of what drivers are supposed to do in the case of a restart during a NASCAR race and it’s good news for fans. There are a lot of people who think that the previous rules for the restarts kept the races from starting in an interesting way. This time they’ve decided that there will be double-file restarts from now on, making it more exciting than they were otherwise. This way the cars are a little closer and it will allow a bit more one-on-one battle rather than spreading the cars out so far that it’s not interesting. It also gets the race restarted more quickly. The rest of the rules remain essentially the same.

When General Motors filed for bankruptcy this morning, there were some questions here at NASCAR Blog as to whether that would affect those who are in the NASCAR Sprint Cup and other places. Apparently, both GM and Chevrolet will be racing their cars even after the filing. This might bring in some money and some confidence into the fold of the companies. Many of the racers don’t care exactly what they race, because they are in it for the competition and they want to compete no matter what. GM will have trouble for the next little while, but it wont apparently affect NASCAR at all.